WOW!  Plenty of resin heads for you to pick.  Where did you get those?  I have many figure kits but most of them will need resin heads if I ever use those.  Your figures are coming out great so far!

Hi Richard~

Nicely produced post as usual! Great to see you back to work on this project--it will see the light of day That Vietnamese Dragon head is very good----somehow better than most of thier heads. Interesting stuff all-around. I'll be watching for more.

deafpanzer

WOW!  Plenty of resin heads for you to pick.  Where did you get those?  I have many figure kits but most of them will need resin heads if I ever use those.  Your figures are coming out great so far!

Hi Andy,

So many but only a handful to pick as they're all European with their hats on. I got them from a sale all in one bag of a mixture of brands. Thanks, lots of surgery ahead to get the right pose.

Cheers,

Richard.

Adam, it's good to be back.

I'm quite surprised with the Dragon head myself. I found some arms that would fit the figures. With some major surgery to sleeves and hands, I hope to get natural poses. I just can't find one OOB figure to fit the dio.

Thanks for hanging in there.

Cheers,

Richard

Richard, the figures look pretty good so far. How many heads do you have laying there?

I count fifty heads Jet and thanks.

Some small progress...I searched for appropriate arms for the three figures and dry fitted them with blu-tac.

After fiddling and testing, I'm quite satisfied with these...

Chin...

Hassan...

And Pakcik Ali...

With the arms settled I cleaned them up and shaved of sleeves for Chin. I glued them and filled the gaps. I'll be adding short sleeves and under arm folds with putty later...

Hassan got one arm glued and puttied while his cheeks got puffed up using the same putty.

On gluing Pakcik Alis' arms, I used the access putty filler to add his goatie...

That's all for now. I still have another five figures to go. Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Richard

I worked on Mr Chin just now and gave him a fore head, hair and sleeves. The putty hasn't cured so there's lots of bits and pieces. After sanding, I'll polish these off when dry.

After that I worked on two more figures. Will post them later.

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Richard

Superb conversion work Richard! This may well be your speciallty (of course like a good Dio man you seem to have many!!!!!

Very natural posing]

and once again....the attention to details of only someone with first hand knowledge of his subject---These guys are coming up spot-on-convincing  

Thanks Indy, your comments and kind words are very encouraging especially when figures are one of my most difficult processes in my dio building. Either it turns out well in sculpting or painting or neither.

I'd give an arm if there were ready poses but I guess with certain dios that is not possible...sigh.

The next WIP will be late as I'm starting a new job that needs my full concentration.

Cheers,

Richard 

rtfoe

Thanks Indy, your comments and kind words are very encouraging especially when figures are one of my most difficult processes in my dio building. Either it turns out well in sculpting or painting or neither.

I'd give an arm if there were ready poses but I guess with certain dios that is not possible...sigh.

The next WIP will be late as I'm starting a new job that needs my full concentration.

Cheers,

Richard 

Richard that's fantastic! Very exciting for you- I wish the best with it and just pop in when you have time

Cheers

Your figures only need to be half as good as your base and ground work to be stellar. That's how great your work is so far with this project. Get to work, get hungry for modeling, see ya when yer back.

Steve

Super cool modelling, lovely jubly.

Thanks Guys. I am honored by the nice kind words from you three modelers that I respect a lot.

Hope to surprize you when I return. Surely I'll steal some time to complete my WIP.

Cheers,

Richard

Managed to steal some time as I said to do a little WIP.

I got shots of Hassan sitting on the tail gate of the Rover.

Then in front of the Rover I have a Senoi Prak native recruited into the arm forces. These aborigines were masters of the ways of the jungle and at tracking CT's. They were held in high regard. I've managed to pose Limbang Anak Rimau(Bang) leaning against the grill with his leg up for support. His arm cradles the Sterling machine gun as he surveys the surrounding pausing at the bilboard. Filler will be added later.

These four are still in progress. The left figure next to the female will be heavily modified. You'll see him as the fruit stall owner Hiong Peng much later. The soldier kneeling will be Aramugam, an Indian private befriending the dogs. Hiong Pengs'  wife Ah Lian will be hanging fruits. The soldier on the right is Martin a Eurasian officer...he'll be buying fruits and ciggies from Hiong Peng.

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Richard

I did a little more just now by shaving away at Hiong Pengs' torso. I'm trying to make him wear a singlet which would have been typical of a chinese fruit seller manning his shop in the tropical heat.

He still needs more shaving and sculpting. Will continue later.

Cheers,

Richard

I missed a post!

Dont hang me!

 Looking spactacular as usually Richard! The "wife" figure made me flash on Uma Thurman's barefoot dancing the charleston in Pulp Fiction for some reason

I'm sure you know the scene   A great one!

Looking forward to more Sir!

Don't have any rope Adam.,

Yeah I remember the scene...Travolta still had some slick moves too.

Anyway I got to do some building in between work. Now I had some suggestions from fellow friends on whether to have the fruit stall owner wear shorts instead of pants. So after checking out if I had the guts to go for another round of carving...

Hiong Peng gets his shorts...the carving of his legs was enjoyable and was done with just the basic hobby knife. Special attention was mostly on his ankles. Also I made him lift his heel up as though reaching for something. In doing so I shaved off his sandles. The shorts still needs further work with a belt and buckle to be done later.

He gets a pair of neat wooden clogs too...

I had to ask them not to make me add hair to his legs  :lol: :lol:

Cheers,

Richard.

Truly incredible work.

Thanks Steve, glad you're liking it. I got some free time in between work so I was lucky to have worked on the figures.

A week prior to my busy schedule I had thought of adding an electric pole to my R & R dio. There was some controversy over the pole being steel or wood in 1975 until a program on the Malayan Emergency aired on the History Channel confirmed that they were steel poles as far back then. I have done a WIP and will post it tonight on the R & R Dio forum post.

Pop over if you'd like to see the progress.

R & R:  /forums/p/127625/1322840.aspx#1322840

Cheers,

Richard

WOW!  Outstanding work... thanks for doing this because it brought me flashbacks wearing one of those wood clogs back in the 80's.  How can I forget!?!?!? 

Oh, I've been watchin' that thread, brutha. Been sittin' around like everybody else, waitin' for you to quit your job so you can do that dio full time

Glad I brought back memories for you Andy however our wooden clogs were much simpler in design.

Steve, I've got to keep my day job to survive and enjoy the hobby too.

Do you remember these...

Well....here they are painted and still on the tape that I secured them too for easy handling.

These will go at the entrance of the shop. Some will be found on the roof also...I guess children throw them at monkeys that normally hang out on the roof.

More later.

Cheers,

Richard

There was a holiday so I took the opportunity to do up the remaing five figures. Basically I've attached the arms and legs to get the right pose. I re-positioned some of the hands too.

I'll putty next and shave for more detailing and size correctness.

Cheers,

Richard

Just before more detailing, everyone lined up with all the noticeable modifications.

I added a little more detail to Bang Anak Rimau. He was issued jungle green fatigues which still had the shoulder flap and he wore high canvas rubber soled boots(carved out) although he would rather be bare footed when tracking. He wears a green beret for being trained as a commando or member of VAT69.

Arumugam finally gets his hair and webbing. His left hand is repositioned and puttied.

Martin also gets his pouches and canteen.

Now it's probably priming and painting next.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Richard

One good bit after another Richard. Too many nice touches to list

(flip flops on roof--LOL---too much Buddy---wouldnt be complete otherwise

Really good-looking job with this gents hair

I noticed you've used the same putty for webgear---which putty is that? I guesss it lays better for you than foil or paper? I always squish such little bits(at least of Milliput)but have a long way to go with figure sculpting

Your cast of charactors is looking the part--in spades--look forward to paint-up  

Thanks Adam, always appreciate your comments.

It was either the flip flops or Badminton shuttlecocks...I chose the easier path.

I had a ball doing Aramugams hair...I played around while the putty was still pliable and even did an Elvis twirl but then army regulations decided on the close crop albeit still curly.

The putty I use is somewhat like Milliput, locally made and 1/7th the price called Bondite. The two sticks are halfway used after many figures. The idea is to mix a pinch at a time. Use talcum if you want to flatten it to paper thin. I work with just a sharp tooth pick, water and brush. Clean up is done with a blade after curing.

Hope the characters jive in the final compo. Fingers crossed.

Cheers,

Richard

Richard- haven't been around much due to several issues but I check back in and wow! Great stuff! Love the work you put into converting the figures! I wouldn't have thought to put in the extra work in having the guy standing on his tip toes for example. Fantastic work on the sandals and the power lines and poles as well.

Please keep up the updates! I'm really looking forward to seeing how she all comes together!

Thanks and glad to have you back Gamera. 

The guys at the MGB recently were going ga ga even when it was not completed. I had posed the figures after priming them with black.  Everyone was calling them "orang minyak" "oily men".

Will continue the updates as frequent as possible. Sometimes steps can be missed as I'm on a roll building and forget to photograph.

Cheers,

Richard

nice job on all the figures very impressive