Lots of miscellaneous work since the last update:
I filled in the missing part on the feet, but they still require final shaping to make them smaller. You can see the contour line I drew to follow once I get around to it:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~funaka/images/JRP_Feet4.JPGI also did some research on weapons (mostly WWII-era German weapons) to decide on a weapon loadout for the JRP.
I got to work on the torso. I wasn’t happy with any of the easy solutions I could come up with to make the new chest. They were all too small, and as I mentioned before, the torso id too small to begin with. So, I took a big leap for me and cut it all apart and began to put it back together…
Top and bottom half of the torso separated:

Internals cut into working parts: neck joint, shoulder joints, bottom of box and ball joint that connects to waist:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~funaka/images/JRP_Torso2.JPGThe internals were re-assembled around a core of semi-hardened Magic Sculpt. The ball joint was added back on below a piece of 5/32 inch tube to make the torso taller:

The top half of the outer torso was cut in half to allow it to be widened by ¼ inch. The gap will be filled in with plastic sheet once the Magic Sculpt in the internals dry enough to take them out. In this picture you can see on the left the front hald of the upper toros where I added some MS to make the chest larger.
Later in the day I got to work on several other small changes while the MS was curing. I had to replace the wrist joint with a more standard polycap ball. This way I could replace the Spiegel’s lame rubbery hands with the leftover hands from my Kampfer. Unfortunately, the polycap doesn’t want to stick, despite using epoxy glue, the strongest stuff in my bag of tools.

I also started chopping up my NT-1’s assault-rifle style gun (it’s in the picture, taped to the paper with it’s funny handle thing already cut off) to turn it into something that resembles the WWII-era German MP44 (or StG44), the gun that inspired the AK-47. I plan to lower the barrel and add the characteristic second tube above it and pointy front sight. I’ll also saw off the stock and modify it into a better shape. It might be as simple as shortening it and turning it upside down!

Hopefully my next post will have some final versions of these things and I’ll have some more “Ooh Ahh” kinds of pictures…
