I was looking at their large unpainted sets.(HO) Are these hard plastic or those flexable rubber things that paint doesn’t like to stick to?
Thanks
hard plastic
They take paint really well, too.
Thanks. I picked up an unlabeled grab bag of people a while back and a lot of them were soft rubber.[xx(] I don’t know who made them. I was hoping they weren’t Preisers. They have some good prices compared to WS.
The WS figures are a lot more expensive than the Preisers, and the WS passengers don’t seem to fit into seating in passenger cars near as well as the Preiser figures do. I purchased a dozen of the WS seated passengers as a test run and didn’t really care for them. I have never seen WS figures sold in large quantities such as the Preiser figures are either.
You can’t beat the price if you can do the painting yourself. I bought a set of artist acrylics so I can try that Muskeet Miniatures painting technique.
Thanks for the info.
I haven’t tried painting them myself. What is this technique you speak of?
I definately have noticed the potential for savings if you paint them yourself.
The Preiser plastic figures do paint well. I had a deal going with my son to paint them for me. He did a pretty good job but unfortunately lost interest. He was using enamel flats which worked well although the acrylics are supposedly better.
I had to “trim” a lot of the WS sitting figures to fit them in my Zephyr. Any body need some extra feet? [:O]
http://www.brifayle.ca/1home.html
Sorry, I meant this one. They talk about a shadow technique with a black base coat. That Musket Miniatures (just Google it) site also has some good painting tips. Looks like a gaming figure site. I wish I modeled O scale when it comes to painting details like people. The old eye balls ain’t what they used to be.[X-)]
Were these HO scale figures?? Can’t imagine who would make figures out of soft rubber(?) I think Model Power offers HO figures in a bag, unpainted flesh colored ones. They’re not bad but not as well made or detailed as Preiser.
Preiser figures work out to be about $1 per person when bought pre-painted (usually in sets of 6 or 7) and unpainted about 5 cents each.
I have purchased bulk figures from Preiser , the musketeer technique is very good. Don’t fret about details like eyes etc. you can’t see them in HO anyway. By painting your own it does save a buck bt it can be time consuming. It’s a toss up if you count your time as money, if not you’ll have some fun. These were all hand painted by me for one scene. You’ll obviously note the female on each end of the bench is the same figure , just painted different.
The rubber ones were HO. They are like little Stretch Armstrong dolls. They had a little square peice of clear plastic glued to their feet so they would stand up. They looked factory painted with gloss paint that is next to impossable to strip off. Tried to repaint them but the paint won’t stick. They were in grab bags that the LHS put together with some other detail parts. (the reason for no label)
sounds to me that the rubbery ones are made by Merten
I know the exact figures you are talking about. They were made in England by Airfix. They came in a box similar in size to the Preisure boxes and contained 48 unpainted figures. I still have six boxes of them I bought YEARS ago. After opening one box and seeing how terrible they were, the other five boxes are STILL sealed in the original celophane with the original price sticker of $1.19 !!!
Mark.
Good figures–especially the ‘seated passengers’ that I needed for my ROYAL GORGE. Bought a 36 figure painted set for around $36 (about a buck per figure) and that compares quite nicely to an average of $12 or $13 for about four or five WS passengers (who don’t ‘sit’ as well). They populated the train quite nicely, thank you. Now I’ve got to go back to the LHS and invest in some more of those Preisers for my CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR.
They also make VERY cool HO cats and dogs. And skinny-dippers if you have a lake in the woods, LOL!
Good products.
Tom[:P]
I saw they make nudists, strippers and hookers too. Not that I would approve of putting those on a layout.[:-^][}:)]
They’re from Germany. Much healthier outlook over there, LOL!
Tom [}:)]
Ah yes, Presier unpainted figure sets - very good value for the money, and look really nice when properly finished and painted.
First, be prepared to do a little (well, a lot) of scraping, filing, and sanding - scrape off the mold part lines which (on most figures) run along the side of the legs, arms, torso, and head, using the back side of an xacto knife blade. Also slice off any flash which may be present.
Sometimes there is an injection pin hole in the figures back which you may need to fill with putty (if visible)
Next grab a few jewelers files and file away any extra flash/molding/poorly molded blobs etc, especially on the head, by the hands and by the feet (these areas are often poorly molded, especially the shoes/feet area). Clean up any putty filler you may have added.
Finally, go over with very fine sanding film to knock off any remaining imperfections and molding lines on the figure.
Figure clean up (removing flash & burrs, filing holes and gaps, sanding, etc) can sometimes take the longest, especially if you are re-arranging arms or legs, repositioning the head, or removing/molding new hair styles, hats, pocketbooks, etc.
Then wash & prep for painting - I tend to prime, paint using thinned enamels, add a dark arcylic wash over the figure to highlight creases, folds, and also facial figure without adding cartoony looking eyeballs/lips/etc, then (most importantly) FLAT FINISH (Dullcoat or whatnot) - humans are flat-colored. This includes any gold or silver coloring (e.g bracelets, belt buckles, necklaces). One exception - any lenses like for glasses or cameras get a gloss finish (usually a deep metallic blue, like the kind recommended for painting windshields on solid resin vehicles).
If these are going to be passengers inside vehicles or railcars, then you can probably be more sloppy (except for convertibles) - but make sure when ‘amputating’ legs to make the figure fit, to keep the upper thighs (sand them ultra thin if you must, but k
Bought a set of “Adam & Eve” about 8 or 9 years ago - still don’t have the guts to do them!![%-)] Not because of the nudity, but because they are seperate heads, torsos, arms & legs!![:O] These parts are TINY!!, but will really “spice up” a scene!! Sue (Gearjammer) was looking for some naked cowboys a while back - dont know what she used but they were great![:I]
chutton01-Correct! I enjoy doing all that. Most of the time I’m not happy with the pre painted stuff and end up redoing them anyhow.