Thank you guys for your awesome advice!
May I ask? What BODY do you guys advise I buy? I can't figure out which 1:6 body to use. I've noticed some of the bodies I see make the headsculpt look HUGE. I'm trying to make the body look a little more natural to the size of the headsculpt.
Any advice?
Thanks guys!!!
Here are some details you should be studying and looking at to help you, Chuck. I've outlined the key aspects for you:
Bruce Willis's height: 1.83m
Bruce Willis's anatomy: - notable points include a medium build overall with large, broad cylindrical, barrel-like chest, wide neck, giraffe neck that arches forwards, low sitting head, sloped, rounded shoulders, slim legs, long arms, long slender hands.
You should always remember that you are always working to the limits of the clothing/ outfit(s) available and how that will look on your chosen body. So, you would do best to strike a balance between as close as you can get to the person's anatomy and physique within the bounds of what/ how your outfit fits. I personally started by crafting a body that I thought was as close to Willis's that I could build. I then fit his clothing around that.
Below are some good reference photos that should help you. Bear in mind photos not from the same year/ time as Die Hard/ '88 and lens/ focal length differences, which effect the proportions of things on screen:
Note that the prop team had Willis wear a few vests at once (layered) - to Willis's chagrin, apparently - and they removed them one at a time throughout shooting. Most folks making a McClane opt for a heavily battle worn and bloodied version, so layering the vests in the fashion of the film wouldn't make any sense if you plan on creating the same look. But if you really wanted screen-accuracy and are making a clean McClane, you could layer the vests. That said, I don't think it would work very well in 1/6 scale. At most, I think 2 vests layered could work, though.
It seems that most people opt for a TTM19/ Wolverine style body but this isn't wholly accurate to Willis. However, it's broad chest is in its favour. And so, padding anywhere between the upper and lower abdominal quadrants of a chest like this will help get closer to Willis's chest shape. Folks often do this for figures in general.
Willis is approx. 2cm shy of the height of Harrison Ford and the ANH MMS261 Ford body is very accurate to ford and usually my base reference. So, seeking out, or building a body of the same height, or a few mm shorter than an ANH body would be ideal.
My McClane originally came on a cheap TTM19 clone and I think it looked quite horrendous overall:
Now:
I hope that helps.