What does everyone use for figures?

[Mister Gee]

I'm in the process of gathering the needed material for my layout. One of the things that strikes me as overly expensive are figures. One pack of less than ten N scale figures can cost $5 or $6 - that's gonna add up just populating a station platform. What does everyone else do to load up their layouts with little people?

[bill937ca]

The cheapest figures are usually the generic N scale figures found on eBay.   Not much for detail so these are your background figures. 100 pieces $9 on the first listing that came up with shipping from the US.

 

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/255027636689?itmmeta=01JA8DF2QQ6447H65N74BXJD79&hash=item3b60d4e9d1:g:HzgAAOSwRQlbD6Bt&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA4Mxmj%2BiGvOveHXEBClPb29izFngoZK%2BB0Dvdfw2CeKX2%2B1Vsd8J6qEHFhr7cI5PaUs2JUqUeFO0MPJ321DYtbw4YYgCaxMJOI4SCVbWlQh%2FnXcTCKdCseg3RXP2tEiU8x0OQHJ8xNolj1gT2GkPeOo3ikoT4ATzc2aMKg5WSyAff0dR0m1rA9plRsrsdsvvvo18hPxbwn58M4%2BXP27mypO0j%2FXz62l8kXWnqhZt8jV6SyzM6QBtbFdIeTVzsN68tkP5yv%2F7kuv3%2B%2BOSoz%2FxAx14qEizD%2FUCtcMYkAWzgwlsB|tkp%3ABFBM9qu8jdJk

 

For figures up front I used Kato or Tomytec The Human or Tomytec Visual Scene Accessory.  On HS you can sort by manufacturer or item series. I usually had a short list of detail figures that I ordered when available.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/list/252/6/1

Edited October 15 by bill937ca

[cteno4]

@Mister Gee yes figures. Like bathroom remodels, are the highest price per size item in model railroading! But they are the main thing that can make even a rough scene pop into the minds eye and make the viewer end up thinking they saw more than was there.

 

The 1/150 cheap architectural figures bill linked are the cheapest ones to start with. You can get these down to $2 per 100 shopping around on ebay and aliexpress. The moulding is crude and painting just dashes of paint, but they get the basic figure across. These always looked to be produced bay the same manufacturer as same shapes from most anywhere you get them and the only difference I’ve noted is how well the shaped are cleaned up (I think this has to do on how fast the press is run and age/quality of the dies) and how well they are painted. You can get unpainted ones as well if you want to paint your own (tedious task at N scale, but doable). You can also touch up painted ones as well. I find these are best to use in areas that are further from the viewer (at 2-3’ you really can’t see much figure details at all). For closer stuff best to use Tomytec figures, especially on the outside edges but you can try to fill in a crowd with the cheap figures and put the nice figures around the edges of the crowd and at spots the eye is really drawn to. If you really can’t afford Tomytec, then go with all cheap architectural figures and try to clean some up, having cheap figures is better than none and then as you get some funds for some nicer figures go back and start strategically adding them in.

 

The seated architectural figures also work really well in vehicles and trains. Most vehicles and trains don’t have the room for the legs so you usually end up clipping them off mid thigh. Many times you can get away with using the standing figures as well by chopping them off at the waist. This can also help as many time the seats in vehicles and trains may be raised up in relation the the seat backs and windows so you can adjust the head and shoulders to come out at the right spot in the windows. You really never can see into most vehicles and windows well enough to see anything below their chests anyway and the thick clear plastic window also tend to fuzz out any detail, so you just need the impression of the figure being there and your minds eye fills in details it’s visual memory and you end up seeing more than is actually visible/there. So I only use the standing figures in vehicles and just clip them off at the waist now.

 

I’ve also used a scale architectural figures to make kids with a bit of painting changes as well. You can also bend figures a bit with pliers if you are careful. Plunking then into some boiling water (I know that sounds sadistic!) for a little bit helps soften them  some for bending. If you use very thin tweezer nose pliers you can put some heat shrink on the firs 5mm of the tips to make a softer surface to not damage the figures too much with the metal. You can also chop off arms and legs to re-pose them or articulate them differently. This is really tedious work and require some filling, sanding, and repainting, but sometimes jsut a raised arm can tell a story. Nice thing is at a few cents each you can play around and experiment a lot.

 

Tomytec figures are great as they seem to be at the sweet spot of price and quality. They are just nice enough quality and painting to portray what they are well and look acceptable up close in a photo, but are around $5 per dozen in a set. They have just enough detail that our mind’s eye recognizes what they are trying to be and uses its visual memory to fill in all the details and you think you see more than is there. The sets are nicely themed to help make certain scenes (this is the same as the Kato and preisser sets as well). European and American 1/160 figures also can work, but at times may not be the right paint job and can sometimes be a bit big (the 1/160 helps mute some of this). But the tend to be a bit more expensive. There are now the new 3d printed figures with faces and detailed clothes printed on them but they can get up to $5 per figure! As time goes on I see resin printing being able to do 1/150 figures and then you could use programs like poser to created different figures, clothe them, and pose them.

 

I’ve found that for general viewing the architectural figure work great, it’s when you get really close or photograph they don’t look as nice. It’s hard to have it all and model railroading is all about tradeoffs like this. If your modeling is all about doing close up photography of your scenes then you’ll need to use nice/expensive figures. If your primary play is a couple of feet away you can cheat and use cheaper figures.

 

Figures are tough as in some quiet scenes just a few perfect figures can really pop and tell a great visual story, but in other places you really need to have a substantial number or the brain says something is wrong here! It’s one of those things that is really hard to plan and requires you just starting to plunk down figures to start to feel what is needed in a scene. I’ve done platforms where I think a dozen or two would do it and ended up with 50+ to make it look satisfying from a couple of feet away. You can cheat and glue them to bases of little discs of very thin clear acetate (you can get a 2-3mm hole punch and punch these out of very thin clear acetate sheet) and the plunk these guys down to test out what you might want to do and then come back once perfect and replace them with glued down figures. Figures can be tedious like this but when you find the right figure(s) in the right places it can really be amazing and then worth the effort.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Mister Gee]

Thanks very much guys for the advice! Using the cheaper figures to fill in a scene is a great idea - I will bear that in mind going forward!

 

John

[cteno4]

John,

 

You are welcome. Shop around for some of the architectural figures on ebay and aliexpress and get a couple of places and just play with them, will cost you all of of $5 or so. Putting some on little clear bases really helps to play around with where to put figures and what layering might look like and best practices for your situation.

 

Take a look at Swede’s layout thread, he does fun things with figure stories in scenes.

 

 

jeff 

[MeTheSwede]

2 hours ago, Mister Gee said:

I'm in the process of gathering the needed material for my layout. One of the things that strikes me as overly expensive are figures. One pack of less than ten N scale figures can cost $5 or $6 - that's gonna add up just populating a station platform. What does everyone else do to load up their layouts with little people?

 

I've been buying a bit at a time and eventually it builds up.

 

I don't really want to think too much about exactly how much money I've spent on figures in total, but then on the other hand if you do a rough calculation of how many figures the cost of a train set would buy you, that's a really large amount of figures and then they aren't really that expensive in comparision after all.

 

If you do opt to go down the ugly cheap archetechural figures, I would say don't bother with the painted ones. Yellow pants with purple shirt and face? - What were they thinking? You can speed paint white figures a lot better yourself by chosing colours that make sense. I often think I should repaint some of the Tomytec figures too, but so far it has not happened due to my general lazyness. And also I've got a couple of armies of 2mm figures waiting to be painted...

 

[Cat]

The architectural figures are great for putting inside buildings so they look occupied.  Even the cheap painteds work well for this, sometimes need a little touch-up just to be on the safe side, but they are only partially visible through plastic windows.

[Welshbloke]

The cheapo ones are good for populating trains too, I've used a good number of HO ones in 1890s OO coaches I've built. The windows are small and the interiors fairly dark, so the general cheapness doesn't shout at you. Vaguely humanoid shapes are absolutely fine in that situation!

[Tony Galiani]

It is worth keeping an eye on the HobbySearch bargains page.  Usually they have some figures on offer at a better discount.  I don't shop specifically for figures but if I happen to be making a purchase I check that out and add some to my order.  I have slowly been building up a small stock of useful figures that way.

Ciao,

Tony

[RS18U]

Some great advice here as I too have been struggling with how to populate my layout.  And I learned something new as I had no idea about those architectural figures.

 

I have also had luck buying used figures at local train shows, generally at reasonable prices.

[cteno4]

I use to have great luck scoring little boxes of used misc detail parts and figures at train shows, but these days I never run across them anymore.

 

jeff

[Kamome]

Kato have a good selection of general passengers which have good form and colouring. They have produced a lot of things, some more specialist scene figures, such as the food sellers on the Usui Pass, I think Yokohama station during the JNR era. I personally think their station attendants and drivers are excellent. 

 

Tomix/Tomytec do a much larger selection of specific sets, fisherman, baseball team, people in kimono, school students to name but a few. The moulding and painting are generally a bit less defined and more roughly painted when compared to the Kato options. There range is far more comprehensive for specific things, the “cameos” you want to add.

 

I think it really depends on the scenes you want to create and consider where said scenes will be seen from. Just make sure the better figures are closer to the viewer and fill in behind with cheaper figures. If you have a busy station, passengers line up on Japanese platforms in designated areas so you could use your better figures towards the platform edge and fill in the back.

 

One thing I’ve learnt which I never used to consider,  is the scaling of colour. Some of the very cheap painted figures are not actually that terribly moulded but are always terribly painted with bright coloured paints. Think of the scene as viewing the real 1:1 scale object. How far away would you be away for it to appear this size? What does that colour look like at that distance? A bright yellow is not a bright yellow at a longer viewing distance but a muted pale version.

 

If you’re having to paint a batch of architectural figures, I paint everything black first. Any missed gaps won’t be anywhere near as obvious as white plastic shining through. 

Edited October 26 by Kamome

[SL-san]

On 10/16/2024 at 2:37 AM, Mister Gee said:

One of the things that strikes me as overly expensive are figures.

It does depend what and where you buy them.  As others have mentioned Tomytec have a range of painted figures that can be used both generally and for specific scenes.  Currently RGR has some early sets of 12 figures available for ¥316 - ¥686... thats from ¥26 - ¥57 each figure which I think is pretty cheap!  More recent sets can be a bit pricier, but I found it a good plan to add packs of the earlier, cheaper sets to my order of more expensive rolling stock, the extra wigt having virtually no effect on the freight cost.

 

Graeme 

[bc6]

I like the ebay 100 figures for $9 for filling in a scene or Kato figures for specific applications.

[cteno4]

One sad and rough note is Tomytec figures have really jumped in price the last year or so. Now 8-12 packs are 1760¥ list and some at 2420¥ (rr worker and station front sets). They started out at 396¥ list way back and have steadily rose in price, but sort of doubled last year and some packs now 8 instead of 12 figures. Also many sets are now repackaged into set of 4 for 528¥ list. At least with the 4 packs you can be more targeted at what you want for a scene. I guess labor costs to paint these are getting high (I spent a year of my childhood free time painting fancy military figures for a dollar each!). Wonder if 3d inkjet printing will get reasonable enough to help bring this down. The new TTC offerings of sets of 28 3D inkjet figures for 3300¥ or about 120¥ per figure, so maybe the future. They do sort of have a bit of an eerie appearance though. I’ve been planing to grab some to see how they look at different distances and how well they mix into a crowd of the usual characters…
 

So if you see older sets of 12 out there at the older prices and can use them, grab them as it’s looking like the new pricing structure will be around 150¥ per figure now. Bummer. I’m glad I have a large pile built up here. Feel like they are gold now.

 

jeff

[Cat]

Ah, glad I always threw some packs in the cart with most orders at 1999!

[cteno4]

Yeah I always did the same thing for years! Then bought up a ton from one of our club members when his layout was torn apart.

 

jeff

[Kamome]

It seems you can now add figures during the festive season with a Noch advent calendar. Information suggests they don’t include any Holiday themes figures .

 

https://www.noch.com/figures-advent-calendar/36996/