"Flash Out!" - 120mm OIF figure ( COMPLETE!!! )

Oh yeah! Definitly, I've always been planning on doing it myself, I've just never finished anything, save two or three projects, that I thought might be worth it.

I'm not sure that I've ever seen a digi patern in that magazine, so I think you even show them some WIP shots they might really love it!

ranger wrote:

Well I think you nailes it all around, I'm alittle scadish of the whole digaital patterns but your rendation is excellant.  as for the dio I have one thing to say creative license. plus it still your work all and all great job. also when your done are you going to send a pics to fsm so it could be in the magazines gallery I think it way past worthy

You know ... I hadn't really thought about it. I may just give it a whirl. Since I go so much done yesterday, I'm probably not going to work on it much today. Got some "oil changin' and yard work" to do ... BOO!!

Thanks for the idea. I might as well send a few pics to FSM ... couldn't hurt right.

Thanks again for your compliments.

Ranger's Lead The Way!!

Unless you went to the guys place and took it from him and stuck your guy up there, I don't think I'd call it cheating. I mean if you build it from the ground up and add your own personal touches I think you'd be able to call it your own.

Plus your figure and pose are much cooler- makes so much more sense with the FB.

Yeah, I think that's right .... I'm planning on using pretty much the same idea. I don't want to cheat, but I can't come up with something different.

Hey Chris,

Glad that you like it. Yes, the pouch is for a magazine. I need to paint it as well. I'm going to finish up all the "black/ dark" painting tomorrow. Then, I'm going to do the finishing touches ... adding the arm, the face, and the helmet. Everything should be completed, building wise, tomorrow.

I have an idea for a base, but I hate to cheat. I found a pic, don't remember where. It's of the same figure next to a door way, but, instead of waving off the rest of the squad, my figure will be getting ready to chunk the flash-bang in.

I was suprised too to see the pixels pop out and come together even after the shading was complete.

Thanks again, Chris.

No... way....jawdrop... hit the floor

I am 100% in love with your shading work. I was wondering how I was going to get it done on my 1/16 scale duo so now I have to at least make it look half as good as yours. I think you nailed the pixel effect, everything tan looks great, again, love the shadding- that mic's a good fix, I was wondering if you were going to add on, I wasn't going to ask as I wasn't sure what the real one's looked like and thought it might have been one of those tube-ish straw kind of mics from the early 90s? Know what I'm talking about?

..Anyway I checked back over here thinking I'd see an update that looked like the comparison pictures- no way was I expecting this

Great job!

Hey ps what's that pouch on the holster for? A magazine? A cleaning kit? I know the knife's have a pouch for a flint and... do the pouches on the canteens have some kind of filtration kit in them?

Anyway very nicely done, sorry to hear about the trip- this would have taken some serious golds at any show you brought it to..

Too much done today .... is that possible?

Well, I'm now about 95% complete with this figure. Really wanted to take it to a show on th 21st, but now I've got travel plans again .... *&%&^@#*&@!!!!!! Oh, well. I still want to be done before I take off again, so I've got until this Friday.

Here's the progres from today.

Got tired of the face not having a "mic", so I gave him one. Just needs paint to match now ....

ACH with highlight wash. (The light is a little too harsh in this one.)

The dark-tone goes on....

The pixels get added and touched up....

Next, some highlights, and the "tan" colors go on.....

And next, the shadows go on ....

I even went for the nasty sweat crud that builds up around the neck area....

... that'll be it for tonight. I want to make sure everything gets a chance to dry. I've been using the hairdryer today (hehe!). I'm planning on finishing up the M4, the flashbang and the radio stuff tomorrow. Then, its off to the base .... of which I haven't even touched yet. This may have to wait until I come home again.

PLS let me know what you think. I don't normally like to go this fast without the gallery's approval, but I was on a roll today.... Enjoy!!!

It looks like you are off to a great start, I am sure the finished product will be fantastic.

Thanks for posting the "Maki" link, that's a cool technique.  Once I finish up the other projects I am working on, I'd like to do a similar figure.

Howdy Rob,

Thanks for the compliments. After coming back home in '07, I just can't seem to get back to the WWII era.

I had seen the write-up for the ACU pattern using the salt method, but I thought that in 120mm I needed something a little more detail oriented. I'm basically using the same method written by "Maki" on the Armorama forums.

I'm hoping to get more photos/ work up this evening, and hoping to get the whole project done by the end of the week so that I can start on another project that's just itching to get worked on.

Thanks again for your compliments. I hope the end solution is up to everyone's standards.

Excellent work so far, I look forward to seeing the completed diorama.  You have gotten a lot of the little details that make the overall figure look more authentic.

Thanks for detailing out your process step-by-step, it will be helpful when I tackle my own project.

I started with WWII models, but after more than 20 years in uniform, I can't get into doing anything but modern.  It's good to see some others doing the same.  

For the ARPAT, I'd seen an article on this forum about a year ago, the guy used table salt as a mask and it looked  really good.

huh... well in that case, I guess I have no more excuse for being lazy

ww2modeler wrote:

Okay, sorry about that. 9' does seem a little close but maybe not. David

Hey Dave, you're good. I just thought that I'd share some information that I had found. I just hope that it helps someone else out.

And just b/c I couldn't wait until I got home ... I took one of my Soldiers and had him stand about 10' away. I then held a ruler out at arms length and damn-it it he wasn't about 4-5" tall!?! Damn-dest thing I ever saw!!!

modelchasm wrote:

After doing a little more research on figure scales, I've found some information in an Osprey figure book that has really helped refocus my question as to how detailed the ACU pattern on this figure should be. On a previous post, I stated that looking at a 120mm figure would be the same as looking at a real person at about 100m. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Per the books reference, a 120mm figure represents a person standing only 9' away from you. Seems a little close to me, but this tells me that the pattern SHOULD be painted in more detail than what I was thinking. Once I get home on Monday from my trip, I plan to take some pictures of my ACUs using the distances in the book to represent figure scales from 1/16 - 1/48. Then I'll post them so that everyone can see the differences. Hopefully, this will make sense when I post it. Maybe I'll do a small write-up with it's own thread. Hopefully, I'll get more done on this figure next week as well ......... well, we all have hopes and dreams I guess.

Okay, sorry about that. 9' does seem a little close but maybe not.

David

After doing a little more research on figure scales, I've found some information in an Osprey figure book that has really helped refocus my question as to how detailed the ACU pattern on this figure should be.

On a previous post, I stated that looking at a 120mm figure would be the same as looking at a real person at about 100m. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Per the books reference, a 120mm figure represents a person standing only 9' away from you. Seems a little close to me, but this tells me that the pattern SHOULD be painted in more detail than what I was thinking.

Once I get home on Monday from my trip, I plan to take some pictures of my ACUs using the distances in the book to represent figure scales from 1/16 - 1/48. Then I'll post them so that everyone can see the differences. Hopefully, this will make sense when I post it. Maybe I'll do a small write-up with it's own thread.

Hopefully, I'll get more done on this figure next week as well ......... well, we all have hopes and dreams I guess.

Yeah, I mean home's 4 hours away for me. The 6 wouldn't be bad but between classes and my Residential Assistant job I have very little free time and I have no idea if I'd be able to find 12 hours of driving time + however long I'd be at the show-

+ if I'm on duty then there's no way.

sadly ... when I was in school, I can remember driving further for LESS significant things than a model show...

Wish I were only 6hrs away ....... ROAD TRIP!!!

Cool deal. Sounds like the right balance to me- keep us posted!

Too bad I've got classes- wouldn't mind checking out Atlanta and that 1/9 scale SEAL, I can't comprehend the size of em

haha it's only 6 hours away

I think I'm going to a gun show up in Richmond next Sunday.

Alright ... it's settled then. I'm going to go with your healthy medium suggestion ... with a healthy dose of weathering, and about 1cc more flesh-tone on the face.

I know what you mean, I can go either way with it. It definitly does look awesome, but I think if one is going to make the pattern as real life as possible they must do the same with EVERYTHING so the uniform doesn't stick out. And yeah- like weathering and a flesh tone etc.

I think what it comes down to is how much time and effort you're willing to spend on it. If you want to go crazy detail I'm sure you could, just make sure you don't neglect other parts of the build. I'm one to believe in a healthy medium, maybe a little more detail than the scale requires for the "awesome" factor , but not as much that it looks out of place with everything else.

See, the pattern there looks very conviencing, even though I might be inclined to argue if it's really to scale though ... BUT IT LOOKS SO DAMN GOOD!!!! The only thing that I could really say is that the flesh contrasts and the weathering doing really match the level of detail seen in the MARPAT pattern.

.... but it looks so good ................

I'm torn. Detailed to the point of craziness, or detail to scale ..... what to do ... what to do.

I still think you're right, Chris. I liked the link you sent, but there's just something about the 1/35 ACU decal ... it was so detailed that it looked fake to me!?! (Sorry .. just IMO.)

I think that the idea of "scale" plays huge part in color variation, and camo pattern variations. Over the past few days, I've been doing a lot of reading, online and in books about colors, scales, distances, etc.

I think that you're spot on about after everything is weathered that it'll be ... or at least "look" ... correct.

Hopefully, we'll have the dark-tone on tonight before my trip tomorrow ... the hairdyer is my friend!

WOW- you got some work done! That looks great so far (ps nice job with the FB grenade and the redone hand- looks like it was part of the kit!)

I agree, you can make it as detailed as possible, but at the same time I don't think that translates to individual pixels per say.

I think once you get the dark on there and then bring out the tan- you can definitly make the tan pixels more broken apart and individual- I think at this scale that will make it look really detailed.

Check out this post link and look at page 5- the ACU was made with decails, but IMO it's as detaild as one can get in 1/35- even with the printed pattern being an exact replica, at a stand-off photographable distance- individual detail and the like kind of blends to an overall singular color/shade for the most part

So I did both ... watched the Bowl and painted. Here's a little update on the progress.

This is just the mid-tone applied over the base coat color. Looks a little plain now, but wait until the dark-tone is applied. That's when the tan base coat comes back out.

I've also decided to go back and make the ACU pattern as detailed as possible. I jsut don't want someone to really be looking at the fig close up and say "that's not ACU". However, I'm still on the fence. Would really like to hear some more discussion/ opinions on the color/ pattern vs scale conversation.....

As always, options and crits welcome ..... Thanks.

ww2modeler wrote:

That sounds right to me, I mean, unless you are going to be examining it with a magnifying glass up close it should be fine. Wasn't the camoflauge designed to look blended together at long distances anyway? I think it looks fine but in the end its up to you. David

The idea behind the digital camo, whether it be ARPAT, MARPAT, .... whatever-PAT, is that there are no "hard" lines in the pattern. So, yes, when you see the uniform from a distance, even at 50m, the colors are are supposed to be softly blended. This too, was another reason for taking the "black" out of the uniform.

Thanks again David for you input. I'm just going to have to paint a little and then back off and take a break for a bit. Even with doing the mid-tone yesterday, I can see about 2 different variations in the pattern. Going to have to fix that before going to the dark-tone.

Super Bowl .... painting .... Super Bowl .... painting? ..... Painting!?!

That sounds right to me, I mean, unless you are going to be examining it with a magnifying glass up close it should be fine. Wasn't the camoflauge designed to look blended together at long distances anyway? I think it looks fine but in the end its up to you.

David

This is a question that psstoff and I have been dicussing. Thought I'd throw it out there since it looks like the thread might be picking up....

When looking at the completed helmet (even after going back and trying to sharpen the pattern up) still looks a little blotchy. However, I've had my nose about 6in from it the whole time. I guess my basic question is this ....

When looking at a 120mm figure, it represents a human about 100m away, right!?! Am I correct in thinking that you wouldn't see the pixelation to begin with? So would this figure look more conviencing if I just got a good pattern down instead of trying to show to pixels? Am I trying to paint a pattern that doesn't fit the scale? .... (Little people******me off!!!)

Thanks Stern, and WW2 for your thoughts. I'll be posting more pics today before the game and then that'll be all she wrote for a few days .... business trips suck.

Wow, that looks great.

David