Hi everyone!
I am currently working on several HO scale vehicles installing headlights and tail lights. That part is going great. However, it has occured to me that vehicles driving down a road should have somebody at the wheel. Yah, I know - I'm slow on the uptake. I finished four vehicles before the realization hit me
My problem is that there does not seem to be too much offered in the way of HO scale figures designed to look like they are driving, i.e. with hands on the steering wheel. I have seen a few sets of figures from Preiser and Herpa but their prices are prohibitive (read ridiculous!).
So, I am sure that many of you have solved this problem and I would like to know how you did it.
Thanks
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
I don't do anything that's amazing - I got one of the Presier unpainted (key point) sitting people packs a while back (I think the people are supposed to be at a beer garden), and I just chop up arms and legs until they fit (which, due to the thickness of the window "glass" in the passenger compartment, isn't easy). Often "stub" a figure to fit in the (too small, too shallow seat) cramped confines, cut anything horizontally below the top of the thighs so it still looks as if the figure has legs, perhaps glue back the legs below the knees if there's enough room. Trucks and SUV, you usually have more room. Convertibles (where you can see directly down into the passenger compartment), you need to find the smallest figure you can to fit without sanding/shaving/hacking away parts
I use some unpainted seated figures that were in a box of stuff from a garage sale. They may be HO or OO scale, but work fine either in vehicles or passenger cars. Most need some surgery, but I seldom worry about whether they've got their hands on the wheels or not - I mean, they're not going that fast anyway.
The tight fit in most vehicles means the feet and often much of the legs need to go. Often the bums need trimming, perhaps the shoulders narrowed and most need really severe haircuts, at least on top. Here are some examples, followed by a view with the vehicle's body removed.
A Jordan bus:
Another Jordan bus:
A Sylvan resin car:
...and the driver which came with the kit, un-modified:
A Jordan Essex:
...and the unfortunate driver and passengers:
This cab (Mini-Metals, I think) is held together with two screws, and was easy to take apart to add a drive and fare. I'm pretty sure they're both at least double amputees, but don't have a photo showing so:
The first few Jordan vehicle kits which I built were cemented together and have no drivers. They're suitable as parked cars or ones which are driving away from the viewer. I soon learned that they could be built as chassis and body, with the latter merely set onto the chassis. After figures have been suitably modified, I paint them and place them loose on the seats, then drop the vehicle's body in place. This way, they're occupied when on the road (usually stuck at a crossing) but can be easily emptied when extra parked vehicles are required for photos. Most fit only the one vehicle, so need to be kept with that vehicle or identified accordingly.
The driver of this Model T is from an old Revell moving van, and was originally chrome plated. He's supposedly HO scale and is the only seated figure which would fit, unmodified, in this little roadster:
Sylvan, as far as I know, provides a driver with each of their vehicles:
...but he's not quite the man he claims to be:
Jordan doesn't provide drivers for their automobiles, but does for some horse-drawn vehicles. This one allows the builder to position the arms, legs, and head before cementing them in place. This coal and ice delivery wagon would be out of control if the horses were doing anything but standing around, as someone needs to make the balance of the harnesses. Even so, it appears that the nag nearest the camera decided to toss her head as the shutter clicked:
Some of Jordan's older trucks have enough room to allow the use of un-modified seated figures, a good thing as they're fairly visible in the semi-open cabs:
For the most part, I've found that the presence of a driver is enough to suggest that the car is under control - most viewers won't look (or can't see well enough) to notice whether there are hands on the wheel or not.
Wayne
Doctor Wayne & HOn3Critter
As I said in my previous post, you should at least give the impression of legs (upper thighs, the lower legs are usually obscured enough by the vehicle body/seat) - just a stub (I'd had to say double leg amputee, as the resulting driver is even worse off, not having buttocks. I once thought like you did, prepared a vehicle with a stub driver, happened to look down from a high angle - man, that looked creepy! We want our layout visitors to come away impressed (never happens) and amused (often happens), not freaking out! Since then I tried to leave part of a lap, or if that's impossible at least took 2 short round plastic rod, sanded to less than half thickness, carved up a bit, glue to the drivers...stomach, I guess, and painted pants/skirt color - even that little bit looks a lot better, especially if the viewer is able to see the vehicle at any sort of elevated angle.
Critter: Also accept some vehicles will simply NOT accept any reasonable figure what-so-ever - I have on my desk one of those Model Power (Motor Art?) 1960s VW Karmann Ghias - putting it next to a MP Crown Vic Police Cruiser, the VW's roof come up to the door line of the Crown Vic. Throw in thick plastic 'window' glass, a thick floor, and off-scale seats, and you might be able to fit an HO head into it. Perhaps if you could find some old TT scale figure...but in reality, you need some vehicles parked in your model community, and those type of vehicles are it...
Here's an example of Unpainted HO Sitting figures - Model Power, so I can't vouch how easy they are to carve, glue, modify - Presier is very easy, Lifelike was a bit of a pain to carve, and a recent Bachmann set I purchased (modern mechanics - wanted something like that for years) was a very strange material which distorted a bit as I stripped the paint off of them. Ugh.
Sylvan Scale and GHQ are the only manufacturers I know that include driver figures with their full line of kits.http://www.isp.ca/Sylvan/http://www.ghqmodels.com/pages/ho_scale/index.asp
The Preiser unpainted seated figure set is my best source of drivers and passengers. As mentioned above, some surgury is always needed.http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/590-16349
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
This set of unpainted Preiser figures is really economical:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/590-16335
A lot of them are seated in a "driving" position, and many don't even have legs, for those of you who may be squeamish about amputating limbs from a plastic figure. Some even have detached arms that you can position exactly as you need to. I paint mine under a magnifying lamp with a small brush, but it's not that hard, and putting figures inside vehicles will hide your mistakes pretty well, anyway.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
G Paine Sylvan Scale and GHQ are the only manufacturers I know that include driver figures with their full line of kits. SNIP
Sylvan Scale and GHQ are the only manufacturers I know that include driver figures with their full line of kits.
SNIP
While looking through some of the Woodland Scenics vehicle offerings recently, I noted that many of their new release RTR vehicles include a driver. Doubt these will be included in the kits for these, but it's nice to see that obvious and easily added details like this are coming installed from the factory.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
chutton01 Doctor Wayne & HOn3Critter As I said in my previous post, you should at least give the impression of legs (upper thighs, the lower legs are usually obscured enough by the vehicle body/seat) - just a stub (I'd had to say double leg amputee, as the resulting driver is even worse off, not having buttocks. I once thought like you did, prepared a vehicle with a stub driver, happened to look down from a high angle - man, that looked creepy! We want our layout visitors to come away impressed (never happens) and amused (often happens), not freaking out! Since then I tried to leave part of a lap, or if that's impossible at least took 2 short round plastic rod, sanded to less than half thickness, carved up a bit, glue to the drivers...stomach, I guess, and painted pants/skirt color - even that little bit looks a lot better, especially if the viewer is able to see the vehicle at any sort of elevated angle.
I was just now in the layout room, overseeing my grandkids as they ran trains. They seemed to enjoy looking for the people, too, and later got a kick out of the photos of the vehicles showing the altered occupants. After they left, I checked the views into the vehicles on the layout and it confirmed to me that it's impossible to see the lack of lower limbs or even the laplessness of those poor folks in closed vehicles, whether viewing at eye-level, from airplane level, or even when the vehicle is held in the hand and rotated this way and that to get a better look. My vehicles are all from the '20s and '30s, and none have the large greenhouse-like expanses of glass that are common nowadays.
I'm saving-up all the cut-off appendages and even those slip-of-the-blade "oopsies" and will probably use them as a gondola load (offal) for my yet-to-be-built rendering plant.
[quote user="doctorwayne"]I was just now in the layout room, overseeing my grandkids as they ran trains. They seemed to enjoy looking for the people, too, and later got a kick out of the photos of the vehicles showing the altered occupants. [/quote[They were just too traumatized to say anything...very sad
[quote]My vehicles are all from the '20s and '30s, and none have the large greenhouse-like expanses of glass that are common nowadays.[/quote[This might be the key - except for a few odd-balls here and there thru-out the decades, the jellybean bubble top designs didn't really take off till the mid-1980s (well, OK, there were Pacers and such in the 1970s). Even looking at the Crown Vic I mentioned before the windshield and side windows slope in to give a decent view of the seats at any reasonably elevated viewing angle, and other turn of the century vehicles offer even better interior views (assuming no window tinting). Just checked my collection of CMW/Ricko/MP classic cars (in a seperate shelf, since they don't fit the time-period - it is hard to see down into the 1936 Fordor or 1957 Bel-Air for example. If HOn3Critter really is into say Depression era railroading, then stubbing the driver figure will be fine.
Thanks everyone for the excellent advice and suggestions of suitable figure sets.
I have been hesitant to go the unpainted figure route because of eyesight issues and shaky hands but I figure that if I can work with 0603 SMD LEDs and magnet wire then painting figures is worth a shot.
Wayne - great pictures of great figures! But a gon full of body parts?!?
chutton1 - The shoe store display is an excellent idea.
This is one of those unpainted Preiser truckers. I like them for their natural positions.
I use cheap acrylic craft paint for my figures, and a small brush. First, I do the faces, hands and skirted women's legs with flesh tone, and then I paint the clothing colors. Practice will make your hand steadier.
hon30critterI have been hesitant to go the unpainted figure route because of eyesight issues and shaky hands but I figure that if I can work with 0603 SMD LEDs and magnet wire then painting figures is worth a shot.
Do several figures at a time, it goes faster in batch mode.
chutton01
Thanks for the quick tutorial. One more question if you will - how do you hold the figures to paint them?
hon30critterchutton01Thanks for the quick tutorial. One more question if you will - how do you hold the figures to paint them?
As you may guess, you can use paint to represent things that aren't molded in (for figure painting in general) - for example, Mr B talks about painting skirted women's legs w/ flesh tones (is he modeling women w/ bare legs (no stockings) in the 1950s? Shocking!). I, similar case but modeling recent times, painted the legs an off shiny black, then took thich acyrlic dark shiny brown and painted on boots (skirt + dark hose + knee boots = reasonably common fashion nowadays) - if the lady figure is wearing pants, pants + thick light tan boots = UGGs (not sure if teenage girls are still wearing these, but 20-something women are). You get the idea, so have fun.
Thanks again. Lots of great ideas.