Verlinden 120mm USAAF Crewman 'Memphis Belle'

[Deleted member 6559]

Back to resin, and I've just taken delivery of a couple of kits from Historex. The first up is this 120mm Verlinden offering depicting a USAAF crewman. He's presented in full leather flying gear, wearing his parachute harness, and carrying his parachute. The quality of the sculpt and moulding is excellent:



Some of the webbing, the oxygen line, and the communications wires have to be added. Verlinden have provided an instruction sheet for this, but the actual materials are different:



The webbing consists of a ribbed vinyl sheet and there is no tubing, though that can easily be made from cable insulation. The Memphis Belle sticker is a nice touch.

I have lots of lovely reference in a book given to me by Pete Low (which has been very useful over the years):



I haven't done a resin figure in this scale for some time, so it should be fun (should be!).

 

[Neil Merryweather]

Now that's more like it - a decent sculpt from Verlinden
Looking forward to this, and not a hint of camo in sight!

 

[JR]

Looks an interesting figure Peter.
Taking seat.

Hope the family is ok .

 

[NickT]

Looking forward to this one.

 

[Deleted member 6559]

Neil - No camo, but there is quite a lot of complicated detail. I'll need to read up on this one carefully.

John - Be seated. I've always wanted to do a USAAF airman - don't know why I left it so long.

Nick - Welcome aboard. Thanks for looking in.

The figure is now ready for paint:



The fit was pretty good, but as usual with resin figures, there was a lot of work involved in removing the casting blocks (even more difficult with a blunt saw). I realised as I went along that the piece of vinyl is actually for the oxygen tube - it peels off in strips. Verlinden had substituted the lead foil for a piece of paper, so I used that to make the various harness parts - I've primed them in buff to make them stronger.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Peter
The postie came good then
Looks to have a lot of detail to test the steadiness of your hand and all the leather will be fun. Quite a challenging figure.
Jim

 

[Deleted member 6559]

Jim - Yes, hooray for postie! As I was putting it together I increasingly came to realise that it would require quite a complicated paint job - leather, fur, canvas, life jacket, steel etc etc. All fun.

 

[scottie3158]

Peter,
Count me in for this.

 

[Richard48]

Pew taken a long with the masses Pierre.At least you have your resin fix to keep you going mate.
Richard.

 

[SteveH]

Morning Peter

Looks like a great figure to stretch your painting skills and keep you focused with all the materials and finishes on the flyer.

How is the face?

It looks OK, though Verlinden have been a mixed bag for you recently!

Looks grey and and the South east will get rain this afternoon and overnight for Saturday too.

It might be good enough for some more AB work over the weekend on the Spitfire to follow up on the plastic sprue turning.

Enjoy the new figure it should be fun

Have a good day and weekend

Regards

Steve H

 

[Deleted member 6559]

Scottie - Take a seat, you're quite safe - I've made Race and Jones sit on their hands.

Richard - Resin: a whole different ball game.

Steve - Sunny and windy start here and quite warm too. Trying to revive the mojo to get started on this one, but finding it difficult to overcome a general lethargy. Hopefully once I get going, some enthusiasm will kick in. The face is OK, but not brilliant - one of Verlinden's older and wrinklier, so not entirely appropriate for a young bomber crewman. I'm stuck with it though, as I don't have another flight-helmeted figure.

 

[Neil Merryweather]

Hi Peter.
Wasn't the actor James Stewart a B24 pilot?-he can't have been a baby ?
Just googled it - he would have been 33 when he was called up in 1941.
Although I do agree about the youth of the B17 crews, and the Hollywood movie Memphis Belle makes it movingly clear how VERY young those boys were.

 

[Deleted member 6559]

Hi Neil

And Clark Gable was 39 when he joined up, so they wouldn't all have been spring chickens.

I think I've managed to make the face look a bit younger, but it's not a great sculpt by any means. More later.......

 

[Deleted member 6559]

OK then, the head:



The face gave me a real runaround. My first attempt had to be stripped down and a scalpel taken to areas around the eyes. It's not a great sculpt, but I did my best with it and I think it will do.

The helmet was really enjoyable to work on by contrast, with lots of great detail to pick out in various colours. Fingers crossed that the rest of the figure proves the same.

 

[Steven000]

Great paint-work so far Peter,
I always admire your courage when you talk about stripping down your paintwork
Have fun, Steven

 

[Tim Marlow]

Looks good Peter, like he’s just done a mission...

 

[Deleted member 6559]

Steven - Many thanks. Not courage, but desperation.

Tim - Thank you. He does look rather tired.

 

[Steve Jones]

Just sneak in at the back if I may Peter. Looks quite the painting challenge. The head has come out really well. Great stuff

 

[Deleted member 6559]

Cheers Steve. I need to really think about the colours on this one - keeping the leather quite dark, the yellow of the life jacket etc. Makes it all more fun.

 

[AlanG]

Although I do agree about the youth of the B17 crews, and the Hollywood movie Memphis Belle makes it movingly clear how VERY young those boys were.

Indeed they in general very young and naive. The film was also a crock of rubbish, full of inaccuracies and fails to mention that Memphis Belle wasn't actually the first 8th AF bomber crew to achieve 25 missions. Sorry it's just something that really pushes my buttons and is disrespectful to the real 25thers... Hells Angels crew on 14th May (a full 3 days before MB)