This is probably a topic that has been worked to death, but... **pics**

MrDrummy wrote:

1.)  How do you pros get the gear to fit to the curvature of the soldiers' bodies?  Some of the bags etc should conform somewhat, right?

You can carve away some of the figure or some of hte gear.

I've also read that people turn the toes of the boots up too add more realism.  Can you use the same method?

In 1/35 this would be minimal. MOre work than it's worth, IMHO.

2.) Do you usually attach all the gear and get rid of gaps etc before painting the figures?

I dry fit my figures. If I can paint the figure after assembly, I'll do that. However, some poses preclude that, such as when a a fugure has folded arms and there's a lot of detail fehinmd them. I paint gear before attaching it in most cases.