I bought this plane a couple of years ago from a builder and flyer that was up in age wasn't going to be flying anymore. So while I was flying it the pilot he had in it bailed out and never saw him again. so I search the internet for some one suitable to replace him and found "Aces of Iron" company made one that I was looking for. So now the plane had a pilot and bombardier/navigator/photographer/gunner. So I had ordered 2 of them, but since they were identical I decided to make things a little different so I modified ones head. I carefully cut the head and glued and epoxied it in a different position. inside the body I reinforced it with some chopped glass mixed with epoxy. Filling wasn't necessary as the epoxy did the trick. then I started painting and I'm no Rembrandt so I used a published guide given by Aces of Iron on their web site and a few "MAN" articles like the one from "Best Pilots". since I have a back ground in plastic models I had a selection of paints and brushes already to go. below are a series of photos and I tried to put them in the best order or sequence I could and at the end I rebalanced the plane so I would kill the new crew on there first mission together. LOL
__________________ Joe MacDougall,
Long Island, NewYork
AMA 365923
1/5 Vailly L-19 BirdDog in Progress , BUSA 1/3 sc ale Pup in box, Long Island SkyHawks, Merokes.
C B #64
Pilot figures look great! I got in touch with Lyle from Best Pilots and he sent me a copy of the MAN article. My figures are 10 times better now using his painting method. What did you use for lenses in the goggles. Looks good whatever you did.Some of my work......
A good final result. I like your idea of cutting and turning the head. I've thought about this but instead just turned the whole figure. I never have the dummies facing straight ahead. Personally, I think the Aces of Iron painting tutorial creates a look that is way over the top...not realistic. There are better tutorials on YouTube such as this one:
Here are my "Franz und Emil" crew for my Albatros CI based on highly modified Aces of Iron busts (one German, one British). The faces were removed and replaced with the pre-painted faces cut from 1/6 scale head sculpts from eBay. The helmets are scratch-built. The painting was done following the techniques seen in several YT tutorials on figure painting. (Note: This is the FIRST TIME I had ever attempted such a thing.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JAfMEMzF7k
I used 6 minute epoxy from great planes R.I.P. lol ! Mini30bob and abufletcher those pilot busts look great! I’ll try watching those videos you recommend! Thanks
__________________ Joe MacDougall,
Long Island, NewYork
AMA 365923
1/5 Vailly L-19 BirdDog in Progress , BUSA 1/3 sc ale Pup in box, Long Island SkyHawks, Merokes.
C B #64
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