People

Its the size of the Market, warhgames makers sell shedloads of each pose, railway folk generally want one fig of each pose kinda thing.

Have a look around for 20mm figures and see what is available but most civilians seem to be in the big 28mm 1/60th approx scale.

Arthur Figgis wrote in news:13hsqq8jvlpfqb2 @corp.supernews.com:

As a former manufacturer albeit on a small scale of military figures you brought tears to my eyes you brought tears to my eyes. I was once at an exhibition and had some 4mm Napoleonic wargame figures (in wargame terms that's 4mm high not 4mm -> foot). A bespecticaled gent took exception to the fact that some apparently had primrose yellow facings instead of canary yellow!

But no street is complete without half a dozen Bachmann 'monsiegnuers'. Get a sharp knife and some glue to demob an airfix 8th army pack. Finally do a wartime period layout.

Cheers, Simon

Actually the Brits are not that well served in military figures either, there are a few sets of WW2, there was briefly a set with the SLR (Marines, Falklands era) but that is no more and an American firm currently do a set of 'modern' British troops (although the equipment has now changed somewhat following experience in the Middle East and Afganistan). Military stuff has never favoured the modern era, I know as I set out to build representative forces of the various countries in Nato and the Warsaw Pact (spent ten years on that, never managed to finish it, gave up in 1986 having been bought a train set in 1982).

Hole in the market on both counts methinks - Maybe someone with a rapid prototyping printer might produce a set at reasonable cost (there were a couple of early BR diesels produced in that way for OO) - If anyone has an old Centricast machine they might make a few bob supplying a set of (say) ten figures.

Mike

That's another interesting point. I don't think I've ever seen a layout set in that period. There seems to be a distinct set of eras that do get modelled (for example, pre-grouping, the inter-war Big 4, BR transition, BR Blue, post-privatisation, etc), but I don't recall seeing any layouts set in the 1940s - either in the war itself or the immediate aftermath. It's interesting to speculate on why that might be the case.

Mark

Mark Goodge said the following on 24/10/2007 08:06:

North Devon MRC - Kingdom's Crossing is set in Summer 1940. A very well-known layout :-)

Preiser HO figures used to be available in bulk unpainted. The 4D model shop in London carries them (and other scales), £20 or 120 figures.

- Nigel

Preiser still does unpainted figures in most scales (except 00) The range has been extended over the last couple of decades. Preiser does 1:72 military figures.

Arthur Figgis said the following on 23/10/2007 22:44:

You may like to have a look at

I have no idea of the prices, so I'm just offering this for you to look into further.

In addition, if you are not in a hurry, I found a seller on ebay with the reassuring name 'wehonest_cn' who is selling 'scaled' model parts mainly for architectual work, but also some O, OO, HO, and N scale stuff too. I've risked a couple of pounds on some working lights, and some people (unpainted). In N the lights are 30 for =A310, and at that price they are worth the cost as parts if they are too rough to use 'as is'. The people are 300 for =A36, painted versions are an extra =A31 but the colours used did not inspre me. Try this link...

other than as an ebay customer I have no other link with them.

I don't think so. It's the problem of continuing changes in fashion and the like that makes large runs of figures impractical as they would go out of style very quickly.

However, if someone could come up with a way of taking the 3D computer scans that can now be done of people (or anything for that matter), and converting that into a mould in a simple and not too expensive way, then maybe it would be possible to do pretty much any person in 4mm - imagine, having yourself scanned and then turned into a 4mm scale model of yourself for your layout :-D

That's the point - model figures stop in the 1950s or so!

There are some out there - "Overlord" being one:

and I've seen an army base in Dorset based one a few times.

There is also an N gauge one based on immediately post-war Germany, with everything in ruins.

About GBP1.50 for 3ish at shows, IIRC. I've used some on diorama-style models.

Not having everyone wearing a hat would be a good start :-)

I once built a model of car park ticket seller's hut for my layout, complete with a model of the attendant who always wore a long green coat and black beret (added to the figure using filler). When I showed them the model, his wife recognised it instantly, but he didn't realise what it was.

Well, I didn't say that there weren't any, just that I don't recall ever seeing one :-)

Mark

Two or three years ago (or it may have been a little earlier than that) there was an article in the "Railway Modeller" about a layout set during World War II. If memory serves correct, one of the photographs showed a freight train (8F lettered "NE", I think) and on one of the flat wagons was a wing assembly for a Spitfire. In the background there was a crashed ME

109, and there was bomb and fire damage to some of the buildings. Certainly different and I seem to recall it was pretty well done. Hope this helps,

David Costigan

Arthur Figgis wrote in news:13hv4s3eohqvqe3 @corp.supernews.com:

Unpainted I take it, in which case that's pretty good value for money for meal figures.

Can I get my old casting machine home from my dad's in the back of my car?

I really wouldn't recommend eating them! They are impressionistic rather than rivet counter friendly, as the website explains. Good, though, and the sort of thing I had in mind.

All my layouts whatever their era seemed to spend a longtime resembling a Bombsite anyway . I thought it was the natural state. G.Harman