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HO Scale "drivers & passengers"

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HO Scale "drivers & passengers"
Posted by dbduck on Monday, December 13, 2010 3:11 PM

Does anyone know where I can get HO scale drivers & passengers for my scale automobiles? I have a few convertables that I would like to add people to so that they may be on the streets,  just not ..always parked

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Posted by galaxy on Monday, December 13, 2010 3:29 PM

dbduck

Does anyone know where I can get HO scale drivers & passengers for my scale automobiles? I have a few convertables that I would like to add people to so that they may be on the streets,  just not ..always parked

Either I am missing something or that doesn;t make sense to me. DO you want people to sit in the convertibles, or do you want them to stand beside it in the street? Oh! I think I get it now...you want your COMVERTIBLES to be DRIVING in the street not parked somewhere with no one inside. {I do have a natural blonde streak so I'm allowed}.

There are "sitting people" who could be carved down a bit if necessary to fit into the convertibles. AMny can definitely look like passengers. you might  find a sitting guy reading a  newspaper you can cut out of his hands to make his hands fit teh steering wheels.

SOme links:

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/160-42331

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/272-153001

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/490-5706

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/590-14009

Do a walthers search for "sitting people" and you will come up with these and more..

-G .

Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.

 HO and N Scale.

After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.

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Posted by wjstix on Monday, December 13, 2010 3:44 PM

IMHO the "Cadillac" of figures is Preiser. They can be expensive, but if you're up to painting you're own, they're really not that expensive and look a lot better than other brands. To fit in an auto (or often in a RR passenger car seat) you may find you have to remove parts of the figure's legs to fit them in...so you may only have to paint the upper half of the figure.

Truckers, Car Drivers and Passengers

Seated Passengers

Sitting People

Stix
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Posted by superbe on Monday, December 13, 2010 3:51 PM

I read on a thread some time ago but have never tried it that cutting the legs off sitting figures below the knee help make them fit in cars, locos, etc.. Generally the legs can't be seen anyway.

How do our forum members put people in the RR passenger cars? That should be about the same as what you are looking for.

Happy Railroading

Bob

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Posted by mikelhh on Monday, December 13, 2010 4:57 PM

A few years back I purchased some unpainted seated figures by Preiser. I think I'm right in saying some of them had no legs from day one. Very useful for populating the railcar.

 

 

Mike

Modelling the UK in 00, and New England - MEC, B&M, D&H and Guilford - in H0

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Posted by hornblower on Monday, December 13, 2010 6:14 PM

You would think that most modelers would want to have drivers in all of the vehicles they place on their roadways.  However, driver figures seem to be some of the most difficult to find.  Yes, Preiser makes a few but most are "trucker" figures that wouldn't look quite right driving a TR3 or similar vehicle.  I don't even think the "heavyweight" trucker figures could even be made to fit in a small convertible.  My own problem is that I have to find driver figures to fit inside a group of sprint cars I made for a scene featuring part of a dirt oval track.  Preiser's military driver sets might work for my sprint cars (with a little carving) but seeing as I'm modelling Southern California, the many figures in top hats and great coats included in Preiser's unpainted sitting people sets aren't going to be much help.  Wiking used to have driver figures for their farm tractors and riding mower but I haven't seen either set in the last few Walthers catalogs. 

Wouldn't it be great if we could have a figure exchange where people modeling cold climates could trade the warm climate figures they don't need for the cold climate figures from another person modeling a warm climate.  Since I need to purchase at least one set of the 120 piece Preiser unpainted sitting people sets, I would be willing to trade the cold weather figures for any summer weather figures you don't need.  Anyone interested?

Hornblower

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Posted by Grampys Trains on Monday, December 13, 2010 6:54 PM

Hi db: I cut these two figures at the waist to fit in a Caddy and Corvette. DJ.

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Posted by MisterBeasley on Monday, December 13, 2010 7:11 PM

I bought a set of the unpainted Preiser "Truckers" a while back.  I actually enjoyed painting them.  They come in a variety of sizes, shapes and poses.  Yes, there are some heavyset guys in T-shirts, but also a few thin women.  (Modeling an earlier era, they ended up driving a school bus on my layout.)

Some come with no legs, and other come with the arms and legs molded separately, so you can leave them off or position them to suit your vehicles.

This guy is leaning out to check something, or maybe just to spit.

Having grown up when most figures stood rigidly at attention, I always like "action figures" who seem to be doing something.  These are a couple of other members of the "truckers" set.

 

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

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Posted by wholeman on Monday, December 13, 2010 9:19 PM

MisterBeasley

 

This guy is leaning out to check something, or maybe just to spit.

http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/500/DSC009491.JPG

 

 

Mister Beasley,

Is the left front tire off of the ground?  If it is, maybe that is why the driver is leaning out.Big Smile

Will

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Posted by doctorwayne on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 12:41 AM

I "operated" on a bunch of seated figures to allow them to operate vehicles.  Most common were leg amputations, followed by plastic surgery to bums and tops of heads, and then arm breaking and re-setting of the stumps.

(By the way, the "flying wheel syndrome" can be quite common with kit-built vehicles.) Smile, Wink & Grin

 

 

 

 

 

I like to leave the LPBs not glued in place, and the bodies of the vehicles removeable when possible - this allows them to be "on the road" or "parked", especially useful for photos.

 

These drivers needed little modification:

 

 

Some vehicles, such as Jordan's horse drawn wagons, come with figures:

 

As do many of Sylvan's kits:

 

 

 

 

The guy driving this Model T formerly worked driving a Revell moving van.  He's somewhat undersize, and was originally chrome plated, but with some new painted-on duds, fit well without modification:

 

 

Wayne

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Posted by MisterBeasley on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 6:27 AM

wholeman

 MisterBeasley:

 

This guy is leaning out to check something, or maybe just to spit.

http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/500/DSC009491.JPG

 

 

 

Mister Beasley,

Is the left front tire off of the ground?  If it is, maybe that is why the driver is leaning out.Big Smile

On my first couple of kit-built vehicles, all Jordans, I was not careful about making sure the wheels all sat flat on the workbench during assembly.  By the time I got to this one, though, I'd taken that into account.  Then, of course, I discovered that my roadways are not flat.

This is another example of how the camera catches things that you don't see right away.  I've gone back and re-painted the wheels on this one, using a finer brush and a magnifier this time.

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

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Posted by superbe on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 8:21 AM

[quote user="doctorwayne"]

I "operated" on a bunch of seated figures to allow them to operate vehicles.  Most common were leg amputations, followed by plastic surgery to bums and tops of heads, and then arm breaking and re-setting of the stumps.

These drivers needed little modification:

No wonder you are called Dr. Wayne

Happy Railroading

Bob

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Posted by chutton01 on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 9:38 AM

One thing I found is you must provide a lap & thighs on a sitting passenger/driver figure, otherwise when you look down on the vehicles from even a slight elevation, figures cut at the gut look ridiculous (much like those old Game of Life peg people you put in the car-tokens).  In a closed vehicle, you can get away with just some shaped plastic strip painted the color of the figures' pants/skirt/etc and sticking out forward from the gut, but in an open vehicle you must retain at least the upper third of the thighs/knees to pass inspection (much easier to do for convertibles, as you need not worry about the non-scale thickness of the vehicle roof nor the clear plastic window inset, which tends to be almost 1/2 a scale head thick).  I sort of remember Merten figures looking slightly undersized, which is great for this purpose (not sure if this is still true, or if they unpainted sitting figures) - on the other hand, older Bachmann figures seemed oversized, in addition to having rather little facial detail (alas, as hidding them away in vehicles is a great way to obscure the lack of such detail).

The guy driving this Model T formerly worked driving a Revell moving van.  He's somewhat undersize, and was originally chrome plated, but with some new painted-on duds, fit well


Chrome plated?  I had the Revell Moving van (the Ford CL cab + trailer for Global I think), and I don't remember any chrome plated figures - that would be an odd choice on the manufacturer's part.

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Posted by CTValleyRR on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 1:12 PM

There was a good article in MR about modifying figures a couple of years ago.  Not as easy as kitbashing a structure, but with a little practice, not that hard, either.

I have had success putting a little dab of putty on the seat, and cutting out the midsection of the figure, so that just the top and legs are from the original.  Unless the car door is going to be open, you will never see it.

You will, however, need to brave the world of painting HO scale figures to succeed in this realm.

Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford

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Posted by G Paine on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 4:41 PM

wjstix

IMHO the "Cadillac" of figures is Preiser. They can be expensive, but if you're up to painting you're own, they're really not that expensive and look a lot better than other brands. To fit in an auto (or often in a RR passenger car seat) you may find you have to remove parts of the figure's legs to fit them in...so you may only have to paint the upper half of the figure.

Truckers, Car Drivers and Passengers

Seated Passengers

Sitting People

The Preiser unpainted people sets are an economical way to fill many passenger cars and vehicles. The amount of trimming (amputations) you have to do will depend on the space available in the seat and headroom. Sometimes removing legs will make the figure fit, but some vehicles are tight, and you will have to cut off at the waist. Be sure to test fit before you spend a lot of time painting the lower extremities. Sometimes filing off a hat will help the fit.

George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch 

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Posted by leighant on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 9:54 PM

PLEASE BE SEATED for a  Shameless thread highjack...

Not too difficult finding seated figures.  It was the dancing couples that were hard to find.  And the "transition era" musicians.  (Not steam transition to diesel, but swing to rock era transition.)

(sorry for another hijack....but this is just N)

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Posted by hon30critter on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 10:16 PM

Leighant:

Is that actually N scale? Regardless of the scale - WOW!

Dave

I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!

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Posted by dbduck on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 11:19 PM

To G Paine 

 Nothing against you.  I looked at the links you provided to Walthers..2 of the 3 items are listed as "not currently in stock with unknow availability..YET, they are currently "On Sale"

Is that a common practice of Walthers? 

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Posted by MisterBeasley on Thursday, December 16, 2010 6:52 AM

dbduck
    Is that a common practice of Walthers? 

Yes, I think it's just a consequence of the way they run their sales.  All Walthers sales seem to run for two months, starting with the first of the month when the sale is announced in the monthy flier.  So, if an item runs out within that time frame, it will show up as out-of-stock, but still on sale.  They will honor the sale price and back-order the item, for a while, anyway.

These guys:  www.rocousa.com   carry the complete Preiser catalog of figures.  Their web site has pictures.  Their prices are better than Walthers, too, but you still have to pay for shipping so it's best to put together a significant order.  I've ordered from them and everything showed up.

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

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Posted by G Paine on Friday, December 17, 2010 10:46 AM

dbduck
To G Paine 

 Nothing against you.  I looked at the links you provided to Walthers..2 of the 3 items are listed as "not currently in stock with unknow availability..YET, they are currently "On Sale"

Is that a common practice of Walthers? 

Actually, wjstix provided the links, but that is the way Walthers do their sales. Something goes on sale, then sells out at the sale price. It still lists as sold out / on sale. These figure sets have been a constant item in Walthers for many years and should appear back in stock sometime soon.

The "Sitting People" set has 120 figures; that comes to 27 cents each at the full list price.

George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch 

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