lol maybe...

But no seriosuly, for a "little" update, that's a lot of progress from what I'm assuming had previously been a head with no detail and undrilled helmet.

Chin straps were shaved/ cut off the face. I had to be careful not to dig into the face, as there was a very limited amount of "clean up" space to deal with. The helmet wasn't all that hard to drill out. Just demel vs resin  .... demel always wins BTW.

I'm working the NVG mount and the chin straps to the helmet today. I found some buckles in an M1025 PE kit that I didn't use that are going to be a nice addition. I'll try to post some pictures later this evening with the finished helmet.

Camo & Psst .... go back to the first pages were the pictures of the figure are. Does the hand holding the M4 look like its *REPORT ME!!*-eyed/ sitting a little funny? It's supposed to look like the arm is resting on gear and the M4's weight is pulling the wrist down, but I'm just sitting back trying to figure out if it looks funny. The only thing I can think of to help it out is to trim it back a little, and add a shoulder strap to the weapon to help "carry" the weight. That might help a little, but I need other eyes looking at it. Let me know what you think...

modelchasm wrote:

demel vs resin  .... demel always wins BTW.

I'm taking notes

modelchasm wrote:

Does the hand holding the M4 look like its *REPORT ME!!*-eyed/ sitting a little funny?  Let me know what you think...

I knew what you were trying to do with the wrist the moment I saw it and I loved it. It looked really natural and relaxed. However upon closer inspection, you’re right. Something’s off. I think what you might try and do, is remove some of the fill that makes up the wrist and scooch the hand up a bit, this will help make the hand (see green outline) look less unnaturally elongated, it’s almost like he has two wrists at this point. Next if it’s still off, maybe take the pack you wanted his arm to be resting on, and fill it in to thicken it up, then kind of puff it out like the weight of the arm is pressing down on it, really resting on it.

So there seems to be a little trouble in SF-land ..... some may call it a set back .... I would rather just say that my SF figure looks like it took a grenade to the chest ... literally.

Not sure how it happened, but I came home to find a bunch of stuff raked off my bench. the only thing that I can think of is that my dog got spooked and got caught up in my lamp cords ... Anyway, the figure is ... well, disfigured. Everything is ok, I guess. I found everything that broke off, but I'm purplexed with something else.

A lot of the filling that I had previously done with SQDN putty just popped out!?! Granted I know that its a resin and not plastic model, but I thought that the putty would at least bond a little bit ... but nope. So here's my question ....

I've never tried either, so I'm just asking .... has anyone tried the baking soda/ CA glue concept to fill small holes in resin? And what about Mr. Surfacer? (Yes, somehow, I've been able to model this long without having used the stuff.)

Anyway, I'm making any repairs that I can tonight, and then I'm going to hold off for a bit. So much for going to the booth tomorrow!!!

Thanks in advance.

Well, since tonight was a disaster, I thought I'd leave it with the only bit of good news that I've got.

Beside the chin straps, the helmet is done. I added a couple of pin-heads cut from straight pins to be the bolts on the helmet (not normally seen under the cover). I also added in the PE buckles from my spares box, and finished the NVG mount. Everything still looks a little sluppy as its not painted, but oh well.

As far as the paint scheme goes .... I'm thinking about an all tan exterior with a tan NVG mount (I'll paint it black first and then scrap off a little bit of the tan to show wear). The straps will all the black. The interior will be first painted green (the original color of the helmet before the exterior if "field painted") and then the pads will be painted black.

Anyway ... let me know what you think.

I've never used CA/Baking soda or Mr. Surface. I have used JB Weld as filler- and it’s the same as what you’ve been experiencing with the squadron from the sound of it. Sometimes what I do when using putty (Magic Sculpt) is add a dab of CA glue to the model where I’m about to place the putty, helps to adhere it sometimes if it’s in a tricky spot. But I’ve yet to drop any models that I’ve used Magic Sculpt with, so couldn’t be sure if it adheres on its own, I do know that when I’ve dropped completed torso/leg units that were held together with CA and filled with JB Weld, they just blow apart and the JB Weld separated in flakes.

As for your helmet- the PE looks great, your NV mount looks dead on perfect as usual, the pads look great and I think your paint scheme sounds awesome. Now if you want to use the Mr. Surface, maybe spray the exterior of the helmet since it’s just the rough Kevlar surface, no cover? Or maybe sprinkle on some baking soda to roughen it up, whichever one you want. However I can’t tell the texture from the pictures, so maybe it’s already a little rough?

Also if you're going to scrape off some black on the mount, maybe add some chips to the tan so the OD is showing through?
 

Yeah, I had thought about chipping the helmet as well. Really the only places that you would find chipping on the helmet, besides places that you just crammed your head into something, would be around the rim near the ears, and along the top (as most people place their helmets top-side down when they take them off).

I'm making some decent progress in getting the figure back together. I just decided to make another cast of the legs .... it came out a bit better than the previous one. I also was going to try the baking soda deal, but I don't have any ... so I tried regular flour instead. Seems to work fine as far as I can tell. The only thing is that its a little tricky at first and takes a little time to get down. Other than that though, it makes a nice fill with little sanding later on.

I've got a few castings in the spares box that I may experiment on with different filling techinques and methods to see which one works best.

I didn't even think about it before, but I might just try making a paste out of flour and water ... Hmmmmm........

Thanks for the ideas on the helmet, psst. And don't worry, I'm working on a short write-up for you on your casting question.....

Guys that "know better" only hold their helmets by the mount .... holding it by the straps pulls on the straps at the adjustments and throws everything out of wack. Then, next time you put it on, you've got to pull everything tight again, blah, blah, blah... Anyway, the inside padding will be the most visible.

I reworked a little bit on the wrist, but I haven't filled in the gap just yet. The M4 doesn't rest/ hang there anymore, but rather sticks out a little more. But, I also added a strap so I might just be able to pull it off.

I've been bad about posting pictures, but I'll try to get some more up in the morning.

camo junkie wrote:

i dont think p.o. and i are worried you'll screw this one up buddy. i cant wait to see it so get those pics posted soon will ya!

Agreed! And that makes sense about the straps- I’ve done that one too many times with my bike helmet- shoulda known better. It was easier with the football helmet, facemask lent itself nice to grab on to, the bike helmet doesn’t have much else but the straps. Anyway. I’m sure you’ll be able to pull it off. With the damage this guy took, it would have put me off track for a year, I hate rebuilds... haha and you guys didn’t think I could go slower than I already do.
Looking forward to the pics!

Again, I'm sorry that I've been slow on the pics lately. I've been doing some prep work for my next trip (only a week this time) so I haven't been able to sit down at the bench for more than 15-20 min at a time.

Promise I'll get whatever pictures I've got posted and updated tonight. I leave in the morning anyway.

I've made a little headway on the figure .... little before leaving on my last trip and a little since I got back.

My goal is to get a coat of primer on it tonight in hopes of cleaning it up in the morning.

Here, I've got the final touches done on the chin strap ....

Here, I've got the figure pretty much mocked up ... just without the base. I had purchased an SF crest to put on the side of the base, but I think that I'm going to do something different now. (imagine that ...)

Let me know what you think ....

1000% better with the wrist buddy and the build aint so bad either. no, she looks sweet and i cant wait to see a coat of paint on her!!! you definately are a man of details...im jealous. not sure what's up with this font thing...it changed on me without me doing anything!!! anyway, good job buddy!!

He's looking good having taken a grenade to the chest, that's for sure!

Really like the strap work

So, as i was taking the build off to the booth this morning it hit me that I didn't have an antenna on the figures radio ...

... then I thought ... well, if he's got a radio, he needs a headset. He needs wiring. He needs ... he needs ... needs, needs, needs ....

So long story short, I spent the morning playing around and goofing off ... Needless to say, I don't have much to show for it and it probably would have been more productive had I painted instead. Oh well. It's drying tonight at least.

Hopefully, I'll have some primed pictures in the morning.....

Psst, I remember that you said something about using Mr Surfacer on the helmet to get the textured look ...

I was getting ready to get everything ready for prime, when I remembered that. Well, I don't have Mr Surfacer, but I did have something in the garage. I had a can of the textured spray paint and thought I'd give it a whirl. Worse thing that could happen would be that I had a lot of sanding to do! Well, it came out great. I just held the can out pretty far (about 15-18") and just barely sprayed. The texture came out almost perfectly. I haven't primed it yet as the spray paint needed a little more time to dry/ cure, so we'll see what it looks like under a single color tomorrow.

For the base, I had also thought about printing out the SF crest and my buddy's team logo. Then, cutting up the printouts so that the layers could then be glued to pieces of thick sheet styrene and then glued back together to give a kind-of 3D effect to the image. Does that sound right!?! Anyway, maybe I'll get started on that after cleaning up the figure. However, I don't think that there's going to be much clean-up going on ... I'm trying to constantly remind myself that this one isn't for show, but I still want it to look good.

Anyway, that's what I've got for today.

After this one is done, I think I might tackle one of the figures from the original "Mosul" build just so I can say that I've done a 1/12 scale figure.... But we'll see.

Tan DB .... uhhhhh, yeah .... Thursday ... 7pm. !?!?!

What? ... yeah ... I'm lost ...

Everything came out of the booth lookin' good today. There's a little clean-up to be done, but I think I should be able to cover that in the morning. HOWEVER, I did get to staring at the figure this afternoon and it hit me like a ton of bricks ... my buddy and his team didn't use headets!!!! I'm an idiot. I remember, now, them using throat mics with their radios....

SOOOOO .... I'll be doing a little more scratching in the morning as well.

The helmet texturing came out prefectly! I HIGHLY recommend to use textured spray paint if you've got to texture something. I've got pics from the booth that I'll post asap.

modelchasm wrote:

Tan DB .... uhhhhh, yeah .... Thursday ... 7pm. !?!?! What? ... yeah ... I'm lost ...

I think he was talking about highlighting the tan colored gear with yellow vs. light tan.

Glad to hear that helmet texture came out great! Looking forward to seeing the shots. As for the throat mic, lol all that work on the headset? Oh well, good practice right?

psstoff995 wrote:

modelchasm wrote: Tan DB .... uhhhhh, yeah .... Thursday ... 7pm. !?!?! What? ... yeah ... I'm lost ... I think he was talking about highlighting the tan colored gear with yellow vs. light tan. Glad to hear that helmet texture came out great! Looking forward to seeing the shots. As for the throat mic, lol all that work on the headset? Oh well, good practice right?

yes!!! what he said. ...that's what i meant p.o. glad someone is able to follow my madness model!!! . yeah, post those pics...wanna see the texture and how good it looks! btw, what type of s.f. is this guy anyway? is he seal, ranger, delta? j.c.

camo junkie wrote:

psstoff995 wrote:  modelchasm wrote: Tan DB .... uhhhhh, yeah .... Thursday ... 7pm. !?!?! What? ... yeah ... I'm lost ... I think he was talking about highlighting the tan colored gear with yellow vs. light tan. Glad to hear that helmet texture came out great! Looking forward to seeing the shots. As for the throat mic, lol all that work on the headset? Oh well, good practice right? yes!!! what he said. ...that's what i meant p.o. glad someone is able to follow my madness model!!! . yeah, post those pics...wanna see the texture and how good it looks! btw, what type of s.f. is this guy anyway? is he seal, ranger, delta? j.c.

OOOOOOooooooo.............. Now that's not right!!! Now it's time for a little military lesson ...

Special Forces are the Army's elite unconventional war-fighting force, among many other jobs. We are not SEALS, Rangers, Delta, Chuck Norris, John Wayne (well, only in the movie "Green Beret"), etc, etc. All those, sometimes arguably the Rangers, fall under Special Operations ... but when you say Special Forces you are technically only talking about Army Special Forces Operators.

So to answer your question ... He's an Army Special Forces guy ...

No offense taken, btw... HAHAHAH!!!!