4mm scale garden birds

[outcastjack]

Hello All,

 

is there a good garden bird set from anyone, everything I have found includes large birds predominantly, nothing in the way of robins and very few sparrows.

 

[Campaman]

I suppose the problem with Robins and Sparrows is the scale of them, they would only be around 1mm or less in total length.

[luckymucklebackit]

Even a full size Blue Tit is quite small, this one somehow flew into the loft and had to be escorted off the premises!

 

 

Jim

[Chimer]

Blue tit wingspan about 60mm, equivalent to 15 feet in 00 - so I reckon that's an albatross perched on your factory 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

What you need are pale brown expanded polystyrene beads about 1.5mm diameter, able to 'fly' on small air currents or with some electrostatic field (repurposing the electrostatic grass machine).Then you name your layout LBJ and see if anyone gets it.

[The Johnster]

Got it!!!

 

I would suggest that suitably coloured blobs of Milliput or similar would be fine for perching small LBJ birds on branches, roofs, or wires, and perhaps in groups being fed on pavements or platforms.  They'll pass the 2 foot rule; the trick is probably an 'impressionist' approach rather than S4 with beaks, eyes, individual feather veins, and claws accurately modelled!  Most LBJs are round and fat in shape, coming to a bit of a point at the tail in a standing posture.  Stick 'em on a thin piece of wire to represent the legs; with any luck they'll 'bob' a bit!

[Steamport Southport]

Sparrers here.

 

https://www.dartcastings.co.uk/dart/A32.php

 

Birds and cats, possibly a bit generic.

 

http://www.gaugemaster.com/item_details.asp?code=SPA5&style=main&strType=&Mcode=Springside+A5

 

 

 

Jason

[corneliuslundie]

Yes, but what do you do with the rest? It is the same problem I have finding lambs without getting ten sheep and just two lambs. In the breeding seasons there are more lambs than sheep.

My wife has suggested blobs of Milliput. I think the same approach would work for garden birds.

Jonathan

[alfsboy]

I also did a robin perched on a shovel in the Dart gardener figure ....ahhhh

[Steamport Southport]

Yes, but what do you do with the rest? It is the same problem I have finding lambs without getting ten sheep and just two lambs. In the breeding seasons there are more lambs than sheep.

My wife has suggested blobs of Milliput. I think the same approach would work for garden birds.

Jonathan

 

Sling them on eBay for a bit less than what you paid for the set?

 

Someone else might be after adult sheep but not wanting lambs. Or hawks and not sparrows.

 

 

 

Jason

[Steamport Southport]

I also did a robin perched on a shovel in the Dart gardener figure ....ahhhh

 

Here's the link.

 

https://www.dartcastings.co.uk/montys/MLV22.php

 

 

 

 

Jason

[outcastjack]

That gardener and robin set has gone onto my wish list.

I agree that small birds would on be about 1mm across so it should be possible to get away with a very basic shape.

 

On that note i am off to find the milliput...

Edited December 18, 2018 by outcastjack

[88D]

What you need are pale brown expanded polystyrene beads about 1.5mm diameter, able to 'fly' on small air currents or with some electrostatic field (repurposing the electrostatic grass machine).Then you name your layout LBJ and see if anyone gets it.[/quote

I do.makes a change from BLT.

[Steamport Southport]

I understand BLT. Mmmm, bacon.

 

But LBJ? Isn't that Lyndon B Johnson?

 

 

 

 

Jason

[outcastjack]

That escaped me too...

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Among the UK's bird spotters the acid test of ability is being able to recognise the class members of the  large fleet of LBJ's - little brown jobs - small flying machines with not particularly glammy paint jobs that hang about in deep shade most of the time.

[DCB]

I find birds to be a darned nuisance on my 00 garden line as they s*** on the rails...

[The Johnster]

LBJ's are a group of small birds of generally similar appearance, behaviour, and habitat that are very difficult to distinguish from each other, especially as they are either spotted in the shady undergrowth or in silhouette against a bright sky.  A bit like panniers if you don't know much about panniers...

[Campaman]

I seen an article once where small birds were made by bending a thin wire to the outline shape of the bird then the body formed with a blob of solder then painted the appropriate colours, it may even have been how they produce them for Pendon.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Campaman

[Andy Mac]

I find birds to be a darned nuisance on my 00 garden line as they s*** on the rails...

Could you imagine finding a s### seventy six times larger than normal!!

Edited December 19, 2018 by Andy Mac

[The Johnster]

Could you imagine finding a s### seventy six times larger than normal!!

 

See post 3.

 

That one sh*t a factory!

[phil_sutters]

The problem is getting them to sit still long enough to line up the 3D scanner and scan them. If you can achieve that then the materials cost is very low.

[Steamport Southport]

Just get a cat.

 

Tiddles will soon bring you loads of the things. 

 

 

 

Jason

[Phil Bullock]

As a fluff chucker have plentiful supplies of very prototypical fluff - and as what I largely use for my ephemeroptera imitations are the rigid barbs of the feathers the fluffy material usually goes up the hoover.

 

Have long thought that for birds some tacky wax worked in to it would allow it to be formed in to appropriate shapes for modelling of feathered jobbies. House martins on telephone wires in particular. Will have a play and report back.

 

Phil

[The White Rabbit]

Given the size, I'd really understand why an impressionist approach gains favour...  No-one's mentioned the Preiser 10169 pack yet, some definitely too large for the OP, some, such as the pigeons, might be OK (though rather larger then the 'LBJs'). If only so he can rule them out as an option, two snaps of dioramas where I used some of the smaller birds from the Preiser pack:

 

 

In the first, there are three, two pigeons (on a branch over the lane and what the cat is supposedly looking at) and a blackbird on the top of one of the runner beans stands - I can only just see it and I know it's there! 

 

For the second, there's a crow on the first extension gable end chimney stack and two doves on the extension ridgeline two houses along. A fourth, a blackbird, in the tree, is invisible behind a piece of scatter. 

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by The White Rabbit