What have others experience been with the "inexpensive" 1:200 figures available from Pac-Ring countries been? I am looking at the pre-painted ones as my painting skills are shaky at best (D- at coloring in 1st grade.) Will I have a town full of retired basketball players?
I used to buy painted figures in z scale in a show down here. Not bad for a fraction of the cost compare to the ones from Preiser.
I bought 5000 for $25 on ebay 10 years ago. They need repainting, but that is easy, I just glue them in place, add a dab of peach on the face, and brown or other colors for hair, and go over the rude pink, red, and bright green clothing with shades of denim blue, t shirt white, and subtle shades of gray using flat tole paints like Apple Barrel or Ceramcoat. Sometimes I cut their arms off, and re-glue on in different poses, I cut their legs off and glue them to passenger car seats, and sometimes I cut them off at the torso and glue them to the inside of locomotives. Sometimes I glue a small washer shape piece of paper on their head to represent a hat. I only use Merten, and Preiser figures for in your face foreground scenes, and fill in all the day to day activity with what I call "We-Honest" people. We Honest was the first Chinese ebay seller that I bought my figures from. My only complaint is the colors they used, all the people have shiny offensive colored clothes and black hair, and a pointy head where they were clipped off the sprue. They are fun to use, there are only about 12 poses. One is a very tall girl wearing a scarf , with a large chest, holding a purse. This one gets her feet sanded off and placed behind others so you can't tell she is 7'4" tall and forgot her basketball. I like to glue 3 of them in a triangular pattern with their backs together in an alley or behind a building, and put a dab of glue between all 3's heads, then paint that dab pink, to represent pod people ganglia communication. There is a guy running with his coat blowing in the wind. I like to paint a dozen of them in the exact same color, then glue them very close together in a row, running out a shop door and around a corner, to represent Clark Kent preparing to turn into Superman. One figure always gets painted to represent his pants down showing his cheeks, and facing a wall, His pose from behind looks like he is peeing. Line up 3 or 4 behind the bar, and add a dab of Tamiya clear yellow on the ground by his feet, for best effect. There is an ebay seller who always adds one of these guys facing a wall or tree on all his structures. And there is a fat man standing, wearing a jacket and a tie, looking over the rest of the workers. He is the boss. I like to paint him with red and white striped shirt, and his whole head pink, and place him all over, watching everyone who is doing work, then ask the kids to find all of him. I say "Where's Baldo"
Hi, Rob What I think would be a good idea is if someone would 3-D print groups and crowds of people. The most detailed in front and the rest just a "mass" of heads and arms. They could quickly populate buildings and stations without having to paint everyone of them. I understand it isn't east printing folks in 3-D maybe that is why not many are available on the market. Jim
Outland Models is now 3D printing figures. I ordered a couple sets, but on one of them, the lady in a big dress's head was broke off. Still for the price, it's not a bad deal. You get a few serious Hombre's in there too!
If any of you guys have 3D printers you can use "makehuman" program and create all kinds of human beings all kinds of poses and clothes that you can think of. I played with it for a while and it is very easy to use even for a newbie. http://www.makehumancommunity.org/ Rob, I was reading all your description and was relating to the same people I was painting and playing with. You should post a pic of all the variations of cheap people. There are also two more sets of cheap people that are good to use, one is a skinny set that dont have both legs attached and the more difficult to find are the seated ones. The seated ones are good for dome cars. Kim
I have a small bag of walking people that I cut at the the torso's, to glue into an ovservation car. I was thinking of making a old abandon Mineshaft and have a bunch of ominous walking trunks coming out of the mine. No blood, just a touch of flesh paint on top. It would definetly be a scary sight!
You can make a Halloween theme byoz small module. But imagine the horror if someone decides to look inside the loco, people without legs... you got to add some red on the seats and floor.
Rob, The dress of the outland models lady with the head broken off makes a nice cone shape if you need one. I turned one into the nose cone on the propeller of a biplane.
I Use the cheap people to populate streets and areas with groups of people. I also cut them up to fit certain locations. I use the Prieser and Merten people for specific scenes where you want to be able to recognize that they're people .... for close-ups.
Sometimes you have to pay the piper. Kelley Wright was the best at converting the preiser people into something totally different.
Brigette will paint *anything* you want. She has many standard sets. She buys the unpainted Preiser sets and paints whatever schemes like baseball/soccer or specific scene figures. http://www.trafofuchs.de/ She will be at Altenbeken, along with Kristi of KoMi-Miniaturen (www.komi-miniaturen.de) that make SUPER detailed items like fruit crates and carts, horse-drawn wagons, etc.
