Update on Harry! Shaking a leg...

OK, so I admit it's taken me a long, long time to shake off my Christmas modelling funk. But maybe the Spring weather has given me the boost I needed as today Harry (Pose 2) is finally seeing some progress!

Left: 'Harry' in his Pose 1 incarnation.

Just to quickly recap; my 'Harry' figure - my very first original 1/32 sculpt - will eventually consist of three body poses - 'At Ease', 'At Attention' and 'Firing'. The 'At Ease' (relaxed or walking) pose was the first pose to be completed, but now I am working on the second pose - an important one for toy soldiers - 'At Attention'.

(Once all three body poses are complete I then have to work on a selection of four or five heads and a variety of arms.)

The 'attention' pose shouldn't - in theory - be too difficult as the right leg of the 'At Ease' pose is already straight and ideal for a standing straight posture. So, it should be just a case of making a new straight left leg...

I began - as you can see above - by amputation poor Harry's 'relaxed' left leg. I then removed his boot, discarding the leg from the top of the boot upwards, and inserted a metal wire into the boot. Then I reattached the left leg again.

Using the right leg as a template I hope to mirror the leg's design so I end up with two straight legs.

As usual I will be using white Milliput putty to remake the leg. I start with a roll of putty and then will add the detail of the trousers.

Once I have two legs I may have to remove both legs from the body again to re-center them and place them closer together in a typical 'at attention' (heels together) pose.

Fingers - or do I mean legs - crossed! LOL ;)

Slow progress for Harry!

I know, news from Molatero has been scant over the past couple of months, but things are busy busy behind the scenes believe me!

My brother has produced the first clutch of my 'Harry' sculpture in resin, and he is also now in possession of a fine new piece of photographic equipment with which to be able show off his work...

Now, I'm hoping to speak to him tonight and persuade him to send me down some of the prototypes so that I can begin work on some heads for Harry and some other arms (for different poses). But he also noted a few production problems based on the way I had made my figure which I will also have to rectify.

But, progress, albeit slow! But we are taking our time and hopefully this will show in the end product. :)

Happy New Year! Er, a bit late but hey ho!

Well, here I am dusting off my Molatero blog for the first time in 2014! Probably quite a momentous year for Funny Little Wars fans as we approach the centenary of The Great War (so I expect to see a lot of commemorative projects based on WW1 related toy soldiers).

Anyway, I am still - believe it or not - packing away Christmas decoration. My attic man-cave is awash with cardboard boxes into which I have to carefully put all the baubles, lights and tinsel and then somehow squeeze them back into storage for another year! The upshot of this is that it's almost impossible to get to my work benches at the moment in order to get some hobby work done.

However, luckily for me my Grinch-like brother had no such post-crimble fall-out and has been beavering away with my Harry sculpture...

The beginning of the casting process for Harry. It's all
rather exciting as my brother begins his magic!

'Harry' is my primary project for the first quarter of 2014. I hope to be churning out the first of my very own original toy soldiers within a couple of months. So, may the new year bring you all as much excitement as I no doubt have in store for me!

All the very best, Steve

Harry finished!

Huzzah! After much fettling, prevarication, modifying, re-modifying and re-re-modifying, I now have 'Harry' in a state that I consider 'as good as I'm going to get' (...Without playing about with the model for another 3 months)!

The final 'tinkering' phase was set in motion after I hosted my 'work in progress' on the miniature sculpting forum - 'Planet Figure'. I received some very helpful feedback from a member of this community of sculptors and as a result I smoothed out Harry's torso so that his rather over-muscular chest was not so prominent. And I am happy with the result.

As usual, each modification or revision has a knock-on effect, and I ended up having to slightly modify the shoulders, back and arms to accommodate the new profile.

WHAT NEXT...?
Right, so - revisiting my 'plan' - the idea is that 'Harry' is the 'master' figure for a series of figures that I am calling my 2013 'H' figures. The procedure from here is as follows...

• 1. Harry is sent to my brother in Scotland where his body and arms will be duplicated in resin - these will provide me with a set of 'working models'...
  .
• 2. The resin 'working models' will be used to produce a set of basic figures in a range of poses, i.e:
  
  i. Harry - 'At Ease' or 'Marching' pose
  ii. Henry - 'At Attention' pose
  iii. Harold - 'Dynamic' (firing or 'loading') pose
  iv. Hector - 'Sitting' or 'Riding' pose
  .
• 3. While all this is going on I will also be producing:
  
  i. A set of five original heads based on the dimensions of my 'template' head (based on a cross between the head of a 'Black Hat' company figure and the head of an 'Armies in Plastic'/'Airfx' figure.
  ii. A selection of alternatively posed arms.
  .
• 4. Once these three separate original body groups - bodies, heads and arms - come together I will have my 2013 'H' series figure collection, ready to put together to make whatever toy soldiers I might want!

Hopefully, I will end up with a 'tool box' of basic figures that I can further modify into differently clad and equipped soldiers.

Fingers crossed!

Harry, hands up!

Using Blutack to support the arms while I
work on them was very helpful. It made it
easy for me to detach them when needed.

It's been a hectic week or so since I was able to do any more work on Harry, thanks to a major computer game release (BF4) and an airsoft outing. But, other hobbies aside, I needed to get down to finishing Harry off as my brother is keen to do his magic with resin so we can move onto the next phase of our toy soldier project.

I have got his arms to a satisfactory stage - after several modifications - although I am not altogether sure about the proportions. But I have decided that I could play around forever, continually tweaking the figure, so it's best to just stop while I am reasonably happy with the model otherwise I might spoil what I already have.

So, onto the final stage of making the arms - the hands. I think in a previous post I may have said something like I wanted the quality of the hands to be somewhere in between those of Black Hat's figures and those of Armies in Plastic - and I think that's what I have ended up with. They are a bit chunky, but serviceable and have just enough detail to satisfy my needs.

Now, onto cleaning up my model and smoothing out some of the rough edges.

A little late to the party - Osprey's modelling manual
While undertaking the above mentioned work on Harry I received a long awaited figure sculpting 'manual' - Osprey's 'Modelling and Painting Figures'.

Sadly, on inspection I have found that this booklet covers - mainly basic - techniques that I have already discovered for myself through good old trial and error (with an emphasis on error)! It has lots of pretty picture but little in the way of intermediate or advanced miniature figure sculpting techniques.

I would have far preferred a series of 'how to' exercises on how sculptors recreate specific clothing textures and anatomical features, or step by step photos on how a specific figure was created in detail - what I got was something of what I wanted but with a lot of important steps missing. In fact, the book is a bit short of detail, and short on the number of examples it includes - it certainly doesn't live up to Osprey's strap line for it's series of modelling manuals of 'The complete "how to" modelling guides'.

To be honest, what was contained within in it's meagre 64 pages could be found elsewhere online for free. I found more in-depth tutorials by simply using Google. A good start for anyone who if considering following my pathway into figure sculpting might be to nip over to Planet Figure and join in the community of talented sculptors there, they all seem friendly and willing to help out those who are new to the hobby.

How's Harry?

Boy! This is slow work, but my 1/32 sculpted figure's arms are nearing completion. I've gone with the 'default' pose of arms by the side as I imagine this will be a useful basic set.

Rather unfortunately, as I get closer and closer to getting the arms done I realise that I have the bigger worry looming of the sculpting of the hands. Gulp! I think I mentioned that I 'don't do' hands very well - they have always been a bit of a problem all the way from life drawing classes at school to art college.

Now, I have looked at some of the examples I already have in 54mm (1/32) scale - from those on my AiP and Airfix soldiers, to those that came with my Black Hat figures and a also a pack of Historex arms I bought. The quality of modelling I am looking at producing is something halfway between the chunky mitts of the Black Hat and the delicate hands of the Historex...Hopefully!

In white is the Historex arms and in metal the Black Hat arms. Now, some of
you might be wondering why I am bothering reinventing the wheel - why not
just use the Historex arms? Well, I want a completely original and individual
piece of work done solely by myself and also the Historex arms are a little
long for '54mm'. I found this with their '54mm' armature bodies as well they are
more like 1/30 scale.

Don't hurry Harry!

Things don't always go right. The  first set of arms that I made for Harry turned out to be the completely wrong shape, so I ditched them and started again. Ah well...

This time I am taking my time and trying to do things properly. I had wanted to get Harry up to my brother this week but I don't see the point in hurrying things along as we aren't really on any sort of deadline (and he has his own projects anyway).

Left: I'm using Blu-Tack to hold the armature securely while I work on the arms. Once I have the general shape of the arms I will remove them and start sanding them down into a more finished state.

So, back to square one and this time I'm taking my time.

As you can see I have also cobbled together a temporary head in order to pin down a specific size for when I start making my own heads from scratch. It's a bit of a hybrid based on a Black Hat figure head and features and size taken from Armies in Plastic figures...

The Black Hat head is a good starting point for
a 1/32 noggin. It will allow me to visualise the
size and general shape I need to make my heads.

Black Hat and Armies in Plastic are the two figure ranges that I want my figures to be compatible with so it's important that my design can blend in with their models. The good news is that once I fitted the temporary head the height of my figure came to exactly 54mms - which translates into 5'9" in 1/32 scale, a good average height for this scale.

Onwards and upwards...

Harry - A call to arms

Having finished Harry's body to a satisfactory level I want to make some quick arms and a head to act as 'scale templates' so while Harry is in Scotland being duplicated in resin I can continue with my work.

I'm not too worried about specific poses - just yet - I just want a couple of arms that are dimensionally and proportionally correct. So, I'm starting with my trusty - and nicely bendy - garden wire again (very cheap from Wilkos) to provide the 'bones' and them I'm applying a thin layer of Milliput.

I'll slowly build up the thickness of the arms until they take the form I want and then I will add the hands. The hands are the part of this project that worry me as I have always found doing hands - in my illustrations - most difficult. Doing elements which are so delicate at such a small scale could be very tricky indeed - especially to a beginner like myself.

Next: Hopefully not gorilla arms!

Putting the boot in on Harry

Harry has some new boots! And thank goodness the addition of the sturdy footwear has transformed my figure's looks from Christmas elf lookalike to something a little more soldierly.

I finally feel this sculpture is coming together.

Next job will be to sand down the boots to give them a nice smooth polished finish and also add some folds of material where the trousers tuck into the boots. But we are getting there folks!

Thinking ahead, I have to start to work on arm poses as, obviously, Harry will be holding something eventually. My plan is to do two versions of Harry, one with his walking pose as is and then an alternative where he is standing to attention.

From here - with these two generic leg poses - I can model a variety of standard military stances, by making a variety of arm sets, such as;

• Shoulder/slope arms
• Port arms
• Present arms
• Order arms
• Sling arms

Link: Refer to this British Army basic Rifle Drill Positions web page (Opens in new window)

If I want my soldier to be firing his weapon I will then have to consider modifying Harry into a third leg/body pose - with body angled and legs apart. So I would end up with three figures in the 'Harry' series:

• Harry - relaxed pose (at ease), walking or marching.
• Harold - attention, and basic rifle drill position.
• Henry - dynamic, firing pose or field gun loader, etc.

Luckily, once I have Harry's body done - and duplicated in resin - it will be an easier job to simply convert his body into the other two poses. This should give me the basic tool box I need to make a variety of soldiers.

The uniform's usefulness
I should mention something about his uniform and boots design to finish with. I've tried to pick a fairly generic looking uniform design, one which could be easily used to represent a wide variety of nation's soldiers. Obviously the addition of the high jack boots narrows this universal usefulness, I would - for example - have to modify the figure's trousers if I wanted to depict British Army style infantry (but that would be very easy).

But for a continental European army the jack boots will be a fairly common and useful dress addition. You may be able to visualise that Harry could be the basis for Germanic soldier, or American CW trooper, or - as I had in mind - a soldier of the Balkans. The key to all this universality will, of course, be the headdress - a series of which I will eventually be designing too.

Onwards and upwards dear friends!

Body sculpt - Harry's new coat

I have decided that as I named my initial head sculpts variations of 'Bert' I should have a name for my initial range of body sculpts too. So may I introduce you to 'Harry' - albeit that he is still in the making!

Today I have some more minor progress to report - Harry is visiting his taylor. I am making up his tunic, you can see some of my pen lines in the accompanying photo indicating features to be worked on.

The belt was made from a strip of plasticard, pinned and glued in place to give me some reference of where Harry's waist would be. He maybe a bit on the rotund side, but I am greatly influenced by the figures of Black Hat who - I think - have captured the 'manly' Edwardian figure very nicely (barrel chest and thin ankles)!

At this moment I am working on the jacket collar. It's a bit over-sized as I have just laid down a layer of Milliput, but this will be sanded back when dry. He will also be given epaulettes.

Left: Amusing to think that this sculpt started out with my rickety home-made armature!

My influence for the design is the Romanian M1893 tunic, depicted in Osprey's 'Armies of the Balkan Wars 1912-13' (colour plate E1). This means I will be adding a nice row of shinny buttons, and the belt will be receiving a buckle too.

Now, I was going to add the appropriate webbing for the period too, but have now decided I would like a figure without webbing, I will have my brother duplicate this in resin and then add the webbing to a freshly copied resin version of my mannequin. This is so I have a range of uniforms from the one sculpt - with and without webbing - so I can model both infantry and auxiliary soldiers.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave!

Lieutenant Cuthbert, gunnery officer

The last figure in my Molaterian heavy artillery team is the gunnery officer - Lt. Cuthbert. He is based - as with all my 'Berts' - on Black Hat's metal artillery crewman.

Unlike the rest of the Berts, however, I chose to start with a resin duplicate of Black Hat's figure as I imagined that tying to heavily modify a metal figure would be a bit of a pain. The resin that my brother is currently using is a joy to work with and very easy to cut and sand.

The job began with some major sanding back of the torso, removing the braces and shirt format of the original Black Hat figure. Once done I built up the officer's tunic with Milliput putty and added a double-breasted button arrangement based on a design from Osprey's 'The Belgian Army in World War 1'.

The head is my Mk. II 'Albert' resin head modified with new - and suitable 'upper-class' - facial hair and an officer's kepi (again, based on a Belgian army design).

Next I have to add his arms, I am thinking of poses but want him to be holding some binoculars in his right hand. The uniform will be mostly black - a nod to the Belgian influence - with tangerine detailing.

As I mentioned, this will be the last use of my Mk. II 'Albert' head for modelling my figures - I am working on a Mk III head sculpt to replace it - but it will be nice to have a unit in my army that will reflect the evolution of my sculpting skills (such as they are).

Back to square one...

OK, surgery over and I've made good the joins. So now I'm back to where I was a few days ago, with the basic figure ready to continue with the uniform details...

My figure next to a 1/32 Airfix soldier which I am using as
reference for scale.

I think it looks a bit odd at this stage, but maybe it will start to come together once more of the detail goes on...Hopefully!

Emergency surgery

And it was all going so well! But it turns out that my figure is too tall for the scale*, and unless I want a regiment of 6' 8" soldiers I had to something drastic...

I have removed a small section of each leg at the knee and I will shunt to two halves together - loosing my chap about 4 inches in scale height. Obviously I will have to reinforce the join with wire to make good the join. And then I will have to do some cosmetic putty work to hide the join.

Let's hope it all turns out well!

*You may wonder why I only just noticed why my figure was too tall. Well, my armature was a little tall, I admit, but this became more obvious when I started to add the layer of Milliput. I had underestimated how much mass was being added by my modelling putty. You live and learn (the trick seems to be making the armature slightly undersized to begin with).

Suits you Sir!

My progress in my body sculpt is slow, deliberately so. I'm just doing a very small bit at a time, stopping, sanding back and then continuing again. So, unfortunately, despite hard work I don't have that much to show you.

I'm starting to build up the upper body, readying it for the tunic...

I've been doing some research in the background and I'm thinking along the lines of a uniform based on Romanian infantry from about 1890-1900. But I want it to be suitably generic enough to be useful for a variety of nations from that period (by simply changing the hat).

One of the things that I will have to think about is how I intend to attach the arms and head. I will have to make some sort of socket or peg arrangement onto which I can place the interchangeable parts of my figure.

Now at the moment my little figure looks like he's in his long johns, but this is just the basic layer before I start to detail the clothing (I will add the boots last by the way).  So I'm concentrating on getting the surface nice and smooth at the moment.

S.C.A.H.M.S. California Show 2011 Coverage - Sculpting Seminar

Very useful workshop tutorial on sculpting a 1/32 figure. First I've found that's any good...

Pants

Well, hopefully not pants when I'm finished. Here we go...The start of my first complete 1/32 full figure sculpt. I just slap on a basic layer of Milliput to begin with, then carve and sand the shape back to how I want it.

As with the previous stages in this project I'm playing things rather by ear. I haven't really found a good manual or tutorial that sets out the sculpting process in depth. But in a way I would rather see if I can work it out myself.

...Fingers crossed!

Gilbert joins the team!

My 1/32 semi-scratch built come semi-converted Molaterian gun crew is starting to come together. The third member - Gilbert - has just come off the spray booth!

Gilbert's pose is a little more mundane as someone has to be working the gun! (It's not all beer and skittles in the Molaterian army!)

The paint job should be pretty quick and straight forward and then it's on to the final member of the crew, Cuthbert the Subaltern. As is the tradition in the army of Molatero he will be dressed slightly differently and be wearing the officer's kepi.

By this time people will be noticing the family resemblance between the crew members, so in my next project - my completely scratch build soldiers - I will be creating a set of alternative heads! :)

Body building, FLW style

Very exciting morning for me as the postie dropped off a little package from my brother. It's my eagerly awaited resin castings of my 1/32 figure sculpture, plus my 'blank' heads to go with it...

This handful of resin 'blanks' will keep me occupied for some time. They will form the basis of my very first completely original toy soldier figure. But, there is still a lot of work to do before I churn out my first toy soldier.

The next stage in my production will be to clothe the body in the uniform of my choice and then prepare the neck and shoulder joints for the addition of my scratch built arms and head. I will be drilling out sockets to take my head and arms and then will sent the result back up to my brother for the 'dressed' figure to be copied in resin.

In effect all these 'blanks' are just my working armatures, not finished figures. But they are the basis of my production line - the tools that allow me to work on my original creations.

The skull will have features added and arranged into a 'stick' of four or five variations. This will then be sent back up for duplication in resin as well so that I have a supply of heads to add to my soldiers. It's all very methodical but hopefully be worth all the hard work.

Long term I would like to think that I can make something of a decent quality that others might like to purchase (and in doing so self-fund my hobby). But that's perhaps wishful thinking.

Having said that my brother is beginning to think of metal casting, so you never know - in a year or so I maybe producing my own modest line of metal toy soldiers!

Frankenstein's soldier - final

Well, got it done...

It's far from perfect, but as my first go at this sort of thing I'm fairly pleased. I need to study anatomy a bit more though, but this will do as a sculpting mannequin.

Now, off it goes up to my brother's to be copied in resin. Then I can add my head and make some arms for it...And give it a uniform of course! :)

...Oh! And by way of variety, I also made a 1/32 coffee pot! (Why? I will tell you later!)

Frankenstein's soldier 2

Creeping progress, but now at least it is starting to look like a human figure...

I did have to back-track a bit as I am still having problems scaling my sculpts properly. I had to unceremoniously chop down my little chaps legs! He is now the right height to be compatible with 1/32 Airfix or Armies in Plastic toy soldiers.

Next:...Well, obviously feet! :)