What to do when figures don't fit in vehicle?

[FriendlyNeighbourhoodNerd]

Not-so-recently, I bought two sets of 20mm AB Figures for a 1/72 WWII Jeep (Italeri) and an Sd.kfz.251 (First to Fight). The figures are wonderful, very well sculpted and scaled to the vehicles, but they just don't fit in the vehicles!

Neither of the sets are specifically made for a Jeep, or for a Hanomag, so maybe that could be the issue, but nonetheless I've got these now so what can I do to fix that and make them fit in the vehicles?

For most of them, the issue is that the knees are at basically a right angle, so their butt is floating above the seat. Quite a few of them, though, have legs and feet that just don't fit inside the Jeep, not just height but also length-wise.

I could try and make the seats bigger with greenstuff (although the vehicles are already painted) for those with a smaller gap, but especially for the German fellas it's about 3-4mm, I can't really add to the seats, or their butt

For the Jeep guys, their feet (for those in the front seat at least) are not super visible so I could chop them up, but in the Sd.kfz.251 their feet are visible, and I'd have to chop so much anyways I'd end up removing anything below the knee.

I wonder how the dedicated sets for these vehicles are sculpted to account for this. I'd imagine they're a bit more cramped?

What do you advise me to do in this case? Anyone ever dealt with that problem before?
Thanks in advance!

[traveller]

When I have had that problem, I chopped off the legs and feet an cut them to the right size and superglued them back in place. They will not be very visible anyway.

[fred]

When I have had that problem, I chopped off the legs and feet an cut them to the right size and superglued them back in place. They will not be very visible anyway.

This.

Don’t try and make the seats higher - that will look quite odd with the driver towering over the vehicle.

[Burgundavia]

A 3rd for radical surgery. Cut bits off until they fit

[Silent Invader]

Surgery is the way.

Sometimes it’s possible to detach the legs, glue them into the footwell if they’d be seen, then glue in the rest of the torso onto the seat.

[Glitzer]

for 28mm I didn't fully cut the legs but just cut a wedge, bent the metal/plastic and added some putty to hide the seam.

[Daeothar]

The problem is that a scale model of a vehicle will not accomodate wargaming figures, as those are usually proportioned too heroic (to account for the limitations of the materials used), and diecast vehicles will not fit any figures, since they're not built to scale. This often means that the interiors are very cramped and rudimentary, and are made to resemble a vehicle's interior rather than reproduce it.

So in both cases, it's usually required to make some radical cuts into the miniature's legs and butt to make sure they (sort of) fit, as most of the time, the discrepancies are in the height of the seats and the depth of the available leg space.

You will also have noticed that driver and passenger wargaming figures often suffer from Tyrion Lannister syndrome. They don't particularly drink or know things, but they do have very stunted legs already. And even then, in my experience, they won't fit the majority of vehicles out there.

Funny story; when I once wanted to fit a sitting wargaming miniature to the cockpit of a 1/48 model kit of a helicopter, I had to lengthen his legs, because his stumpy little leggies could not reach the pedals

When you don't want to cut and fit though, your best bet usually is figures that are made especially for the vehicle in question. Which is doable most of the time when using model kits, but not with dedicated wargaming vehicles.

So yeah; break out the cutters, knives and glue; those legs are going to need it...