4mm Edwardian figures

[Penlan]

In the words of a Prime Minister, "We have never had it so good!"

True, and in the words of a long time modeller, "Buy them whilst you can".......

[ThePurplePrimer]

I spend all day every day painting figures to order for people and it's a great job of course

 

But every now and again I grab something I fancy and sneak it into a batch

 

This is what I treated myself to this week - one of the lovely 4mm Stadden figures...

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2015 by ThePurplePrimer

[burgundy]

There are some new Victorian figures now available from Chris Cox of 5&9 Models - see his gallery at 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/gallery/image/67036-img-20150309-234404/

My attempts at painting them have come out like this.

Nice figures and fun to paint. 

Best wishes

Eric

[garethashenden]

I've put a couple of Andrew Stadden's figures into a scene on Empire Mills.

 

[Penlan]

That poor horse...

[garethashenden]

That poor horse...

She still needs a bit of paint on the blinders and such, but don't worry, those are all empty casks.

[davidbr]

That poor horse...

 Better ask Andrew to make a vet!

Edited March 18, 2015 by davidbr

[Penlan]

I sent a couple of sets to a friend to appraise....
He's kept them, in case there's no more available.... B*gg*r,
I will have to order some more now.

 

PS - Don't know if the Vet's been sorted, but a nose bag for the horse to feed from would be kind.. 

Edited June 12, 2015 by Penlan

[ChrisN]

I have been meaning to say for a couple of weeks, Andy Stadden is doing them in 2mm now.  Should the thread name be changed or should this be posted elsewhere?

[joppyuk1]

I have a number of his 7mm 'personalities' to populate my eventual locale. They are far superior to the usual standard, I only wish there were more. I'd love a 'thin clergyman' and a 'fat clergyman' to be included in the range, but that's probably wishful thinking.

ps, unfortunately my painting does not match up to those previously seen on this thread.

[wagonbasher]

I am modelling a WW1 training camp and its railway that was based on Cannock chase.  there were camps all over the country and of the many photographs there always seams a civilian presence.

 

The 1:72 model soldiers I am using are fantastic and are produced in white metal and resin by W^D models.  They also produce models suitable for WW1 railways and an array of vehicles, horse drawn vehicles and accessories. Anyone modelling an Edwardian layout might benefit from a look at the range of soldiers. W^D models are very flexible and allowed me to buy different heads to suite the soldiers I was trying to capture.

 

I have purchase some of Andrews figures (set 6 - sort of workmen)

 

Two are now crewing a Peckett, Two are destined to crew a steam lorry and one has been converted to vicar with bible

 

What I like about these models and some of the WD models is that they are depicted in non action poses...

 

In my little head as I look at a small scene on a layout if I see two blokes talking I can look away and when I look back they can still be talking in the same place.

 

If the man is on a bike with his feet on the pedals...  how can he still be in the same place a second later let alone give me time to look away and look back.

 

When I looked at the Airfix WW1 1:72 models they are all either running, crawling, shooting, riding etc and so by my measure unusable

 

I know that is just me but these well sculptured models give a fantastic level of realism even if they are doing nothing!

 

Andy 

[BG John]

In my little head as I look at a small scene on a layout if I see two blokes talking I can look away and when I look back they can still be talking in the same place.

 

If the man is on a bike with his feet on the pedals...  how can he still be in the same place a second later let alone give me time to look away and look back.

That's what I think whenever I see models of people in action. The layout looks like it's captured a split second in time, and everyone is caught part way through some action. Then a train moves and ruins the illusion!

[Edwardian]

That's because you both suffer from Ricean Angst.  This is a morbid fear of breaking Rice's First Law of Motion: Never depict frozen motion. Try to overcome it by modelling a passenger walking up stairs.  As your condition improves you may be able to attempt other depictions implying movement without inducing Mental Paralysis.  For now, though, I would avoid modelling waterfalls, say, or speedboats cutting through water.  I would insert a smiley thing at this point, just to show that I am joking, but I am not 12 and I consider that mankind has evolved sufficiently to detect the tongue when placed in the cheek.

 

Mind you, it's an odd prototype that calls for running, crawling or shooting passengers in any case. 

 

WD are 1/76, not 1/72, and I believe are true to their stated scale.  Elsewhere both nominal scales suffer from scale creep.  1/72nd wargames figures have been growing in size for years.  Some nominally 1/76 railway figures are far too large.  Mr Stadden's appear small by comparison, but Mr Stadden is the one who has taken the care to get the scale correct, and he has considered that people in past years were on average smaller in stature.  Hurray for both ranges, I say.

[Penlan]

W^D Models, my link didn't work, but some good stuff on that web site.

[wagonbasher]

That's because you both suffer from Ricean Angst.  This is a morbid fear of breaking Rice's First Law of Motion: Never depict frozen motion. Try to overcome it by modelling a passenger walking up stairs.  As your condition improves you may be able to attempt other depictions implying movement without inducing Mental Paralysis.  For now, though, I would avoid modelling waterfalls, say, or speedboats cutting through water.  I would insert a smiley thing at this point, just to show that I am joking, but I am not 12 and I consider that mankind has evolved sufficiently to detect the tongue when placed in the cheek.

 

Mind you, it's an odd prototype that calls for running, crawling or shooting passengers in any case. 

 

WD are 1/76, not 1/72, and I believe are true to their stated scale.  Elsewhere both nominal scales suffer from scale creep.  1/72nd wargames figures have been growing in size for years.  Some nominally 1/76 railway figures are far too large.  Mr Stadden's appear small by comparison, but Mr Stadden is the one who has taken the care to get the scale correct, and he has considered that people in past years were on average smaller in stature.  Hurray for both ranges, I say.

 

Thank you for diagnosing my condition

 

You have possibly identified a new category of figure - seated, standing and walking up stars,

 

I'll keep taking the medicine

 

Sorry, I'm no good at links but W^D models will be found easily in Google as long as you include the little '^' otherwise you will find a Chesterfield model shop

 

Andy

[BG John]

Sorry, I'm no good at links but W^D models will be found easily in Google as long as you include the little '^' otherwise you will find a Chesterfield model shop

http://www.wdmodels.com

[PhilJ W]

http://www.wdmodels.com

Thanks for that John, there are some other useful bits there, I like the etched barbed wire.

[corneliuslundie]

Also the WD wagons. Very useful for post WW1 NG lines. My Sarn layout could use a couple.

 

Jonathan

[JimF51]

As much as I have enjoyed everything I have ever read by Iain Rice, his opposition against figures in motion is the one thing I disagree with. On 99.9% of layouts (there are a few that have moving vehicles, or other items), a train moving is the anomaly. Not only are people and vehicles not moving, there's no motion in the trees, flowers and other landscape items, no sounds except possible loco sounds if installed (and even then, no other train sounds). Even the coats of people standing perfectly still on a station platform would be moving a bit as a train passed

 

To me, a layout is basically a still life, like a photo or painting, so why worry about what the figures are doing?

 

To stay with the thread, figures from Stadden are getting close to the top of my shopping list. One more purchase of some wagons, then a purchase of a couple of coaches, then the figures.

 

Jim F

[Adrian Wintle]

 

When I looked at the Airfix WW1 1:72 models they are all either running, crawling, shooting, riding etc and so by my measure unusable

 

The Airfix WWI British set has marching soldiers (rifle over the shoulder), probably the only useable ones in the set for Model Railway purposes.

 

The Emhar British WWI Artillery set has quite a nice 18pdr gun, albeit in 1/72.

http://www.miniatures.de/emhar-7202-british-artillery.html

 

The Emhar British WWI Infantry set is less useful

http://www.miniatures.de/emhar-7201-british-infantry.html

 

Adrian

[alfsboy]

My remit sculpting masters for Dart Castings is to not freeze figures in motion . Gently walking is about the limit .It does limit the poses a bit but works well visually .Best way to think of it is a cricket match where on side is  about to bowl .Most figures are stationary but still in the  action ,the bowler  is sculpted just about to take off but still stationary .Doing it  while the bowler is in motion and it doesnt look so convincing

[Edwardian]

We are a funny lot and, and each has his bete noire, not least where model figures are concerned. 

 

Many descriptions one reads of layouts contain proud descriptions of the many cameo scenes dotted about 'to add to the interest', and the suggestion is that the exhibition going public enjoy them.  Others, whom I think of as 'cameo-phobes', will invariably indicate their disapproval of this approach in print, and ensure that no one on their layouts can be accused of doing anything!

 

The No Movement and Less is More schools of thought are clearly the fashion at the moment, but do not suit all modelled locations, and perhaps need not be applied so strictly in all instances.  I think, though, that the potentiality of movement, rather than the dynamic pose, is a good compromise, and by this I mean what Alfsboy has just said.

 

During the phase that I can now say I have finally left behind - 'Edwardian: The Armchair Years' - I absorbed much wisdom from books and articles and benefited enormously from it.  Authors naturally have their preferences. Some authors are fairly forthright in tone, an example being what I think of as 'The Edicts of Freezer', which generally prove to be right, and which are ignored at one's peril.  Mr Rice is a deal more subtle, but it is quite clear what his preferences are and Rice's Laws of Motion ((1) Never depict frozen motion, and, (2) If you must, make it minimal) are there for all to see in his writings.

 

If I dare add my twopenneth:

 

• I would say that it is not necessary to be so prescriptive. 
• A horses for courses (obviously the horses will be standing still, and certainly not racing) may be considered; if one is modelling a busy town street, for example, frozen horses with stationary carriages, and frozen walkers may be appropriate. 
• 
  
• People engaged in activity may be best represented in the more passive and less dynamic poses associated with the activity, as per Alfsboy's cricket illustration.
• 
  
• The quality of the thing modelled and the success with which it captures its subject is more important than whether it adheres to any arbitrary set of rules. 
• 
  
• With figures, restricting your people to the best sculpts available, even if that means omitting scenes that otherwise interest you, and devoting time and technique to their painting, are the surest roads to realism, almost regardless of what the figure is doing. 
• 
  

Apropos WW1 figures, the yet-to-be-released HaT Industrie BEF set will be infinitely superior to the old Airfix set.  It, too, contains only 1 marching pose (I guess you will get 4 of these out of 32 in a box).  The accuracy and sculpting will be far better and it will more correctly represent the 1914 equipment.  The figures will be 1/72nd rather than the undersized (for that scale) early Airfix set.

 

HaT guns and limbers have been used on the Plemsworth layout at Butterly.  These are good wargames models, but the W D artillery is more detailed and, of course, to the correct scale.  Nevertheless, the Butterly model is stunning and can only be counted a successful and attractive model.  This only goes to show that getting too hung up about scale can be unnecessary.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Edwardian

[Richard Lee]

We are a funny lot and, and each has his bete noire, not least where model figures are concerned. ...

Mine is that well-known wargaming feature known as "scale-creep", whereby different manufacturers increase the size of their figures to allow more detail and dynamic posses to try to impress buyers.

 

Trust me, if I buy figures that allegedly are for 4mm to the foot layouts that have all the adult males 26mm tall and all the females 24mm tall, I will be unlikely to buy further packets.  I know that people vary in height, but I doubt that a very high proportion of people in 1900 were significantly taller than the current average heights.  My impression is that average heights have increased during the last 60 years.

 

Scale-creep is annoying enough for wargamers.  Because of the nature of railway modelling, I find scale-creep for model railway figures even less acceptable.

[Penlan]

I'm sure I've mentioned it somewhere before on RMweb, if not in this topic, but..
After WW1, when those fortunate enough to survive and return home to the tin mines of west Cornwall,  they found the Army rations had been a lot better than they had at home before the war and they had become taller, the downside was the headroom in the tunnels was low for them, they had to move about stooped.

I recall in the late 50's going into a local or two in the New Forest and seeing just a sea of the tops of caps, I was 5' 10", the locals average was around 5'4".

Edited July 11, 2015 by Penlan

[Poggy1165]

People in 1900 were, on average, smaller than current people - see my post earlier about the Bantam Divisions of WW1. If I were working in 4mm scale, I should quite happily employ some HO scale figures.

 

By the way, the reason for this was poor diet, not least in the industrial areas, due to low real wages and quite shocking social conditions. If you go back to the fifteenth century, you find that people were only slightly shorter than us on average, as has been proved by the digging up of sundry graveyards. You had to be well-built to shoot a longbow umpteen times a minute. It was actually the poor physical quality of recruits for the Boer War that led the powers-that-be (after much churning of cogwheels) to realise that 'something had to be done.'