Something that has bugged me for a while is the size of figures on a layout, I’m not a big fan of hundreds of people lurking around a layout, so my comment is: I checked a lot of old steam photos with crews close to the engines and they are smaller than the model figures represent, again I checked the real photos against the model photos and there is no doubt which is the model, the key seems to be the model figures are too tall and their limbs are far too large, one point is look at a photo of a steam engineer by the window, in reality he hardly takes up much space but look at a model figure and they seem to fill the whole window. I realise there is different quality in model figures but the scale could be justified.
Maybe the figures are supposed to be slightly larger than real life otherwise they may look too small, who knows - - - - just a comment. any comments ???
How do the figures you are talking about measure up to real people? Are the men about 6’ scale tall, and the women a bit shorter? Remember that people were shorter in times past - even as recently as 50 to 75 years ago. Also, what scale are you discussing and which manufacturer’s figures?
I went and measures a sample of my Preiser figures. They seem to vary from 5’ 3" to 6’ with a lot 5’ 9" high. As someone else said, that may be average for modern humans, but back in the 50s, where a lot of us model, anyone over 5’ 6" was considered tall. I couldn’t find any short people in my set of 100 although some plump people looked shorter, but weren’t when I measured them. Even the children in the pack are tall for what they are depicted doing ie rolling hoops.
I have some English people that are 00 scale and they are about 6’ 3" tall on a HO ruler. Maybe there are preiser packs with smaller people, I had enough trouble painting by big ones.
Preiser and Merten figures are quite correct in size - for contemporary times. I once did a layout depicting turn-of-the century (1900) railroading and found the Preiser figures for that era to be too tall, averaging 6´.
British fgures are OO scale - that is 1/76 and too tall at all!
Preisser figures are, I think, best if your looking for close to average height in “modern” era figures. If one is looking for shorter figures be prepared to do microsurgery[:-^]
This week’s modeling project has been painting figures for a beach scene. Several weeks ago on “the internet auction site to which we do not directly link”, I saw a listing for “100 pieces swimming figures N scale painted figures”. They did not look like they were actually swimming
(in water) but beach-goers in swimming suits. They were advertised as 1/150 N scale-- possibly a bit large for 1/160, but they were under 10 bucks plus about 5 bucks shipping from….China! Not a big investment, and if they were slightly oversized, I might get away from it if there were no other differently-proportioned figures nearby.
The top left 10 figures, from the end to the male with the food-coloring-orange hair in the middle, are the figures as they originally came. Almost all were painted with black hair, except for five or six of the “redheads” which seemed a bit too bright. All of the female figures were painted to represent two-piece bathing suits. The male figures scale out at 6 feet and slightly under in 1/160. The standing females scale to 5’2” and slightly taller. One female figure of which the set supplied about a dozen copies seemed rather slight, like a covey of anorexic junior high school girls.
I’ve enjoyed following this topic and I’d like to offer my two cents. With regard to figures appearing too large in windows, I think interior floors are often too thick (elevating figures unrealistically), and that interiors are often not to scale. It is often necessary to trim the figures to make them hit the window at the right height. For seated figures I often have to grind away some of the back, butt, ant thigh areas to simulate the way real people sink into upholstery, and the way our own fat and muscle “gives” when we sit. I like using a dremel tool with small fine burrs on low speed for this process.
One of my most frustrating figure installations is fitting people into vehicles. Getting the rear in the seat, back against backrest, and at least one hand on the wheel - it’s tough.
I do think it is advisable to buy a heard of unpainted people for these special installations. They are cheap enough that it is not too painful to throw one away if I trim too much, and trimming requires fresh paint, anyway. After I get the fit right, then I paint the figure. *********************************************************************