Carving a 1/12th scale pilot silhouette for the Flying Flea

Start with a block of foam and decide the approximate dimensions of the pilot figurine. I want a 1/12th scale with height of 5'9", i.e. in model size, 5.75".
I drew the outline on paper.



Cut a piece of L-shaped foam block and trace the outline on one side and the backside, and carve. The shorter length of the L is for the arms.

The carved pilot turns out to be a muscle man, and appears more than 6 feet in scaled height.



Start trimming by lessening the shoulder and chest. Now the carved pilot of approx. 5' 9" of scaled height looks like a child because the head is big compared to the slimmed shoulder.

I could carve the head smaller, but never mind.

I would check it against the Flying Flea first and play around with it.

This torso is a silhouette figurine, it will be glued on a 1/16" balsa sheet, the assembly will be glued into the cockpit, leaving a space between the back of this figurine and the cockpit rear former in the plane.

The space is for slotting in the 2s 500mah lipo battery as I think I might have to have my battery against the cockpit rear former . The battery will be held in placed by friction and compressible foam figurine.

I used grey-black foam because:

1.  that was what my IT colleague has on his table and it is light, plenty of air in the foam; 
2. I don't intend to paint or do details; and
3. grey-black offers great silhouette shading. It ought to be visually pleasing when the Flying Flea is flying (if it comes to that stage). 

Maybe I should install 1/4" balsa rails into the cockpit and mount the assembly on that instead. The assembly could be mounted with magnets or velcro, something like that, then I will be able to remove and change the position of the pilot assembly anytime.