Resurrecting an old 1970s Tamiya figure

[Geoff]

Back in junior high and high school in the early 1970s I built a lot of models. I enjoyed the WW2 Tamiya figures and looked for their new releases. Anyway, one of my favorite US figures of the period was from the US infantry set - the soldier strolling with a hand in his tanker's jacket and holding a Thompson machine gun in the other. Not knowing better, I slapped some paint on the figure when I got the set. I took pains to try to match the uniform colors to my dad's WW2 shirt and trousers hanging in his closet, but the paint job was still pretty basic, with no thought of highlighting or shadowing. (I painted the corporal stripes using the pointed head of a pin dipped in paint. I liked that better than a pointed brush).

[Geoff]

I saved a lot of my model figures from back then, thinking I might eventually find some use for them. I've really enjoyed seeing the work of others on this forum, so I finally got inspired to dig this figure from a box in the attic and try to update it. I recently heard about 1/35th scale detailed heads from "Hornet" and liked what I saw online. I decided to give it a try with this figure.

 

I went onto Youtube to see how others recommend attaching the Hornet head to a figure, and gave it a try.

 

Here's the old Tamiya figure after having just removed the original head, and opening my new Hornet Head package. Also a pic with the new Hornet head on the body. The angle came out with the chin lifted up, like the soldier was looking up - but for my first time trying this I was satisfied.

[Geoff]

Back in the 70s I was so anxious to get paint on the figures that I made little effort to file away mold lines or stuff like that. I decided for this remake that I would do it right this time. I filed away all the old mold seams. I also decided that the original figure was light on combat equipment. I guessed that a GI seeing combat in western Europe would probably have a minimum of a first aid kit hanging from his belt, extra ammo for his Thompson, and an entrenching tool. I grabbed an entrenching tool from my old Tamiya parts kit. For the first aid kit and Thompson ammo pouch I decided to try sculpting those with Apoxie Sculpt modeling clay. I decided that it would be easier to fit a three clip Thompson ammo pouch onto the area I had rather than the larger 5 clip pouch, so I sculpted the three clip pouch on his right front. Probably hung it too low on the model but still didn't look bad for as rusty as I am at this and never having worked with Apoxie Sculpt before. I also wanted to add a sling for the Thompson. I wound up using blue painter's tape and gluing the tape onto the gun, then painting the tape sling.

 

[patches]

looks good

[Geoff]

Here's the results after painting the reworked figure. I wanted to get a grungy, dirty feel to the figure - beard shadow on his jaw, grime on his uniform - like the grimy uniforms seen in the movie "Fury". Here's how it all came out. Oh, after painting it up I really didn't like that the Hornet figures don't have chin straps molded onto the rear of the helmets, so I added a chinstrap to the figure made again of blue painter's tape and painted. I think the result is a little fat and out of scale, but I still like seeing the strap rather than having it missing.

[Geoff]

I was pleased with the finished figure, but now wondered about maybe a background or small diorama to show it on. I've never built a diorama before, and I wanted to keep my effort as cheap as possible, so I decided to use as much material lying around my house as possible. I started by cutting a board base into a 7" square. Since my figure wound up with his head pointed slightly upward, I wondered how a city street scene might look. Maybe put some building fronts behind him and a cobblestone street.

 

After sizing the base I used Apoxie Sculpt again to lay down a base for cobblestones. After putting the layer of modeling clay down I formed a square/rectangle shape from a stripe of thick card stock paper and pressed cobblestone shapes into the clay.

 

I decided to use a mixture of foam board shapes and styrene strips to model the buildings in the background. I have both at home, so planning as I went I started constructing some period style buildings, deciding to make the scene a captured German town or city in early 1945.

 

I was mostly concerned with how this would look from the front, so the construction in the rear of the diorama is very basic.

 

[Geoff]

I added a second building to the right side. The drain pipe coming down the side of the buildings is made from thin round wooden strips glued together and shaped at the angles. The blue bands on the wood pipe are blue painters tape again, cut and wound to make pipe joints where pipe sections fit together. Then I began painting.

[Geoff]

After a couple of coats of paint I did some light weathering with washes of acrylic paint, then added a sign to the left-hand building. I also found an image of a late WW2 "Volksturm" poster online, printed that off on my color printer, and added it to the right-hand building. At first I left the large window front on the right open, but decided to board it up. I used styrene strips painted to look like weathered lumber. I also began adding battle damage to the buildings. I used a small, pointed modeling tool to scrape paint off the building fronts where I wanted bullet holes to show, and also drove the point of the tool into the foam board to give the bullet holes depth. I also added a door handle to the brown wood door at this point, and a white "surrender" flag hanging from the left-hand upper story window. I made the flag from the thin aluminum of a soda can and glued it to a wire. I wanted to add some depth to the upper story windows, so I added foam board pieces behind the building fronts and painted the inside sections black. Then I added clear plastic pieces to the window frames I made. So now it likes like the building extends into the background,

[Geoff]

Next I cut up styrene strips, broke some tooth picks, and cut out blocks of foam board and styrene to simulate bricks, and added these to the scene. I also added wood putty around the rubble to simulate dirt and other debris, and then painted it. The wood putty was painted a US Marine Desert tan color to simulate mud or medium colored dirt. The "brick"s were painted white, grey, and British Uniform Red, then brushed with tan and black in places. The styrene strips were painted to resemble weathered boards, with some black added to simulate charring from fire.

 

After laying this all down I placed my figure into the scene to see how everything looked.

[Garandomatic]

Very cool!

[72psb]

Nice reentry! It's like you never left.What's next?

Bob

[Geoff]

Just figured out why my photos were coming out so small! Sorry about that, everyone! After testing out my figure on the diorama I had built up to this point I noticed that most of the rubble got lost from the photo - either placed to near the front of the base, or hidden in the back of the scene. So I decided to add more rubble and dirt around the buildings.

 

There! These pics are much better. You can see how the wood putty makes a nice dirt and rubble base when painted. You can also see more of the details such as bullet holes and stuff in these larger pics. I added a small sign to the front of the scene - supposed to represent a porcelain Deutches Arbeitsfront sign either pulled or blown off a building that was destroyed and now lies in the street.

[Old Marine]

Nice job! I always liked that figure, you did a good job updating him.

[Geoff]

In addition to adding more rubble, I decided to add some abandoned German equipment on the street. I found a company called LiveResin.com that makes incredible German M43 helmet shells, so I bought a package. The shape and detailing is really nice, but there was a thick sprue bulge inside the helmet. I envisioned having the helmet laying on its side or top, so I used a thin modeler's file to gently file away the resin sprue. Then I added some Apoxie Sculpt clay inside the helmet and shaped it to resemble a German helmet liner. Finally I painted the helmet and liner. The German Army decal on the side of the helmet is just some blobs of black and white paint to vaguely resemble the Army "adler" shield, but the blobs do a good enough job from a distance.

[Geoff]

I also purchased a 1/35th scale Panzerfaust from a company called Easy Line. I didn't feel comfortable trying to scratch build one at this scale. I added a paper decal glued to the warhead to simulate the instructions seen on original Panzerfausts, and I dabbed some red paint on the firing tube to give a vague resemblance to the red warning stencils found on real panzerfaust tubes.

 

The second photo shows the panzerfaust and helmet lying on the cobblestone street in my diorama. I took some more blue painters tape and made chinstraps for the German helmet.

[Proud Kraut]

Excellent job! I like that vignette very much. Could you please add some larger pics of the whole dio.

 

Lars

[Geoff]

So, I finally had the scene I wanted. I couldn't remove the old base on the figure without possibly damaging it, so I wound up gluing the figure in place and adding more wood putty/dirt and rubble over the top of the old base to cover it up. Not necessarily my first choice to mount the figure this way, but I figured it was my best option. Here are some pics of the finished diorama.

 

The street level scene in the second photo was what I was striving to achieve.

 

[Geoff]

Here's another view with a shadow cast by my body across the scene as I took the photo. It could pass as the shadow of another building across the street from this scene, however, and I kind of liked the overall effect. I also include here a black and white image to simulate a WW2 combat photograph.

[Geoff]

One final photo - the lighting in this photo really made the figure almost come to life. I didn't like how he was almost at the very left hand edge, but I liked the angle and and overall effect, so I thought I'd share this as one last pic!

[BILL THE PATCH]

Very cool, never had the patience when I was a kid for models.

 

Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk

 

 

[respectingthesacrifice]

Excellent work, really like the black and white pic, back in 1945!

[The Meatcan]

Great job Geoff! It must be highly gratifying to see how your skills and modeling abilities have grown over the decades. Thanks for sharing this with us!

Terry

[Garandomatic]

Outstanding. Really well done, especially the rubble. I'm taking notes!

[M24 Chaffee]

Great work and excellent photos!

 

Frank

[sundance]

Amazing work - thanks for posting. Hope to see more as time passes.