1/35 scale heads question.

Hey Stik, that looks like an interesting possibility right there, thanks.

Jack, indeed I know what you mean.  I have seen and read a lot of tutorials on figure painting these last few weeks.  I have been trying to take it all in and have a good working knowledge of the process.  It is just a matter of getting used to working at that more detailed level (as opposed to the old way I did things of just a base coat, a wash of oils and then adding hair and eyes....simple and adequate, but not the kind of detail I now want to get )  Right now my preferred medium is oils since I have used them so much in all my modeling, and they are what I am very comfortable with.

True, practice is important, and painting numerous heads will at least get you accustomed  to painting a small area.  Equally important is to understand colours and how to lay them down (such as order of colours), as well as the techniques associated with the particular paint type you are using.

regards,

Jack

http://www.verlindenonline.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=1743

Verlinden makes a "super value" set of US heads for a bit over $14. It comes with 25 heads of WWII thru modern headgear and is a pretty good bargain.

If you have a friend who casts in resin, he might be able to knock out a few sets for your use.

Oh, Rob, that reminds me I have an Italeri kit with some of those figures with the separate heads you mentioned.  I may just see if I can get my hands on a small amount of resin and try and make some down and dirty cheap casts.  I still have 3 of the Dragon heads on the sprue as well as those Italeri heads.  If I can cast up a bunch of heads for like $15 it would be a great way to economically produce practice heads......

Some of the older Italeri figures came with separate heads. While these had little detail on them and they all looked like the same chubby face, they could be good for practice.

Hey Gino,

Yup, I have worked with resin before (Hornet) and I agree they are great.  A few years ago I started by just using Tamiya heads and found quickly what true junk they are.  For what they are I am happy with the Dragon heads detail, though I do agree the detail still is not the same as resin.  But I am thinking for practice purposes the styrene would have been sufficient for my purposes and cheaper than resin.  I'll check eBay like you suggest and see what deals I can scrounge on bulk resin heads.  Another option I considered was to cast a bunch of the Dragon heads, but I figure the time, cost and effort would quickly null any savings over just buying resin heads already.

So thanks.  I guess first stop is eBay!

The only stand alone heads you are going to find will be in resin.  I have never seen any styrene head sets.  You can check ebay.  There are often sets there that have 8-10 heads for around $4.

By the way, if you move up to resin heads and figures, you will find they are much better detailed than even Dragon Gen 2 figures.  The resin AM heads offer many more expressions as well.  Some people will also just replace Dragon heads with resin ones (the whole reason there are resin head sets) since the resin ones are much more crisp and just look better.