Many thanks again to Alan, Mark and Godan! This installment completes the basic torso construction with the addition of the left arm. After this, its all detail, detail (and more detail)! I'm glad to report the tissue layer is well under way now and the results so far are going really well. If I was trying to get the effect of thicker fabric like Battledress or an earlier period figure I might need to try something different, but for a 'sweat soaked shirt' the effect is spot on! More on that in the second installment to follow!

Ok then, as promised I took some more pics during the left arm construction so here’s a more detailed explanation of the procedure. Photo 1 shows the action figure left arm positioned into the required pose for the figure. By ensuring the little screws are sufficiently tightened, the arm will retain its pose during the moulding process. The first task as with the right arm was to apply white silicone household sealer to the elbow joint and also around the shoulder to prevent the silicone from leaking inside the arm. This time though, as you can see in Photo 2, I didn’t bother trying to fill in the screw holes as I did the first time around. It was far easier to fill them in with the Superfine Milliput on the resin cast than it was to use the sealer on the original part and then have to sand down the rough resin afterwards. The same Photo 2 illustrates the Lego brick mould box with part of it removed to show the layers inside. The light blue base is a thin layer of plasticene used to seal the bottom of the box. Onto this was poured a thin (1/4 inch or so) layer of liquid silicone which was allowed to cure fully before the arm was placed inside and another pouring of silicone mixed up to half cover it as shown here. I had to place a weight down on the arm to keep it from floating up in the liquid rubber. In future, instead of using that base of plasticene in cases where the prototype is resting on a cured layer of rubber, I’ll be using a Lego base plate – the flat plate onto which Lego bricks are stuck. I’ve just sent off for one and when it arrives that will produce a sealed bottom to the mould box instead. The plasticene is only really needed where the object has to be half embedded for a two-part mould!
Photo 3 shows the cured first half of the mould with the three sides having had their top edges sliced off to create the locating lugs for the second half, the removed strips are just visible on the right. With the plasticene base layer peeled away and the top surface of the rubber liberally waxed with Vaseline (especially those cut away strips), the silicone mould was again encased in the Lego box and the sides built up higher for pouring the second half of the rubber as shown in Photo 4 with the result shown in Photo 5 with the first half shown on the left. Photo 6 illustrates the shoulder joint part of the mould in close up, waiting for the central portion to be punched out of the rubber to create the pouring hole for the resin. After the leather punch was pushed through the rubber we produce the nice clean hole as shown in Photo 7. With the two halves of the mould joined up, this is where the liquid resin will be poured in through. Photo 8 shows the completed casting after about twenty minutes of curing. This was actually the second attempt at casting, the first try consisted of mixing up 6ml of each part of the resin giving a total of 12ml which was poured down the hole and left to cure. Bit of a waste but I just wanted to see a) how far up the mould it would fill and b) to make sure the resin reached all the way to the wrist, ie, no air bubble problems. I should have added more resin later to complete the casting but just couldn’t resist taking the half casting out to inspect it. Once it was out, it wouldn’t go fully back in again! The full casting was about 35ml in total, again poured in smaller amounts until the mould was filled. The first attempt came in quite useful in fact as I could use it later as a comparison to show the before and after Milliput applications. These are illustrated in Photos 9 and 10 and show how the elbow was built up and the screw holes filled in and sanded smooth. Note how the partial casting had a very thin skin of resin forming the upper arm as a result of the mould laying on its side! Photo 11 shows the resin arm test fitted onto the torso prior to again cutting off the forearm and epoxy gluing the upper arm to the shoulder. Whilst it was in this position I again marked the arm and shoulder with pencil to ensure the upper arm went back in the proper position. Finally, (that ruddy tune again) the upper arm was Milliputted into the shoulder as shown in Photo 12. And at last (not finally) the torso/upper arms are ready for the tissue paper ‘shirt’ to be applied!
In the next instalment I will finish off the main base for the figure with the largest silicone mould so far in this project!
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Looking good and progressing well.



Regards
delboy271155
(Derek)

Wonderful work Robin. You have certainly become an expert in resin casting. All looks most impressive

Brilliant work Robin!

Regards,
Phil W.

Many thanks again to Tony, Mark, Phil and Alan, greatly appreciated as always!
Not quite an expert yet Tony! I'm still learning a lot and although the simple moulds such as the base work are coming out pretty well, the more complicated castings are still more of an art than a science! When I reach the casting of the webbing equipment I'll show you some of the 'almost but not quites'!
So at last, and just for Godan, here's the tissue paper shirt - part one!

The first question I had to think about with creating a tissue paper shirt was how on earth do I get the material to wrap around a three dimensional figure? By closely studying photos of the actual shirts I was able to work out a system of completing the tissue application in stages as illustrated by Photo 1. The task could be broken down into seven stages by following the way that the real cloth was stitched or fastened together. In the factory the shirts were sewn together from possibly five pieces of cloth – left and right front panels (a and b), the back panel (which may or may not have been more than one piece, but one’s good enough for me!) ( c ) and the two sleeves (d and e). In my case, the rolled up sleeves would be a separate application (f and g). On top of this would go the two breast pockets as you’ll see later.
I began by marking out the sections with pencil lines and then liberally painting the first area with PVA glue (the cheapie ‘DIY time’ range from Poundland – a whole 500ml for a pound and perfectly good for this job.) A rectangle of fine white tissue paper was then cut a little larger than the required area and applied with the straight edge of the tissue following the centre line up the breast. Because the tissue is slightly larger than the figure, pushing it into place with a stiff bristled quarter inch flat paint brush causes the tissue to ‘bunch up’ creating natural folds and pleats in the paper. As Godan mentioned earlier you have to use a lot of PVA, both on the figure itself and also painted over the tissue right after application. The tissue paper was purchased on Ebay for just a couple of pounds (if that) and is apparently made in the good ‘ol US of A, it’s called Jolie Papier and comes in an eight sheet pack of which this figure has probably used about a tenth of one sheet! Photo 2 shows the figure after two layers of tissue with the breast pocket in place. I then decided it needed a thicker skin of tissue and plastered on another two layers over the top of the pocket, rebuilding that item again later on. The final four-layer application and the new pocket are shown in Photo 3. By painting only the enclosed areas inside the pencil lines, the tissue is easy to trim back to the edges once the glue is virtually dry, (the armpits are the hardest parts to trim!). Once trimmed back , the creased tissue was given a final sealing coat of PVA to stabilise the surface.
With the first side completed, it was time to repeat the process on the opposite breast as shown in Photo 4. Although on the real shirt this side overlaps the other, for the tissue I only had to butt the tissue seams together, the ‘proper’ seam with the shirt buttons in will be added later as a separate piece. Again, and to match up with the first side, this is four layers of tissue paper applied with copious amounts of PVA glue. That completed the front basic layering, and then I could move onto the back of the shirt. This was done in a single sheet after first applying the glue to the Milliput torso following the pencil lines under the arms and painting the glue up to the front layers at the shoulders. Photo 5 shows the process under way with the first layer applied and ‘creased’ into shape. Once the glue was dry the excess around the armpits could then be carefully sliced away, as seen here.
That completed the main areas so the next section was to start the upper arms between the shoulder joint and the rolled up lower sleeve. This was slightly different in that I couldn’t pre-cut the tissue to the approximate shape and size of the area like the front and back panels. Instead, I had to cut a strip of tissue to about the length of the arm, paint the Milliputed area with the PVA and carefully apply the tissue, wrapping or winding it around the arm multiple times to build up the four or so layers (possibly more than that in this instance). The first roll of tissue is shown going on in Photo 6 with the second application, overlapping the rolled sleeve in Photo 7. Once again, lots of PVA! The other difference in this section is that the tissue doesn’t end in a straight hem, it was actually ripped off to remove the excess and the torn edge blended in with more brushed on PVA.
Before finishing off with the sleeve cuffs, Photo 8 shows the construction of the breast pockets. These are just strips of tissue cut to the width of the pocket and folded concertina-like to the required height. I then PVA’d the bottom layer to the shirts and slowly added the other layers one by one with a coat of glue between each one, finishing off with glue over the whole thing to both bind it together and to accentuate the creases. Each pocket received two such strips to build up the thickness. The top pocket flap was made in the same way but glued together off the model with the bottom edge then scissor-cut to make the angled profile. The final section was the pair of rolled up cuffs. These were essentially the same as the upper arms but thinner strips applied into a thicker layer to achieve the more wrinkled effect. The upper edge was blended into the arms whilst the lower one was carefully brushed into place around and under the Milliput cuff. This is shown in Photos 9 and 10 with the finished effect shown in Photo 11.
All in all, the tissue technique has worked really well to produce a ‘sweat soaked’ thin shirt effect. If I was trying to get a thicker cloth appearance, like for instance, battledress or earlier woollen clothing then I think it would need a different approach to get thicker creases.
In the next instalment, making the collars and epaulettes – from one extreme to the other combining light as a feather tissue with lead! (Oh, and button making too!)
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Many thanks for those kind words Mr T! You're right, there is a bit of 'she-ness' there! It's a combination of two things - firstly I modelled the Milliput shirt foundation directly onto the resin cast of the action figure torso, in hindsight I should probably have hollow cast it and then filled it up with solid resin which would have allowed me to use some coarse sanding to remove much of the "Mr Universe" musculature back to a more 'natural' appearance. Such pronounced chest muscles need a lot of Milliput! Secondly, the effect is exaggerated by the way I fit the photos into the page. I often either stretch or compress them after cropping to fit the space and this can alter the dimensions too!
Fortunately its a lot less noticeable on the actual figure and as you thought, adding the equipment over the top does reduce it even more (especially the pair of Basic Pouches coming soon!)
So to finish off the shirt, here's the Heavy Metal part!...

I thought long and hard about the possibilities of making the collar out of the same tissue paper. The only way I could see to do it was to lay multiple layers of tissue, pre-painted with the PVA and then wait until the thickened material was almost dry before cutting it to shape and bending to form the folded collar. With that technique a possibility I decided there must be an easier way! I therefore decided to return to my old favourite – self-adhesive lead sheet! Unfortunately, my widest roll of DecraLed wasn’t quite wide enough to form the collar so I went looking on Ebay to see if there were any alternatives. Actually that’s not quite true – I went looking on Ebay for wider alternatives to create the Basic Pouches, which form part of the webbing equipment, before this section! And I found just what I needed, instead of a roll some metres long by a cm wide I found a shorter length of about a foot or so long by 6cm wide. This was perfect for making the pouches as you’ll see later with loads left over to make the collar and epaulettes too. If I remember rightly I found it in the sports section of all places, I believe the lead sheet is used for balancing golf clubs! It’s actually thicker than the DecraLed strip, almost the same as that one folded double. Photos 12 and 13 show the initial forming of the collar and epaulettes. The collar is formed from three pieces; the main collar which folds around the neck and the two smaller sections (no idea what they’re called) with the top button and button hole on. You might just make out a slight texture on the epaulettes and button hole bits, this was caused by rolling the lead sheet flat with my steel roller which has tiny striations in the roller – by rolling at right angles a nice ‘weave’ effect is produced, (of course I’d already put on the collar before I discovered that!) In order to get a uniform texture (excuse the pun) on the collar and epaulettes I then carefully painted over the lead with PVA and applied layers of tissue as seen in Photo 14. In this shot the collar has received a single application whilst the epaulette on the right is getting its second or third. Each layer was allowed to dry completely before the excess tissue was trimmed back. After all the tissuing was done I stared long and hard at the final appearance before deciding that the collars were not wide enough. That was a little unfortunate, especially as I’d previously trimmed the lead sheet back thinking they were too wide! I wasn’t going through all that again so I simply extended the collars out again using Superfine Milliput with a single tissue paper surface added on once set. The additions can be seen in Photo 15 along with the central shirt hem and buttons. That hem was once again a folded over and PVA’d strip of tissue, but unlike the pockets, forming the thin strip was extremely difficult. Getting the ultra thin sheet of tissue to fold over when wet with glue did not go easily (even harder with sticky glued fingers as well!) It got there in the end though and was finished off with a set of buttons along with two more on the epaulettes.
And to finish off this instalment: those buttons. Photo 16 illustrates the method used to create the little things. A rod of 2mm diameter styrene was first drilled down into on the end with a 0.35mm bit to create the four holes. Once they were drilled and cleaned out I then lightly sanded the end of the rod to create a slightly dished profile before carefully slicing off the end with a thickness of about 0.5mm to create the individual button. Now if I had a nice expensive drill stand with a dead accurate mini work vice I might have been able to drill those holes at dead right angles and gone deep enough to then slice off button after button. Unfortunately I haven’t, so each one was produced with a hand held pin vice. If I was lucky I got a couple of buttons out before the holes went out of alignment and I had to cut off the end of the rod and re-drill for the next one!
So that’s the shirt completed. In the next instalment I can begin to start adding on the lead strip webbing made earlier and begin planning how to make his equipment to hang off it.
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Making great progress with this, really looking good....

Regards

Alan

Many thanks for those kind words again to Mark, Alan and Ian! Greatly appreciated as always!
Apologies for not posting earlier, damned migraines have popped up again! Anyway, he's progressing bit by bit, most of the equipment is actually modeled now, just have to create the moulds to replicate the parts in resin. In this installment the DecraLed webbing made earlier finally makes a re-appearance!
The first task was to take the Pattern 37 webbing belt with buckle I made earlier and prepare it for attaching to the body. Photo 14 shows the belt and buckle with a small section of the DecraLed belt cut off from the other end. In actual use, the full sized belt would pass through the buckle and be looped back inside itself with the brass end-strap then being hooked into the sewn pockets on the inner face. The problem is, there’s no way to achieve that with a lead belt and a resin buckle! So despite all the trouble taken to obtain that hollowed out buckle, I’ll be having to cut off the outer part to simulate the belt looping around it. Photo 15 shows the little lead piece folded around the buckle to give me the exact position for the two cuts whilst Photo 16 illustrates the belt in position on the torso. I first super glued the buckle and about an inch of the belt to the front of the torso and then carefully wrapped the rest of the belt around the waist until it met up with the buckle again. I could then apply super glue around the inside of the lead, leaving about an inch and a half unglued up to the buckle. I then measured the distance that the other end of the belt actually does loop around the buckle and marked that on the free end, cutting off the excess. The unglued section of belt was then folded over and glued to the inside face before the whole section of belt was finally glued to the torso. The folded end now sits in the gap created by cutting away that buckle bar, giving the impression of passing through it. I now had to make up the matching brass retaining clip from the brass PE fret using the left over section of belt snipped off earlier as shown in Photo 17 and fitted in position in Photo 18. Again this is an illusion of sorts, unlike the other retainer which does go down behind the belt, this one is cut off just on the bent top and bottom and simply ‘sits’ on top of the belt. There is a small gap under the centre of the resin buckle (as there should be of course), but as the torso will eventually be made into a hollow cast mould, I can’t have any complete undercuts which would allow the liquid rubber to get in underneath and ‘trap’ the details, probably destroying the original during removal from the mould. So the gap was filled in with Milliput later as I tidied up the base of the torso as seen in Photo 19. Pushing, pulling and prodding the lead belt into position resulted in the dips and dents at the bottom of the belt. Using one of the clay modelling tools I carefully evened up the edge and once the cross section looked ok I filled in the gap between the belt and the torso with Superfine Milliput, at the same time filling in under that buckle. Eventually the base will be a solid flat plate of plasticard with a rectangular plug extending below to fit into the pedestal, but until I’ve finalised all the locating holes and pins for his equipment to fit into and onto, I need to have access to the inside – pins have to be glued from the interior and holes need to be blanked off to prevent the rubber flowing in!
With the belt in position, the next job was the pair of shoulder straps or braces. At the front, these straps are joined onto the equipment but at the back they pass through a pair of brass buckles shown on the real thing in Photo 20. I first measured the distance between the centres of each buckle and then converted that into 1/6th scale and halved it. Then, marking the centre of the back I measured out each side and marked where the buckle centres would be as shown in Photo 21. Now the braces pass through those buckles and, either dangle loose if nothing is attached or else are attached to whatever equipment is hung below them. Although the buckles are actually part of the belt as shown, in the figure they will instead be part of a resin strap with a locating hole to attach them in place (there’s a lot of forward planning required in this one!) So for the time there’s just a couple of small holes to mark their positions as seen here. I could now attach the first of the braces / shoulder straps by positioning the wider shoulder part centrally over the shoulder as shown in Photo 22. This was super glued into place with the front strap run down vertically whilst the shoulder strap was carefully curved around to allow the rear strap to line up with the previously marked buckle hole. With the first one in place the second was then fitted on, crossing over the first on its way to the buckle as illustrated in Photo 23, with the full effect shown in Photos 24 and 25. Although the entire webbing was super glued into place, when I later worked in the suspension buckles for the Basic Pouches down the front strap, the first one came away from the shoulder pad, this made the whole buckle fitting job so much easier that I then deliberately pulled the second one off when it was that one’s turn! Again, just like the belt buckle, it was then necessary to examine the edges of the webbing straps for any signs of ‘undercutting’ which would then require filling in with tiny pieces of Milliput to avoid the liquid rubber getting in behind. You can just make out a little filler under the shoulder strap in Photo 24 where it passes over the epaulette giving a small gap before fitting tight again.
In the next installment he becomes much more recognisably British with the creation of the pair of Basic Pouches.

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Lovely work Robin regards Phil

Many thanks again to Mark, Phil and Chris, greatly appreciated as always. Apologies again for the delay in posting, I've been without a computer for nearly a fortnight! A long story involving over-ambitious clean ups evidently deleting something I shouldn't have leading to a windows xp losing every race with garden snails! Eventually with an ebay xp rescue disk (with a licence code it wouldn't recognise) and a repair (which was recognised after I found the original xp sticker on the side of the case!) I've managed to get back up and running again. I will be up-grading to windows 7 before the new year (yes I know that's ancient too but its the best one I can go to with over 90% of my programs still compatible!)
Any how, I haven't been idle! I just have a lot of photos and text to arrange to carry on with the diary. Until then here's a description of the next item that's all ready done and waiting to post up!

The Pattern 1937 Basic Pouch.

During the Great War, the British Infantryman was issued with the Pattern 1908 Webbing. This was very similar to the webbing used in the Second World War in many respects apart from one. The P’08 equipment was designed to allow the soldier to carry everything HE required – from as much ammunition as he could bear to his water bottle and entrenching tools etc. The difference between this and the subsequent Pattern 1937 Webbing modelled on this figure is that now the PBI had to carry not only his own ammo but that of the section heavy weapons as well! He still had his trusty .303 Enfield with up to a hundred rounds but now other members of his squad would be carrying the BREN light machine guns and two-inch mortars along with (in the early part of the war) the Boyes Anti-tank rifle. Instead of the P’08 individual cartridge pouches on either side of his chest the British Tommy now had an item designed to carry all the various kinds of ammunition – this was the Basic Pouch.
Photos 1 to 4 illustrates this vital piece of kit. This one is actually RAF issue as you can tell by the (now faded) blue colour but this is a true WW2 item issued in 1942 (see the stamp inside the top flap in Photo 4). Later in the war the brass snap fastener was replaced with a steel buckle quick release strap, I’ve got a couple of those too but dated post war. Photo 2 shows the rear of the pouch with the strap from the shoulder brace, in actual fact that strap would hang down another six inches or more to be buckled onto whatever was carried below (in my case a water bottle on the right hand side and nothing on the left). The pair of big brass hooks under the strap would be attached to the sewn pockets on the inside of the webbing belt locking the whole webbing set together. Officers who didn’t normally carry the Basic Pouches had to have an extension piece called a Brace Attachment to lock the braces and belt together. Fortunately I don’t need to model those hooks as they’re hidden behind the pouch but I do have to make that triangular attachment at the top! Photo 5 shows the pouch along side some of the items it would have carried – it was specifically designed to carry two fully loaded Bren gun magazines or two Boyes Anti-tank gun magazines (which I haven’t got any of), or, a pair of two inch mortar bombs (the one shown here is post war from the ‘70’s which I found up on Dartmoor after one of the Military Night Exercises – along with its little silk parachute! This is an illumination round, the ones you see lighting up the place as it floats down in war films. Those were the days! I picked up loads of brass cartridges and other paraphernalia in my youth, some of it dated back to the war years. Best thing we found was a belt of unfired 7.62 machine gun ammo – but Dad handed that into the Police! On the right are ten rounds of .303, each pouch could take a hundred rounds, fifty in loose five round chargers or clips, and a fifty round single use cotton bandolier. And finally bottom right, the good old Hand Grenade of which you can get around half a dozen inside. (No, I didn’t find that one up there!) In actual combat situations most of the infantry carried a combination of all of the above. In the next installment, building the model pouches and attachments ready for casting.
Until then Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.