Alright, y'all... help me out here. I sent a blank Yamobazooka to a garage kit-builder friend of mine, asking him to putty/texture-match only the neck and tail joints, leaving the arms poseable. He sent me this progress pic today, of the primed and puttied piece:



As you can see, he misunderstood, and fixed the arm joints in place, too. His texture-matching job looks great all-around, and in any case I've decided I will be leaving the non-bazooka arm as-is... but I am trying to decide whether or not I want to ask him to crack off all the putty on the gun arm, reposition it, and re-putty (I've decided I would like it fixed-position, either way). Which of the two position options do you think would look better?

Won't take my vote. Weird.

Raise that shooter, scooter!

i say crack it — the texturing on the joint isn't matched all that well anyhow. unseamly, if you will. pew pew!

Won't accept my vote either.

Weird... can't see anything amiss in the poll settings... one person was able to vote... hhmmmm...

Anyway, thanks for the input thus far, dudes!

Arm up, can't vote

Dang, that's because of the updates to the board. Looking into a fix.

EDIT: Fixed. Vote your little hearts out!

Thanks, James!
So far arm up seems to have it (as I kinda expected ).
What gives me pause is trying to picture how it will look with the paint-up... for me it's all about the interplay of the weaponized arm and the wound next to it. The wound will be painted like a dry, long-festering thing... lowered would make the arm's design/purpose less immediately apparent to the viewer... raised would make it more of an immediate focal point and quickly recognizable as a weapon, and then would come the realization that said weapon is likely the source of this wound (I know everything I'm saying here is stupid-obvious to all of us who have been looking at this sculpt for the last four years).

I'm leaning toward raised, I guess.

raised...

although my vote would have been 'poseable', for sure.

I guess I'm the minority, I like it down better. Its less aggressive and I agree on how it will be approached by the viewer.

With a fixed stance its how it will look in the long run. I think weapon up is cool at first but over time it wont be as interesting. As by his side will always look classic and a bit stoic.

Me too. But then I generally prefer toys in a neutral stance. My Skullbrains are the exception, but that's mostly because you can't stand them with their arms down.

i'm actually in the "down" camp as well. i've usually only seen pic with his arm raised, and i never made the direct connection between
the weapon and the wound before. (i'd always assumed it was battle damage, just from a different source.) and as rich mentioned, the
classic, stoic pose seems more suitable for a "statuesque" figure.

down! looks interesting.

i think i'm a little confused from the initial description, but if you're leaving both arms unjointed, I say for sure keep them both down.

I'm also on the down group, Rich has a lot of good points and to add to that the symmetry of the figure is thrown off once you raise the arm.

Thanks for all the input, guys, I really appreciate it!

Bill: I don’t know, Sir- to my eye it looks good, maybe not perfect, but not jumping out and saying “SEAM!”, and certainly looks to be integrated well enough that paint will complete the blend in a more-than-satisfactory way.

Rich: Very nicely put… and, I think, pretty true. After sleeping on it, I came to the same kind of feeling… I’m now leaning towards leaving it down…

Chris: Interesting; yeah, for me, I always looked at that side wound as a slowly-spreading reaction to the heat or radiation from the bazooka arm, and that really added a richness to the sculpt for me- this amazing asset to survival in whatever post-nuke warrior wasteland he inhabits also being a long-term self-destructive detriment. I like to imagine that the empty eye socket once housed a complex cybernetic eye, too… long ago rotted off, rejected by his flesh.

I am in the 'down' camp as well, if it is going to be fixed. I am all for poseable though, if we can convince you to go back to this option I don't mind non-poseable guys, but if you can't move them, better to have the arms straight down, or straight up, and ideally both the same. And I also agree the texturing on the seam that isn't there isn't that homogeneous with the rest of the sculpt.

So I am really curious though as to the purpose of this project. Are you rescaling the original figure? Making some kind of giant terrorizing statue to keep away those pesky kids?

Ha- nope, nothing as fantastic as all that, Steve- this is just the beginning of a long-held plan of mine to have a Yamobazooka painted up by my friend Joe Dunaway (http://www.modelzone.com/). Joe is not the one doing the prep work- that, among a couple of other projects, is being done by another artist, as work offered in compensation for taking far, far too long (years) on a commission… but it should be ready to go to Joe soon. Will of course share the finished piece on sb once he’s done!

IT IS DECIDED; long live Jambi…er, sb!

Down it is... as-is.
Will post finished pics when I get ‘em… thanks again for the input, all!

JD !!! I've wanted him to paint something for me ever since that KvP he did.

Excellent choice !!!

Yup, the super-talented JD- he is GREAT with handling reptilian skin textures, and the coloration patterns he comes up with are always mind-blowing. He’s actually been doing a bunch of work for Sideshow of late- many of the proto pics they use for their pre-orders are Dunaway-painted. I really can't wait to see what he does with this!