itty bitty pilots

[lizzienewell]

Here are is the little dude and gal that I made as pilots for my models. I was rather pleased with them particulary that you can tell that they are male and female in this size. I showed it to someone at might writers group. He said he couldn't tell that the woman is female. Way to deflate my ego.
I'm thinking "But what about the itty-bitty ponytail braid and the delecacy of her features."

 

[Bowdenja]

He was a GUY lizzie................ we only look at one........er two features :twisted: We are all shallow........... remember

They look great, and add to the models.

john

 

[Amazyah]

Hi Lizzie,
I am a guy myself but I could tell the female right off the bat, from the facial features alone. I did not need to see the braid to differentiate.
I could tell the male by facial features alone as well. He even looks mean!

I think you have done a fantastic job conveying the sex of the pilots!
Just because one person cannot see it doesn't mean it is not there.
I see it, and it is remarkable!

Keep up the wonderful works!

Russell

 

[thewoodengraver]

I knew she was fem the first time I saw her.
That is why you show her to a Cardmodels group!
Silly writers rarely like pictures, isn't there some kind of joke about that?
Love your work Lizzie!

 

[Leif Oh]

Hi, Lizzie,

Many thanks for posting those images of your figures. They will be something to attempt to emulate. I have recently got into this field, and tried my hand at making 1:87 figures. See this post and following at Kartonbau.de (in English).

What is the approximate scale of your figures, and have you posted some manual of how you go about making them? I would be much interested to learn more about your technique.

Best, Leif

 

[lizzienewell]

I like your work Leif.

Flat figures are great and I did them first but I will be photographing these models and trying to make them look full size. Flat heads just weren't looking like heads in the photos.

I'll see about putting together photos and some explaintion of how I've been doing these.

Lizzie

 

[lizzienewell]

Here are some of the parts for making a figure. Using Coreldraw, I drew a figure made as a sort of flat mannequin. Each moving part, such as a forearm, is a separate shape so that I can easily change proportions and the position of arms and legs. I drew the woman first and I wanted her to have a torso on the long side.

I superimposed the figure of the woman on top of a cross section of my model, produced by using a hull former. From her size I calculated the scale as 1:65. I seem to approach scale a bit differently that do other card modelers. Most of the things that I model don't exist so the only thing I can measure is the human figure. This is also why it's important that I include people in the model.

 

[lizzienewell]

Here is the sheet of part as I cut them out.
I make the legs as cones. The arms and hands are that sort of hexagon shape. I want it thicker in the middle than at the ends.
I suppose that I think of this as built like a corn husk doll with the arms as one piece stuck through a bundle and then they get bent to shape after assembly.

 

[lizzienewell]

Here I'm rolling the legs on an awl. I do two layers of paper and it seems to come out the right thickness.The inner parts are already rolled and on the upper right.

 

[lizzienewell]

Here are the parts as they are getting assembled. The arms are the cylendar with the brown parts(hands) on the ends. The original part had strips and I folded them back on themselves, put on a dot of CA glue and curved the hands. The legs and arms are glued with Yes paste because I want those parts to be damp and pliable. Corn starch paste works well but it needs to be cooked and it gets almost too pliable. The legs are glued to that strip with a bit of CA.That strip will come over the top of the arms and then back down to the legs.The squaresh bundle will fill in the abdomen. Another strip not shown will wrape around the abdomen to fill it our more and make the torso rounder.

 

[lizzienewell]

Here are the parts as they go together.
The strip on the lower left is the one that will get wrapped around to make the torso rounder.

 

[Texman]

Lizzie, that is fascinating. I would not have considered any of those
techniques. Well Done.

Ray

 

[lizzienewell]

Here I've bent and pinched the arms and legs into shape. A bit of spit works here and there to stick things down or to soften a part.
He is still headless in this photo, but it is getting late at night so I will leave the finished photo for tomorrow.

 

[lizzienewell]

Here is the dude's head and face. I didn't photograph puttng it together because it's so small, but here are the parts. The gold colored strip gets waded up and made into a ball sort of like rolling a ball of yard. I put a dab of CA on the end to keep it from unwinding and then squish it into a sort of head shape. Then I glue on the face with CA. At first I did the faces flat but they really need noses sticking out so I redesigned them with a split in the chin. The face folds to form a nose and the chin closes underneith it. The version on the left is the one that I used on the figure shown. The other one is the improved version with eyebrows, ears, and flaps to make more of a chin.
The faces look really weird on the page. Leif is right in his advice on the other site that what looks realistic at a larger size doesn't work when it's small.

 

[lizzienewell]

Here is the completed dude. I glued on his head with a bit of CA and added hair and touched up his beard with a Sharpie pen. I also gave him a vest.

 

[blueeyedbear]

Hey, Liz,

I like your work (I wish I could get backgrounds like that in East Texas!). You do some fascinating stuff.

But, as a Native American, I've got to tell you that braids don't make people feminine!!!!!:roll:

Bob

 

[Amazyah]

The Do

I myself, although male, used to wear a ponytail that reached all the way to my arse and every once in a while my wife would braid it for me.
At 6'-2" and 270lbs, it didn't look the least bit feminine!
I currently have my hair cropped very short but nothing else has changed. Either way, I am still a man and still look like a man!

I have to agree with you Bob, the hair means absolutely nothing as far as gender is concerned.
On the other hand I think Lizzie has done a fantastic job of conveying the gender of her models, regardless of the "do"!
Russell

 

[Revell-Fan]

BUMPED for priority reasons - do not bump in old threads.

Revell-Fan