It Started With a Bike.....1/35 Alsace rest stop with playful kids.

[rtfoe]

Hi Guys, it really started with a bike kit I bought when I was down in Singapore and then the ideas started flowing which became this...



This it how began...the kit I purchased was the MiniArt Harley with the resting soldier on it. I just had to do something about it besides just leaving it static which could have been just as good. There were some weird ideas of his pals running for shelter from an in coming shell while he still slept but I have always wanted to try my hand in sculpting kids since finding them in the right poses was next to impossible. So the idea first came with just kids just staring at the sleeping soldier then I took one step further and perhaps have one tease the sleeping soldier. That posed a problem with height and further planning.

Anyway the kit bike was put together real quickly but I had a problem with fitting the figure on the bike as he didn't sit properly and looked like he floated. There was a lot of fettling, puttying, swearing, sweat and adjusting to get it right but lets start with the contents of the box...



The kit comes with PE parts for the wheel spokes and levers and panels. Spokes missing here cos I was too fast with the nippers than photographing...



Surprisingly lots of flash at the seamlines so didn't look forward to clean up.



Oops...sorry, again the nippers went crazy...



Discs were supplied to help shape the PE spokes.It would have been better if they were deeper as the PE tended to spring back. I didn't do too good a job on the assembly...it was quite a wrestling match.



Notice how I positioned the bad assembly where the wheel would be covered by the saddle bag in the rear and for the front the yoke. The rest of the assembly was just stick em where they go. I really had to study the instruction as I went cos I don't know bike parts...not like planes where you get a body, wings and a tail.



I got all the PE on...nothing left on the sprue which was a wow for me, I usually have some leftovers.



The problem with the floating started with the bad way the coat, helmet and blanket rested on the bike. On hindsight I should have replaced it with a scratched coat from two part putty but I stuck with the kit part and it would haunt me like a domino effect.



Lets' see how I tackled that in the next post...

Cheers,
Richard

[Steve Jones]

This was one of my favourite builds that you did Richard. It will be great to see it again. Thanks for sharing

[Tim Marlow]

Always loved this one. A very inventive way of showing off a build that was very well executed.

[minitnkr]

One of my faves.

[Jim R]

Hi Richard
A real favourite. The 'floating GI' - how often are figures supplied with a kit and then we find they don't fit properly. Pilots, drivers etc. Very frustrating.
Jim

[rtfoe]

Thanks Steve, Tim, Paul and Jim, glad it was your favourite. It's been five years and how time flies. I remember rushing it for my trip to Shizuoka I should have taken R&R instead as everyone was asking about it and rather spend more time working the two figure sculpts which to me ended up looking like monkeys or puppets from the Stingray series. :smiling6:
I guess tooling a mold for a guy resting on his motorbike in plastic with multiple parts is not easy. I didn't do a good job of it either trying to get it to fit with added putty and slightly distorting the figure. I do commend the kit makers for being creative with this pose.

From the image below you can see his head and shoulders with a gap of at least 3mm from where it should rest. I wonder, was he supposed to have his arms above and his hands under his head initially...now that would have been a nice pose too.


I decided to work the other way round and get the mountain to meet Mohammed and fill the bottom up.



Whilst I was puttying up around the rider aka Mohammed's head I painted up the bike first with a Nato Black base and with the help of disc shaped paper mask I sprayed a light mixture of olive drab and buff. Then picked out the seat and saddle bags with red brown letting the Nato Black base show through as darken shadows.



The empty space was filled up with a scratched towel under the helmet.



I also beefed up the rolled sleeves with left over putty. At the time I hadn't discovered Magic Sculpt yet until my next trip to Singapore. so working with the local putty was difficult as it wasn't fine enough and got powdery as it began curing loosing it's stickiness.



In the end the coat was unrecognisable and I was pressed for time.



There was still a gap near his seat so another towel was stuffed in and I added a belt and holster for his .45 colt automatic.



That's the bike guy...now for the rest of the dio...

Cheers,
Richard

[Steve Jones]

Five years! OMG.

[Neil Merryweather]

Five years! OMG.

I know , it seems like only last year!
I never saw it finished, so looking forward to the journey Richard

[rtfoe]

Yes Steve, 5 years and time really flies Neil. Good, this will go all the way cos when I got back from Shizuoka I concentrated on the Pacific dio of Peleliu.

Now the idea of the little girl teasing the GI created some composition problems. There was the simple finger prodding the GI's elbow but I had to complicate things like tickling his nose. For that I needed height, would she be on sandbags or wooden crates...that would have been too conveniently placed or inconspicuous. In the end I decided on steps to elevate her and to complicate it even further, spiral steps. :rolling:

Expanded polystyrene is what I worked with and had lots of it hanging around compliments from IKEA...



Now I discovered when cutting a spiral staircase, it goes on and on and I had to decide how wide it was going to be and where it would end. Thank goodness it was a stone stair and not steel.



The steps were carved and the walls added on. Cutting the curved wall pieces was done with the versatile NT cutter blade. The starting point of the stairs was another piece added.



All pieces were glued with Poly glue from Daiso. It acts like Uhu but doesn't dissolve the polystyrene.



I was lucky with one kid figure from MB just turning her head as far as possible. Then the teasing girl had to be scratched and this is the initial armature. The frame of children are different as they have small and shorter limbs and a big head. Also I should have used thinner wire twisted so that the putty could hold onto. If you have the stomach to view the close ups of the faces of the two little scratched figures then by all means you're welcome but do have something light...:smiling2:



After establishing the perimeters of the dio I covered the sides with cardboard and painted it black and placed it onto a timber beading base for a neat presentation.



Cheers,
Richard

[The Smythe Meister]

Lovely stuff Richard!
I missed this first time round,glad to have seen it now,it really is a cracking piece ,
I have that bike and wondered about how good the fit would be,i love your solutions to removing/hiding,and filling the "Gaps".... Ingenious :thumb2:!
Excellent work mate,
Andy

[rtfoe]

Thank you for the lovely comment Andy, glad you're not missing this but perhaps you should once you've seen the little girls face. :tears-of-joy:

I got around to showing this again when I heard the song "It started with a kiss..." by Hot Chocolate on the radio and remembered how the bike kit started it all.

From the basic shapes I moved onto the roof using card, balsa and paper straws I found in Daiso.



I fashioned a door from balsa and hinges from plastic strip and bolts from stretched sprue.



The building and stairs were detachable for easy application of the two part putty to create the masonry and cobble stone work.



This was the first time I used two part putty to coat the base structure and sculpt details. I worked in sections since the work time for the putty was about half an hour before it starts to harden.



I'll get to the figures next.

Cheers,
Richard

[GerryW]

Had that bike, but in a larger scale, did it as a post war custom, with a metallic blue paint job, and ape-hangers :tongue-out3: still got the Thompson and it's case in the odds and ends box.

[rtfoe]

Always wanted a Thompson Gerry but I'd be arrested even with a replica here. :loudly-crying:

Cheers,
Richard

[GerryW]

Always wanted a Thompson Gerry but I'd be arrested even with a replica here. :loudly-crying:

Cheers,
Richard

Can't even remember if it was a 1/9, 1/8 or a 1/6 scale now, or whose kit it was. Had working suspension (girders and seat) etc. though. Far enough off topic now, sorry.

[rtfoe]

Can't even remember if it was a 1/9, 1/8 or a 1/6 scale now, or whose kit it was. Had working suspension (girders and seat) etc. though. Far enough off topic now, sorry.

If it's a large kit, ESCI 1/9 scale comes to mind. I have a Zundapp "Elephant". Don't even know if the rubber parts are still in good shape. No worries Gerry, it's still a bike.

Now where were we...oh yes figures...

Out of the eight figures planned for the diorama, two had to be scratched due to the idea and composition. These were two little kids, one teasing the GI with a twig and the other peeping over the parapet of the stairs. I started the girl with a build up of putty around the armatues and fashion a rudimentary head with rough features. The powdery texture of the putty was hard to work with so I did as best I could. My Milliput had run out and no LHS had them in stock.



The boy's features were slightly better as I was getting the hang of it. O' how I wish I could get my hands on Green Stuff.



The putty couldn't be applied in small amounts so I decided to leave as is and chisel the details when it cured.



Every now and then I checked the pose against the dio base as all eyes were to center upon the GI's reaction.




Larger amounts of putty were manageable and I sculpted hair for the little boy and gave him some curls.



The girl was horrendous...I couldn't decide on a hairstyle and by the time I did the putty didn't conform.



She was also small so my tools weren't adequate enough to tackle it and also I hadn't adjusted to how the putty worked.



Still I persisted...



Cheers,
Richard