“Progress Report, Though No Shield Yet” (Forgotten Heroes)

OK so time for a quick progress report regarding my entry for this years “Forgotten Heroes” challenge. Well as I said last time I’ve started with this 👈🏼 and I want to get to this 👉🏼 at least in 28mm scale, I have in fact decided to make him a tiny bit taller than 28mm (though as to what height he’ll actually end up I won’t know till he’s finished, and as I tend to work upwards from the feet his head will be one of the last things I add). This is to reflect the fact that at nine inches (not the ten I originally said the toy was (I checked!)) the toy was a bit taller than the Mego’s in my collection that I used to play with alongside Shield as a child. Though hopefully the height difference to my other (Heroic) 28mm figures will be less extreme!

Anyway, first job as I said at the end of my last post was to set about hacking him apart with my scalpel. So in the words of the Queen of hearts “Off with his head”. This was followed by his left arm and the carving away of the big awkward looking shoulder pads. The result of this carving meant his body and remaining right arm had slices and gouges across them, so I decided to shave away the other layer of plastic from both of these area to, just leaving his hand in tact (hands are a pain in the arse to sculpt!). Then as I said above I thought I’d lengthen his torso a touch so cut him in half craved away his belt, and drilled and pinned him back together with a gap of just under a millimetre now in place, I also took this opportunity to twist him at the waist very slightly.

So now I’d torn him down next day it was time to start building him up again, so starting with his boots, these were the right length (to his knees) but the “flaps” at the front needed to be extended back around the tops of his calves, so small balls of putty were added and smoothed around the backs. They also have a “ridge” line running up the fronts so these were added next two really thin sausages run up the fronts and blended away at the sides. Lastly on these I added a “toecap” over the front of each boot again to resemble the original, a small blob of putty blended away to the sides taking care of this. Now I still had a fair old lump of mixed putty left, so as things were going quite well I broke my own cardinal rule and set to work recovering his arm, usually this is a recipe for disaster as I end up sticking my fat fingers into the still soft areas of putty I’ve just spent ages getting smooth! But as he was still attached to his “Klicky” base I thought as long as I just hold that I should be OK. So more putty was smoothed around his arm and a blob was added to form his bicep and a much smaller one for his elbow and both of these were blended in too. Lastly today I used the tiny bit of mixed “greenstuff” I had left to fill in the new gap at his waist.

A “Big Job” was on the cards for the next day as I wanted to cover his entire torso with a thin layer of putty this was done using several blobs strategically placed about his person then once all blended together the actual recesses were added like down his back between his shoulder blades, extra was then added and blended again to form his “pec’s” and “bum”, sadly most of his will be covered by the next layer “his costume” but this would be easier to do over a decently shaped under layer.

And that was the task for the next day. Now Shield is another of those ambiguous figures that we seemed to get a few of back in the seventies and eighties where like “Trap Jaw” and “Stratos” from the MOTU range it’s really hard to work out whether they are wearing a form fitting coverall or just have strange coloured skin? In which case why is the skin in their faces a different colour? I think in most cases I’m just reading a lot more into it than the actual original designers did. So is Shield’s skin blue and he just has a shiny chrome face or does he have a robot head? Or is he all chrome and wears a blue suit? I kind of hope it’s the later as the former conjures up the words from the theme to the “Rocky Horror Show”…”And Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear”. 🙄 Anyway, more putty was mixed and in much the same way as yesterday his “over” suit was applied , and that was the last of the “larger” areas done. Just the fiddly bits left to do now, but I’ll save them till my next post….

Oh and just before I go, a quick update on the boat front…I’ve bought another one! Yes I know I said I wouldn’t but when this yacht came up for sale on the boat club “whattsapp” group for a good price….well it would have been rude to say no wouldn’t it 😁.

 

Cheers Roger.