Cowboy: Prep & Assembly

So I've started working on a cowboy figure for my next large scale piece. It's a 70mm figure, and will be the first figure of that size that I've done.

I spent some time cleaning it up and figured I'd wait to post here until I was ready to start painting. Then I realized that I rarely talk about prep here, and I probably should. I don't have pictures of the early phases, but I will talk about them here, and I'll have pictures of the steps going forward.

I started with cleaning up the mold lines and flash from the figure. There was a lot, especially on the bottom piece of the coat. It took a fair bit of effort to get all the extra metal off the coat and smooth out the curves. That being said, it was easier than I expected because the metal is surprisingly soft. That's both a good and bad thing. It did make cleanup easier, but it also means the chances of accidentally obscuring detail or marring a smooth surface is higher, so I will have to be careful with it as I work.

After removing the flash and mold lines, I washed the pieces in warm water and dish soap. A bit of scrubbing with an old toothbrush makes sure that and gunk left from the casting process and any metal dust and bits from cleaning up the flash are removed.

Here are all the pieces as they more or less go together:

The next step is deciding what pieces can be put together now, what has to be put together after it's painted, and what will need putty. I think I can put it all together except the bottom of the cape. That will have to go on after, or I won't be able to paint his right leg.

That will be tricky, as that join is also going to need putty. I plan to try to putty it without leaving the pieces joined. More on that when I get to it.

I went to gluing the head and upper torso piece to the rest of the body. Here's what that looks like put together:

It is going to need putty. I want to make sure the glue has had plenty of time to cure before I start with the putty, so I will wait until tomorrow to continue with that. Which is why this will be a slow process - tomorrow I can putty this join and maybe glue on another piece or two, and then wait, and then putty more the next day.

I could have glued the arms and hat on, but I've had bad luck in the past when trying to putty joins while working around more delicate pieces. It introduces risk of bending or damaging the smaller pieces. These are mostly solid, but there are things like his gun that could be bent out of shape. So, I will take this slow and go one step at a time.

As a side note, here is some evidence that it's not just female figures that sometimes get weird poses:

He is leaning forward, but then bending backward. I'm not sure how you do that without falling over. It's a very anime pose which I don't think actual humans ever do. I'm planning to try to adjust the leaning forward part when I put him on his base.