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Figure conversions for upcoming dioramas

moon puppy said:
James you always capture the expression you're after.


This guy looks like Jim Hutton from the Green Berets. Think it's the hat. :soldier
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Thanks. I spend a lot of my modeling time looking through my stash of aftermarket heads to find ones with just the right expression and when depicting certain individuals faces that look like that person.

He does resemble SGT Peterson or "Peter San" on the Green Berets largely due to the hat. If he were wearing tiger stripes instead of jungle fatigues he would go well with the Bravo 6 COL Kirby figure.
 
Barney said:
As my late GGFather would say: Jasus, Mary, Joseph, and the Donkey!

WOW! Great work.
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Thanks, Barney.

Never heard that saying with the donkey included, but I like it better with it.

Glad you like the figures. Because I have been working slowly, more ideas keep popping into my head, so now I am doing something a little bit different which I will take photos of as the figures take shape.

Cheers,
James
 
Although I am still going to do a diorama featuring the "New Guys", I am changing focus towards a diorama of a MEDCAP being conducted. In the background there will be a building facade with US personnel treating Vietnamese civilians. Infantrymen providing security for the medical personnel will be interacting with some Vietnamese kids by having some target practice shooting cans with slingshots.

For this diorama, I will be using the Platoon Sergeant figure, a conversion of a Bravo 6 German soldier, a conversion of one of the figures I sculpted for Custom Dioramics, the Alpine conversion, and figures from Paracel Miniatures so far. The rest are still in the works.

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I had modified the Platoon Sergeant figure even further by adding a XM177E1 slung over his shoulder. To get it to sit just right and look natural, I slung mine over my shoulder while wearing a jungle fatigue shirt and looked in the mirror to get proper positioning, etc. I normally wouldn't glue the weapon onto the figure until both were painted, but I found that doing things that way has the tendency to ruin the paint job and that the weapon wouldn't fit quite right. I had to shave down some places so the weapon would rest against the body at the locations where it actually came into contact with my body.

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The Vietnamese boys from Paracel Miniatures did not have shirts on. The pictures I have from MEDCAPs performed by the 9th Infantry Division show kids wearing shirts, so I sculpted them out of Magic Sculpt. I dropped the kid with the slingshot and his right leg broke off. I reattached it and reinforced it with putty.

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The other guy pulling security and watching the target practice session is a very slight conversion of a figure I sculpted back in 2020 which is now produced by Custom Dioramics in their YANKS figure line. All I did was change the head with one from Hornet, add a boonie hat from one of Bravo 6's LRRP figures, and add an M16 slung over his shoulder.

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Thanks for looking. Hopefully I will be completing more soon.
Cheers ,
James
 
Here is the Battalion Surgeon preparing to listen to the heart and lungs of a young patient. He is a conversion of a German figure from PanzerArt that I had started a year or so ago as I was originally going to use him in another diorama and had already sculpted most of the jungle fatigue details and switched out the boots with jungle boots from Bravo 6. When I decided to use him for the MEDCAP diorama, I replaced the head with one that I had modified a couple of years ago, added a right arm from Bravo 6 and a left arm from Hobby Fan. I made the stethoscope last night out of copper wire with the part that touches the person to listen to the heart out of Magic Sculpt. I think he turned out well. There is going to be an interpreter next to him explaining to the boy that the doctor is going to listen to his heart.

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Here is the figure of the interpreter. He is a conversion of the ARVN Soldier from Masterbox's "Somewhere in Saigon" kit. Since I had already started him for an earlier project, all I did yesterday and today was add a Hornet head wearing a boonie hat from one of Bravo 6's LRRP kits, use arms from ICMs CH54 Crew, fill gaps, put on name tapes, and sculpt hair. After looking at the photos, I think I may add some putty to make the fly of the trousers. Included are photos of where he may possibly be positioned near the Battalion Surgeon.

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I wasn't very pleased with the front of the interpreter's trousers, so today I added the fly and defined the front pockets. I think he looks better now...and his gig line is pretty straight. :)

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Progress from the past several days includes a doctor checking a patient's mouth and throat using a tongue depressor and a penlight and a Distinguished looking Vietnamese lady who was one of the teachers at the school where the MEDCAP is being conducted.

The doctor is a conversion of a Bravo 6 WW2 German who is a barber. The Vietnamese woman is a conversion of a figure from B&L Models.

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Thanks for looking.
Cheers,
James
 
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