I’ve taken a break from the backpack because I can’t quite decide how to weather it. In the meantime I’ve been thinking about the pose of the sandtrooper. He almost seems… tired? Arms hanging at his sides, gun resting on the ground…
I troop with the 501st and will often pose with my gun cradled in the crook of my arm. I can envision this sandtrooper holding his gun in a similar manner, perhaps as he takes a break from looking through his macrobinoculars. But do I really want to tear apart the arms on the model? I just got them primed and a good coat of gloss white applied.
Yeah, I’ve thought about it long enough. I’ll do it! I took a deep breath (and a deep swig of beer), plugged in the Demel tool, and started carving apart the sandtrooper’s left arm at the elbow and wrist. Here you can see the parts separated and how I carved back into the area where the armor covers as well; when I sculpt a new elbow and wrist this will allow the armor to hang over the organic parts of the person under the armor and perhaps make the armor look a bit more as if it’s something being worn by a person underneath it.
Here you can see the shoulder and bicep temporarily attached to the torso with a 1/4 inch aluminum rod inserted for the forearm to attach to. I have already bent the rod to approximately the angle I want the forearm to be placed to cradle the rifle. To the right of the 1/3 scale model you can see my 1/6 scale Sideshow sandtrooper which I used as a model for how to position the arm and hand.
With the rod cut and the forearm now attached, I worked on the hand as well. In a similar fashion, I used part of a coat hangar to support the new position for the hand.
At a slightly different angle, you can see how I have also positioned the right arm forward and above the rifle. The right hand is, fortunately, already well-formed to hold the macrobinoculars so I don’t believe that I’ll have to reposition the thumb or fingers to hold the binocs. I’ll position the head later to be looking to the right, as if he has just lowered his right arm, macrobinoculars in hand, while he continues to look out at the horizon.
Here you can see a bit better the aluminum rod at the elbow.
And here you can see the coat hangar piece that holds the hand to the forearm.
The next step is to epoxy all the parts in place and get out the Milliput to sculpt a new left elbow and wrist. I’ll also have to fill in a bit at the shoulder-torso joint on both arms due to having rotated that joint forward just a bit on both arms. I sure hope I have enough Milliput for this!
