Creature from the Trumpeter Lagoon (1/35 African Freedom Fighters)

[Frank3k]

It's well known that the "sculptors" in Trumpeter's figure department have only a passing familiarity with the proportions of the human body. The majority of Trumpeter's figures look vaguely human and require extensive plastic surgery to bring them to H.Sapiens standards. This would be understandable if the sculptors were one-eyed gelatinous blobs with only grainy interstellar fax images of what humans look like.

You buy Trumpeter figures for the weapons or other non-figure bits.

I bought their 1/35 African Freedom Fighters at a discount, mainly for the various AKs and RPGs included in the kit. I already knew that the figures were very, very bad, even by Trumpeter standards. See the example below; not a knock or comment on this modeler's work, since they did a pretty good job with what they got:

https://www.reddit.com/r/farcry/comments/xpk5tv/135_far_cry_3_somewhere_on_rook_island_miniatures/

The guy with the RPG is one of the worst:


I wanted to build an African soldier for a future build. Something like this:



I also want to stay current with heavily modifying figures and get some experience painting darker skin tones. The guy with the RPG is hopeless, so I started with the wispy bachelor behind him, just standing there with an AK.

This figure - as built - would be tall for 1/35 but not unreasonably so. The legs, from the ankles to knee and knees to hips are correctly proportioned for a 1/35 figure - the torso, arms and feet proportions are completely off. I carved into the upper body so that the legs would fit a little higher. The feet were big, even for 1/32 so I replaced them with roughly normal feet from - ironically - a Trumpeter CH-47 crew member. Comparing the arms to other 1/35 figures, the upper arms were OK, but the forearms were far too long. I trimmed about 1.5mm from them. The right hand is a little large but OK. I replaced the left hand because the fingers were just a blob of plastic.

I'm not sure about the face - the head looks roughly in proportion. I'll see how it looks with some primer.

Not much can be done with the static pose but here he is is with some friends - French Mechanic, Zombie John McEnroe and one of my first figures, from the DML motorcycle set:



With the French Mechanic, who's a 3D scan of a real human and scales out to around 5'8":



 

[Story]

You're not kidding anyone, you're already adept at making silk purses out of sows' ears.

Disguise the shortcomings, put them in rain gear.

Seems like most of the pics I remember from SE Congo during the Pan-African War were taken during rain-sodden miserable conditions.


Unhappiness abounds



You could even recycle some of those WW2 Germans in long winter coats, paint the boots up as bright green Wellingtons

[Mig Eater]

I'm curious, were did you get the 3D model for the French mechanic? I wouldn't mind having one to help with my builds too

[Frank3k]

From ReedOak in France. He has the same figures in a wide range of scales. The mechanic is a 3D scan of this guy:

[Old Wombat]

note that the front fenders haven't been attached; I'm trying to replicate one (or both) with copper or aluminum foil that I can crumple to replicate damage.

I hope that works out!

Build is cruising along nicely!

[Frank3k]

I posted the update in the wrong, but related thread... moved it over

[Frank3k]

The Trumpeter figures are just hopelessly misshapen. It's not just the body segment proportions, but I noticed the rib cages just aren't normal. Maybe if they'd been squashed by a tank...

Instead, I used this Minart set Somewhere on our planet. Sharing a smoke I finished what will be the T-55A's tank commander and I'm working on the other figures as well. The twp Western soldiers are tall, but not unreasonably so. All the figures have human proportions and stances.

This is the tank commander -  he needs some work on the eyes and helmet and some dusting, but he's mostly done. The AK is from the Trumpeter set. Their weapon sets are good.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

That child soldier would look right at home standing next to one of those "Obsolete" mechanoid subjects from Bandai. 

[Frank3k]

Funny you mentioned that - I found the woman figure for one of the Obsolete kits and thought of using her, but her proportions were "too Anime" to be realistic.

[Frank3k]

I was going to add a couple of adult figures from the Trumpeter African Freedom Fighters set to the African T-55A build.  Two of the figures had heads that looked OK; some surgery might correct their bodies. The guy with the camo pants kept the Trumpeter head and torso (heavily modified). The arms were a combination of several arms from the set, plus some generic hands. The pants are from a Heller figure set, the lower legs are from yet another set.



This is what I wanted to build, but I realized that the Trumpeter figure's chest was too flat for the arms to work in that position. Maybe if he'd been run over by a tank...:



I ended up putting both figures aside; they were too much work, especially compared to the Minart figures:

[Robomog]

Nice work Frank.,  this is a top standard of  figure work that I aspire to, but will never reach 

Mog
>^-.-^<

[Frank3k]

Thanks! It's just a variation of Buzzbomb's method.

Brian uses a primer then uses a dark wash to shade the recesses. That's good enough for 90% of 1/35 and smaller figures, especially in the eyes and mouth. It's also a fine place to start if you want to detail the rest. For the African skin tone, I used Badger red brown Stynylrez primer (a rust color) then sprayed a thin layer of Scale 75 dark African skin, and just used a very thin wash of those paints for the rest of the skin.

The clothing was hand painted and I used a wash and Tamiya shading powders. I still need a lot of work there.

[Robomog]

Thanks for that, I have a stop/start  1/72 diorama in progress, this is helpful stuff

 

Mog
>^-.-^<