The Last Charge - Master Box IJN Marines

[PrivatePublic]

I umm'd and ahh'd about doing something for this GB what with university and my BV 222 build occupying my time. I have no shortage of kits that would fit, IJN/IJA aircraft, an RNZAF P-40, a couple of 1/700 scale ships and more but I do have a shortage of free time. I wasn't sure if I'd enter as it'd be more of a side project and something I'm not sure I'd finish in a month considering the amount of time it takes me to get through a kit in bits and pieces. So I figured I'd try something smaller that won't take too much time and would also allow (or rather force) me to improve my figure painting skills. Enter, these dudes:



I really have a thing for Master Box figures. The molds and detail are generally good quality, not as good as some but better than a lot of injection molded figures out there, they're reasonably priced and most of all they have a lot of really interesting subjects in really nice poses beyond "guy standing holding gun" and this lot are no exception. My plan is basically to build what's on the box; a final banzai charge in the face of an unstoppable US force with a little more stuff to flesh it out, probably a bunker and I'd like to try my hand at a palm tree. Nothing too fancy.

Back of the box with general information



And the box contents. The sprue comes in a nice resealable bag which I'd really love to see more of in kits



The single sprue itself. Each guy is composed of a separate head, hat/helmet, torso, arms, legs and gear all nicely molded. Each is laid out into their own quarter of the sprue making them easy to find.



Close up of one of them



And the flag decals that come with to attach to the rifles. Not sure how this is going to work. Since each one is different they obviously don't match on to each other so I assume they must be printed on the underside too. Guess we'll find out.

[PrivatePublic]

In the time it took me to decide if I was gonna post this or not I'd already started building the figures. They flew together pretty well, just needed to clean up the mold seams, glue and fill a couple of gaps. I use TET for just about everything but for figures I prefer the Revell cement in the bottle with the needle, or any semi-viscous cement with a fine tip so I can spread some around on the joining faces and just press together. I stuck the figures together but kept the weapons separate for now. Not so much for ease of painting but so I don't end up snapping them off approximately 57,000 times. Speaking of which, well I'll get to that later.

First up is the officer, katana and scabbard in hand and screaming his lungs out




Next up, this rather distraught looking chap. I may have snapped his bayonet scabbard, a little glue took care of that.




This fierce fellow




And this poor guy




I decided he wasn't quite dramatic enough for my liking, so I broke his foot and sawed into the back of his knee a little to reshape him... Sorry man
Clamped while the glue set.



All together



Now remember what I mentioned about snapping things? Yea umm, when I was sanding the sprue gates off the officer's sword I may have snapped the blade off into the ether. Gave up searching after 5 minutes and decided to fashion a new one. So I grabbed a bamboo toothpick, a knife and some sandpaper and spilt off an appropriate sized piece and began sanding



A few minutes later and he had a nice new blade that honestly looks better an is stronger than the original.



Then I went to move my mouse and guess where the plastic blade had ended up. Yep, tucked right up beside it

Anyway, put masking tape straps on the rifles and dug around in the spares for a machine gun for a MG nest, maybe. It's actually a Type 97 for use in tanks but since only the barrel is gonna be seen it'll do. The business end looks close enough to a Type 92 HMG or Type 96 LMG for that purpose



That's it for now. Painting and base making coming up, umm, eventually

[Twokidsnosleep]

Nice big hole in that guy"s chest might look appropriate as well..drilled and then a hot metal instrument jammed in to spread things a bit
I like your sword and rifle straps
Interesting figure set for sure, I will follow along

[TommyKillander]

Great start with that interesting set of figures, I'm looking forward to see the rest.

I spent three months pondering about what to build, but I finally got my stuff together and started building...

Good luck with your build


Tommy

[pourquoi61]

Yes I now how you feel about time, and what to build. Looking great so far.

[PrivatePublic]

Thanks guys, great to get some feedback And yea, I have plans for that dude, we'll see how they turn out

In other news I did some 'research'. Apparently photos of the kind of MG nests used on Tarawa and in the PTO in general aren't particularly easy to find



So I went and played some Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm instead for some inspiration





Figure I can come up with something

[privatepete]

Hi great job so far,if you use Vallejo paint this may help.

1 Paint uniform 923 Jap Uniform
2 Paint Trousers 923 Jap Uniform
3 Water Bottle/flame throwers 888 Olive Grey
4 Canvas bags/equipment 881 Yellow Green
5 Equipment/webbing/boots/weapon Flat brown
6 Barrel Gun metal
7 Cap /Helmet 923 Jap Uniform/ 888 olive grey
8 Flesh Suntanned flesh/oriental flesh
9 Ink wash Brown

or:

Helmet – 979 Ger. Cam dark green or 822 Ger. Cam brown
Field Cap – 921 English uniform then highlight with 923 Japanese uniform
Tunic – 921 English uniform then highlight with 923 Japanese uniform
Half Breeches – 921 English uniform then highlight with 923 Japanese uniform
Puttees – 921 English uniform, outer straps, use 819 Iraqi sand
Boots – 822 Ger. Cam brown then highlight
Webbing & Haversack – 914 Green ochre and highlight
Leather parts – 822 Ger. Cam brown then highlight
Sword scabbard – 822 Ger. Cam brown then highlight
Water bottle – 821 Ger. Cam beige
Rank patches – 908 Carmine
Tropical combat dress –819 Iraqi sand

[PrivatePublic]

Taking it easy on this one but still nearly there. Figured it was time to post an update.

The base starts with just a few layers of cardboard glued together. I sanded around the edges just so they all line up reasonably well and sealed around all the edges with more PVA glue, nothing too fancy here but it's sturdy and shapable

Then made the cutout where the embedded MG emplacement thingy is gonna be and roughly marked out the positions of the 4 dudes.

I drilled a hole in each one's foot and super glued a toothpick in each so I had something to hold while working and a means of sticking them into the base. Then I primed them in cheap grey spray primer and started on painting.


Base coat was Vallejo Japanese WWII Uniform but it looked way too orangey for my liking. I mixed it with some Vallejo Khaki Grey and a tiny drop of German Dark Olive or something and that toned it back nicely enough. Still not 100% happy with the colour but we'll see how it goes.
I also covered the base in a fairly thick layer of Jovi air dry clay, sanded it down around the edges and painted it black. I then took a white spray paint and just went around the edges a bit. I wasn't sure what colour I wanted the rim of the base so I thought I'd see what it looks like. Foot peg holes are also in place.

Anyway that uniform colour looks a little better now.

A lot of sources show quite a bit of variation in the exact colour of the uniform but atm it looks close enough for me. Might give it a filter and then a wash should bring out the shadows.

I highlighted with a couple of lighter coats of the similar or same colour then went through and started the detail painting. Some Olive-ish green and khaki for the canvas and blanket, red brown for the belts and bit. Still some highlights/lowlights, details and a little drybrushing to go but they're looking alright. The base skin tone is Vallejo Dark Flesh with a small bit of the uniform colour and it looks alright mostly, may play around with that too. It's a learning experience after all. This is also the first time I've tried to properly paint the faces on figures, but more on that in the next update.

[TommyKillander]

Figures look awesome!

I like the base as well, it's gonna be great I think!


Tommy

[PrivatePublic]

Final update here.

In order to do the sand for the base I mixed up some sand colour acrylic paint with some baking soda (I think it was about 50/50-40/60, I kinda just mixed till I got the texture I wanted) and some play sand which is nice and fine. It stuck like paste and worked like cake icing which was pretty much ideal. I then chucked some more sand on top for some more texture.



I figured it looked a little too much like sand glued on a base so I watered down some of the same paint and used it as a fairly thick wash, patting down the areas where it pooled to get rid of excess. Looks better IMO



Next I painted up the weapons...



...And started on the MG nest. It was made of some reed-like stuff I found around the place that kinda looks like logs. Ideally I'd rather they weren't hollow but they work.



I made up some sandbags out of modelling clay, partly to fill the gap and partly because it made sense. I wouldn't expect a couple of palm trunks to stop much. The sandbags were painted with a couple of different shades of Khaki and then the whole thing was given a dark wash



I burned it with a lighter a little to change the colour and singe the "trunks" as though it'd been burnt out. Then out came the chalk pastel dust because I'm too cheap to buy pigments. A couple of different browns to mix up the wood colour and plenty of black charing



Then the figures got a wash of the uniform colour heavily darkened with black and thinned down.



And got the final details like the lapel ranks painted on.



And I planned out where they were gonna go



And that's pretty much it. There were a couple more details not worth mentioning and we're pretty much done.



Reveal is here http://intscalemodeller.com/viewtopic.php?f=492&t=19452