how to get figures to fit in cars

[youpey]

i am nearly finished with my rally car build and i put my two rally figures in the interior of the car and i found that the arms are too long for the interior, the legs are too long, and generally just dont fit.

how do you guys typically get people to fit inside of cars, do you cut the arms and legs and reglue them? how do you get them to look proper

[Eshaver]

Miles , all I can say and I'm NOT trying to be "Flip" but look at some anatomy art videos .....

[Bucky]

Could the seat be repositioned? Other than that, I'd say modifying the arms and legs might be the only course of action. I know a lot of the military builders do that to simulate more live action with their figures.

[Anglia105E]

Not sure if this helps you Miles, but I had trouble getting a driver figure to fit in the cab of a 1:24 Revell London Routemaster Bus, as his legs would not fit under the steering wheel so I cut the figure off at the waist. From outside the bus, even in close-up photography, you can't see that the driver has no legs. Also, I noticed that some American Police car crew figures are for sale on Ebay and they have no lower part to the body. These are advertised as being ' seated ' figures.

David

[youpey]

12 minutes ago, Anglia105E said:

Not sure if this helps you Miles, but I had trouble getting a driver figure to fit in the cab of a 1:24 Revell London Routemaster Bus, as his legs would not fit under the steering wheel so I cut the figure off at the waist. From outside the bus, even in close-up photography, you can't see that the driver has no legs. Also, I noticed that some American Police car crew figures are for sale on Ebay and they have no lower part to the body. These are advertised as being ' seated ' figures.

David

unfortunately the arms are a bigger problem for me. they are fully extended and way past the dashboard

[Anglia105E]

Okay Miles..... I would guess that if the arms of the figure are WAY too long, then the figure must surely be the wrong scale for the car. I find the cheap Chinese figures that you see on Ebay can be too large ( some of them are ok ).

David

[Foxer]

Like the car, bodywork

[youpey]

13 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

Okay Miles..... I would guess that if the arms of the figure are WAY too long, then the figure must surely be the wrong scale for the car. I find the cheap Chinese figures that you see on Ebay can be too large ( some of them are ok ).

David

they are the figures from this kit  

 

 

and i tried to put it into 

Edited May 5, 2018 by youpey

[Anglia105E]

Oh I see.... it is surprising that the driver and co-driver from the Tamiya Renault rally car don't fit the Tamiya Peugeot rally car, but just noticed it says 1:10 scale on the box art for the Peugeot. I haven't heard of 1:10 scale from Tamiya so that must be a mis-print? That car in 1:10 would be larger than 1:12 so the figures would be too small ! The Peugeot must be 1:24 scale surely?

David

[Rob Hall]

37 minutes ago, Anglia105E said:

Oh I see.... it is surprising that the driver and co-driver from the Tamiya Renault rally car don't fit the Tamiya Peugeot rally car, but just noticed it says 1:10 scale on the box art for the Peugeot. I haven't heard of 1:10 scale from Tamiya so that must be a mis-print? That car in 1:10 would be larger than 1:12 so the figures would be too small ! The Peugeot must be 1:24 scale surely?

David

1:10 is the standard scale for Tamiya R/C cars, not model kits.    The Peugeot in the photo is a 1/10th R/C car.   Tamiya did also do a 1/24th Peugeot 206 rally model kit also, though. 

Edited May 5, 2018 by Rob Hall

[Anglia105E]

Thank you Rob for the correction, and I see what you mean now. I have never had anything to do with radio controlled Tamiya cars so I wasn't aware of the 1:10 scale, sorry. In my view, the rally crew figures from one Tamiya 1:24 model car kit should fit straight into another kit of the same type, so I'm a bit puzzled there.

David

[youpey]

sorry for the mislink. it is a 1/24 kit with the same body and decals

this is the one exactly

 

(updated the link in the other post to avoid confusion)

Edited May 5, 2018 by youpey

[Pete J.]

I had a similar problem with Tamiya figures in a Ford Focus that came with figures.  I wound up shortening the feet to get the bottom in the seat and the arms came separated at the shoulder and needed to be glued any way.  I positioned the body in the seat and then used a pin vise to drill through the shoulder once the arms were positioned.  I then pinned it with a piece of wire and glued them in place.  Then I removed the figure and using AB putty filled and resculpted the shoulder and painted it from there.   I learned quite a bit about figure sculpting in the process. 

[Anglia105E]

Excellent response Pete..... that's the way to do it, and that is the best solution to help the original poster ( Miles ).

David

[Davoski]

Hi Miles,

The reason for the difference may be that the fashion for driving position in rally cars has changed. In the 80's and earlier most drivers drove almost straight armed whereas from the 90's onward the drivers now sit VERY close to the wheel.

So yes, you will need to "cut and shut" the arms and legs at Shoulder/elbow and Hip/knee. You probably don't need to cut right through the "joint", just cut a wedge from behind the knee, for example, leaving the kneecap in place. Then heat the kneecap carefully and bend the knee to the right position. You can then fill the remaining gap lightly with your filler of choice and file or sand to finish. For the hips you can also separate the torso at the waist and take a narrow wedge from the front, or even add a wedge from behind below the kidneys. The sanding doesn't need too be to fancy or accurate because it will generally look like folds in fabric anyway.

Here are some examples where I have done this:

 

 

Admittedly, these particular figures were 1/16 so a bit easier but they started standing up straight and I have done 1/24 and 1/35 successfully.

See more pics here and here

Hope that helps.

Edited May 7, 2018 by Davoski

[youpey]

On 5/6/2018 at 1:12 AM, Pete J. said:

I had a similar problem with Tamiya figures in a Ford Focus that came with figures.  I wound up shortening the feet to get the bottom in the seat and the arms came separated at the shoulder and needed to be glued any way.  I positioned the body in the seat and then used a pin vise to drill through the shoulder once the arms were positioned.  I then pinned it with a piece of wire and glued them in place.  Then I removed the figure and using AB putty filled and resculpted the shoulder and painted it from there.   I learned quite a bit about figure sculpting in the process. 

 

i will give this a try on the next car. for this one, i ended up not using this car for the dio i wanted to do because i was impatient and wanted to finish the car. I finished putting in the roll cage and sealed up the car and finished it off yesterday.  I dont think i would be able to get it right at this point with the roll cage in.

However, i expect my next rally car will arrive in the mail tomorrow or the day after and the first thing i will do is get the seat adjusted and i will do the figures first. this way i can have them ready to go when I am ready.  I decided i would prefer to use the new car in the diorama anyway.  

[Markalister]

I don't know if this helps at all, but I also had problems getting seated figures to sit in a car seat properly.  Not only did I have problems with arm and leg length, I also had problems with the figures height/head room in the car and the figure not fitting between the seat and the steering wheel .  After pondering over the problem for way too long I discovered 2 things:  First off, the figures "rear-end" was too round/full and not flattened/squashed from his/her weight sitting on it and sinking down into it.  Second was the seat of the car was not depressed where the person would be sitting.  The same issue presents itself for the figures back and the back of the seat, thus pushing the figure too far forward in the car, hence the arms and legs seem too long when in actuality they are not.  Filing/removing material off of the figure where they contact the seat (you could also hollow out the seat where the person sits, but it is easier to alter the figure than the car seat) will sit them into the seat more naturally and realistically and hopefully give the necessary room to get them into the car.  If you take a close look at the pic of the American Diorama driver figure there is a lot of material missing from his butt and the back of his legs and as David mentioned he is missing everything below the knees, which once in the vehicle, even with close up pictures, is barely noticeable, if at all (might be more noticeable if the car was a convertible).

Even doing this you may still need to alter the bends of the figures joints (knees, elbows, shoulders) so that his hands will grab the steering wheel where you want them to.  IMHO 99% of figures need to be modified/altered in some way or another so that they will do what you have pictured in your head.

Mark.