Attached Link: http://www.echobasetoys.com/PageOther12/PageToySoldierGear.htm

During the recent Desert Soldier discussion over at the DAZ Forum and here at Renderosity, a very interesting link turned up that would be a good reference for anyone interested in creating Desert Soldier or Special Ops type camo uniforms (BDU's), add-on's, etc....

These Toy Soldier characters are designed by Japanese and Taiwanese artists and are surprisingly accurate. The details are extremely well done. Obviously they had very good references to make these.

It would seem that anyone serious about doing a Poser set of these camo uniforms and gear could BUY one of these characters and use it as a reference model...

This certainly looks good, but I recently came across a site selling WW2 uniform items, authentic and re-created, and the owner of the business had a pretty poor opinion of people who used this sort of figure as a reference. Now, he was talking about WW2, and not about this company's models, but I'd wonder just how good they are. And it might not be because of bad research. Looking at the third picture, the close-up, I think you can see how the materials don't scale. The straps are too stiff. The pouches don't look to have weight. And I would imagine that some details are over-scale. The binding on the edges of the pouth flaps looks wrong in that sort of way. Still, I remember the Action Man of the 1960s, which was the British version of G.I. Joe. The look was WW2 drifting into the 1950s. Garand rifle, that sort of stuff. And quite crudely made. That really was a toy, and these do look to be aimed at serious adult collectors.

I don't understand why anyone would buy a doll for a reference model rather than researching photos of soldiers or actual military issue clothing. Any concerns of versimilitude would be better addressed by refrencing the real thing, as closely as possible, than a facsimile, no matter how impressive a facsimile. Would you buy one of those Barbie in regional garb dolls in order to make, say, quality regional clothing for Victoria? Nah, you'd look for photos of the real thing, or try to get your hands on the real thing. Same goes for accuracy in modelling or texturing military clothing, I believe. ...Unless you're like me and use a free camouflage generator for Photoshop that makes blobs that look like no real camouflage anywhere in the world... :-)

Well, the reason I have suggested this way as a reference is that some people in the threads said that they would need to see all sides of the gear, and how a character would look wearing only BDU's and no gear. -This makes sense to me if you are a modeler.

Sure- the gear in some cases is probably larger than normal but its just a reference for texture, buttons, general details. It seemed that people couldn't find these kinds of details anywhere else...- unless you go out an buy your own uniforms, which you can do- but you aren't likely to find the current Special Ops type gear in an Army Surplus store!

I posted some of these other pics I got from military websites last year and the Toy Soldier BDU's look pretty close.

I believe these are Kawasaki ATV's...

is the first picture supposed to look like Bush.

No- I think its supposed to look like Bruce Willis...

Not sure WHO the USMC Babe is supposed to look like...

Wow I'm impressed how accurate the equipment in these dolls is. I recently was activated by the US ARMY reserve, and got a whole bunch of this new equipment, half of it I've never seen before and the other half was upgraded from what I used four years ago. They really did their homework on these dolls.

Four years ago I think reservists were just "playing army". These days, its very serious business, as you probably know.

Check out the patch on the chopper Vulcan gunner- Wilamette Fire Department! Maybe he's there to take care of some "Fire Department" business...

Here's a close up, taken from the opposite side of the other crewman-

The military publishes some amazingly good photos on their websites. The USAF seem to have the highest rez photos, and I assume they must be using state-of-the-art professional digital cameras (like maybe Nikons?)

Hmmm...they'll think they're in a war if Brucie finds out they're using him and he's not getting a cut.

Let me guess... the guy in the third pic is called "Jackson, Sam L".

LOL That is Exactly what I thought. He'd kick all my son's large size (wal-mart) GI Joe knockoffs butt's I'd wager. ^_^ I gotta say I'm terribly dissapointed with Daz's "Desert soldier" I think DW coulda done a LOT better than he did. I'm probably gonna just get PhilC's BDU set, for the brief military scene in my movie. They look pretty accurate to my Layman's eye at least. (Used to have a set of airforce BDUs that a buddy gave me.) But I don't sweat super tiny details too much. (That button on the pocket is aaaaalll wrong :p) Anybody know where I might get some night vision goggles for Poser though? (Binocular type as they look cooler.)or some reference pics so I can model it myself.

Attached Link: http://www-rocq1.inria.fr/Eric.Saltel/download/download.php

Well actually, yes. Not the most detailed but they may do. They're on page 4 of 'Weapons.' This site has 2,000+ models of every description, most seem to be available in .3ds format. The previews are deceptively blocky - most of them are actually better quality than they appear. Note that the ones marker '$$' don't cost anything, it's just a format symbol.

cool photos Veritas!