Need More Eyeballs on These Army Air Force Figures

I assume you mean that you want the figures to look more realistic?

Well, the sculpts themselves are a little...I don't know, fanciful? Cartoony? Kind of like Hummel figures, rather than realistic ones. That's probably part of it.

They also need shadows and highlights. Look at the pilot figure in the picture: the inside edges of his hat are the same color as the outside. They would look more realistic if they were slightly darker. The same goes for all the places where less light would reach: along seam lines, between the fingers, under folds in the clothes...

I don't know how you fix that at this point though.

They don't look bad in any way, in fact, for what they are, I think you did a really good job.

Was that any kind of help?

Yeah, thanks for the help...

Look at the pilot figure in the picture: the inside edges of his hat are the same color as the outside. They would look more realistic if they were slightly darker.

That's exactly what I was looking for, someone who'll spot the things I've overlooked. I've stared at so long, it doesn't register what I'm seeing, lol..

Can't help the sculptures themselves, other than I'm adding the wires to the headphones and also redoing the goggles into a something a bit more ummm... "Gogglely"  Not happy with the pilot's moustache either... I want to do something along the lines of the one Billy Zane wore for his role as "Lt Valentine" in Memphis Belle, which was a great example of a period moustache...

I'd like to lose some of the "youthfulness" in their faces as well... The Sergeant, because he's likely in his thirties, and the young pilot because of the fact that air combat ages ya.. Fast.. None of the guys in the photos, even my dad, looked like they were 23-25 years old after a dozen or so missions...

My first thought was they look cartoonish, and I think, as mentioned, a lot comes from the sculpting itself.

Painted as they are, they are not bad, but not to the standard expected in the figure world.

Try to move away from wash and drybrush. Tha can work in small scales and if you're doing a lot of 1/35 figures for a dio and you don't want to get bogged down. Instead, build up your shadows and highlights.In figures this big. you have a lot of room to buiild up transitions between shadows and highlilghts.

Go to the Vallejo website, click on Model color and scroll down for a tutorial on building up shadows and highlights.

Outstanding paintjob!..I think the figs are lacking facial detail...they are too smooth. Crows feet and smoking lines would roughen them up a bit. What are they made of?...looks like ceramic. Again your work is great, I think the figs just lack certain detail....good luck sir.

P.S OH YEA! Gota love the Army Hand-me-downs! 

Hans,

What AJ said and I'd add some color in the hollows of the cheeks and under the chin, under the brows and along the side of the nose. Go easy at first, less is more and its easier to build up than to start off with them looking like a couple maori tribesmen. Some dark red or crimson mixed in with your flesh to make a dark flesh color used in those areas and slowly built up will give the face features that may not be evident. It will allow you to give more expression and some highlighting around frown lines, chin, brow ridge, cheek bones,  etc. can give the illusion of age. This will "flesh" out the figures faces a bit, lend them some more of that character you're looking for and add depth. Some grease and oil stains on "chief's" coveralls there will certainly give him some character. I like the idea of a clean "hollywood" looking pilot next to the crew chief. It adds something to the vignette. The pencil thin moustache is a nice touch.

Hmm not sure if this is my computer screen or what but the pilot looks like he remebered to put on his blush I think the biggest problem with these two is probably the hardest thing (at least for me) to pull off and that's the skin tone. Both figures look like movie stars fresh out of the powder room IMO. I like the idea of adding crows feet- definitly a 5 oclock shadow on both of them- but again that's really easy to say, harder to do. I can't tell from the pictures (which I guess means it doesn't really matter) but if you didn't, when you go in to touch up the moustache, you could try to build it up first with a little bit of putty and use a toothpick/old knife blade to "comb" in some hairs, that way you'd have a base to put the paint on and it wouldn't have to be a really thin moustache. 

I'm sure you got the idea by now though and have already got planned out what you want to do to improve these two so let me say that other than that I reall like the uniforms, the simulated stitchwork on the (I'm going to assume it's a flotation devise?) looks really nice and I like the way you set the figures up together, that pilot's gotta be telling a pretty good dogfighting story!

If it's no trouble ya mind posting pictures after you fix that Sgt.'s patch? I want to see your decals in action!

Thanks fer the hints, men... I'm gonna get busy on them the next few days and get the pilot's sunburned face done, and the chief's coveralls... The pilot's face should look like a negative of a raccoon, lol...  

I wanted to keep the moustache "pencil-thin"... I think it looks more period that way, kinda "Clark Gable"-type...

I'll get those decals made too...

Hans von Hammer wrote:

I wanted to keep the moustache "pencil-thin"... I think it looks more period that way, kinda "Clark Gable"-type...

That makes sense- and in that case it looks dead on- nice work!

Hans von Hammer wrote:

I'll get those decals made too...

Stern0 wrote:

Still dying to see your rice paddy dio

Was this the one with the bullets kicking up spray around the GIs? I'd love to see a shot of that too if you still have it around.

Hi, Hans, I think I would redirect the eyes on the pilot, so that instead of looking straight ahead (as he plays out the dogfight), I would shift his eyes to look at the sergeant.  To me, it seems it would be more natural, we tend to make eye contact when we're talking to someone.

Or if your pilot is looking into the scene that he's describing, maybe the sergeant should look at the pilot's hands, too, as if he, too, is looking into that same scene.

Regards,

Brad