Figures

Nice scene - Arttista figures are great, and they're made in the USA, you can't beat that combo. Most of them stand on their own, no glue needed.

Peidmont - Very attractive scene!  Your figures are well placed thus brining a realistic energy to the scene!  I like the sidewalk cafe    Well done!!  Thanks for sharing.

Great point, Paul! I actually ordered my last batch from Arttista directly. You have to call and talk to a real person to order. When do you get to do that anymore?! I love it! Had my figures in about 1 week, with hand-written thank you note enclosed. Made in USA by family business is definitely something I can get behind.

@Piedmont Central RR posted:

Great point, Paul! I actually ordered my last batch from Arttista directly. You have to call and talk to a real person to order. When do you get to do that anymore?! I love it! Had my figures in about 1 week, with hand-written thank you note enclosed. Made in USA by family business is definitely something I can get behind.

Yes, yes, yes!!!!  I ordered from Arttista directly as well.  It's wonderful and the figures are top-notch!

   And made in the USA!!!! 

Highly recommended.

George

If you can just get by the sky high prices...

Beautifully detailed scene! Personally, I use a mix of Arttista, Woodland Scenics, Plasticville, and some that come in 1/48 scale truck kits.

I do a lot of animation with welders and burn barrels, Artista has excellent figures that fit the scene, others I use are Woodland Scenics as well as K-line when find them. RMT has some but mostly for passenger cars.

Great looking scene!  I really miss Arttista at York.  I used to buy a scene's worth of figures at each York.  He'd usually give a bit of a discount when you purchased that many as well.    I sold most of them when I took down my last layout but saved a few of the better ones (picnic scene, ice cream vendor, lemonade stand, etc).

-Greg

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

If you can just get by the sky high prices...

We are in a hobby where dropping $100 on a freight car or $1,000 on a locomotive is fairly common, yet spending under $10 a figure for metal painted people is considered sky high. 

Figures are essential to my layout, so I don't mind the higher prices, as long as I can afford it.

@Bill N posted:

We are in a hobby where dropping $100 on a freight car or $1,000 on a locomotive is fairly common, yet spending under $10 a figure for metal painted people is considered sky high.

Well, first off, I don't drop $100 on a freight car, and the figures are a lot smaller than a freight car.

In addition to model railroading I also paint miniature figures John.  Mostly 28mm which comes out to around 1:55 or close to O scale.  For the typical unpainted figures I am paying about $1/figure for unassembled and unpainted plastic and about $2.50-3.00 for unpainted metal.  Compare that against about $2.50/figure for MTH limited range of plastic, $4.50 for Woodlands Scenics plastic or $7 to $7.50 for typical Artista figures painted.  Plus an attentive bargain shopper can beat those prices.  When I factor in primer, paint, brushes and my time that differential seems like a bargain to me. 

A man's got to know his limitations.  I doubt I could do a credible paint job on figures in any reasonable time, so they'd be pretty expensive for me.

Thankfully, the variety of posed O-scale figures from several providers is sufficient for scenes on our layouts.

I previously created a mountain scene for a modular layout and found wild animals for it -- deer, a family of black bears, and a group of cougars.  I looked for a group of rock climbers for placement on a craggy cliff, but didn't find any. I think that means the "hobby" of rock climbing hasn't yet captured the attention of model figure-makers for production.

I recently installed RMT seated passengers in the 10 coaches of my MTH Aerotrain. The size was just right for that RailKing rolling stock. I initially tried to fit Lionel seated passenger figures in the coaches, but they were slightly too tall -- IMHO, better suited for 1:48 passenger cars.

Mike Mottler    LCCA 12394

I use a lot of the Golden Gate Little People, they fit pretty good in many cars.  I occasionally have to trim them, but they're decent looking and priced right.  The RMT people are bigger, take a look at the GG ones.

Most of my figures are Arttista. I have a ton of them on my layout. Dennis is a great guy and his prices are very reasonable and all the more so when measured by the quality of his pewter figures. Like others, I do wish he would return to the York Meets, but that is unlikely. Woodland Scenics, Bachmann, Model Tech Studios and Preiser have some terrific figures as well. I have a number of them on my layout as well. The Model Tech Studios figures are a little bigger than the others, so I tend to use them for parts of the layout that are more distant from the general viewing area.

Pat

These are a couple of inserts that went into an apartment complex I kit-bashed.

Dave

@Piedmont Central RR posted:

Since most of my scenery is complete, I have been adding figures. Just wanted to post this for others who may be thinking of adding more detail. I have been very happy with Woodland Scenics and Arttista. MTH and Bachmann are great, too, but there is just no substitute for Arttista's wide selection, and WS's wide availability and value. Here are just a couple pics with Arttista and WS together in same scene.

Fabulous!

@Mike H Mottler posted:

I previously created a mountain scene for a modular layout and found wild animals for it -- deer, a family of black bears, and a group of cougars.  I looked for a group of rock climbers for placement on a craggy cliff, but didn't find any. I think that means the "hobby" of rock climbing hasn't yet captured the attention of model figure-makers for production.

Mike Mottler    LCCA 12394

You should've checked Scenic Express, I got my five rock climbers there.  Pretty sure they still have them.

Gene Anstine

Gene A.

Thanks for that tip.  At that time, I favored Artista and Woodland Scenics; I didn't look farther than those brands.  With 20/20 hindsight,  I should have ...

Mike Mottler   LCCA 12394

I got my climbers from Scenic Express, but turned them into ice wall climbers at Xmas.  Just bent and painted some telephone wire for the picks.  

Mostly Arttista in this scene, with a Preiser here and there, and maybe an Omen or two.  I like Dennis' selection best. When you take into account the hand painting and the metal cast, the current price is not bad, but you get to a $100 quicker than not too long ago.  Before Arttista's last price increase, the individual figure price was cheaper on average than Preiser, mostly sold in a box of five or six.  Seems both are now closer in price.  Preiser's selection of O Gauge figures seems to have stalled, but I love their vibrant colors.  The Arttista selection can fit almost every scene...that's why most of my figures are Arttista!

Arttista for some and for the foreground AndIan Models. Odell hates his picture taken....

I am looking for a chef to stand in the provision door way of a K-Line heavyweight dining car.  If you know who makes one, kindly let me know.  Thank you, John

@rattler21 posted:

I am looking for a chef to stand in the provision door way of a K-Line heavyweight dining car.  If you know who makes one, kindly let me know.  Thank you, John

Arttista figure 1474  Man cooking/Diner cook

Arttista figure 1459  Pretzel Vendor

https://www.arttista.com/

John

For Arttista at a good price, see Model Train Stuff. They have a sale a couple of times a year and discount their figures from their normal lower than retail price. If you sign up for their newsletter, you are notified about their sales. Their selection leaves something to be desired but over time we have obtained most of what we wanted from them.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

A man's got to know his limitations.  I doubt I could do a credible paint job on figures in any reasonable time, so they'd be pretty expensive for me.

Unfortunately some manufacturers don't follow this line of logic.

For example have you seen the Lionel offering ?

Body paints are ok but the faces are downright scarey

Yep, the Lionel figures aren't the best, but better than my paint jobs.

Those Lionel figures can easily be improved with a brown wash and a spray of Dullcote. JohnA

https://ogrforum.com/...1#157265374270706011

This scene is pretty amazing, in my opinion. Some may find it gruesome perhaps, but I work in medicine and found its realism refreshing. It appears you use Franklin Mint "Classic Cars of the 50's", right? I use those as well. Hard to find 1:48 vehicles, and I found those tend to run just small enough from 1:43 to fit nicely in O scale.

A little pricey but different are these figures from an Ebay seller in Belarus. They are 1/43 so a bit larger but heavy and nicely painted. Search for  seller:gordvlad on Ebay.

Wow.  Those Belarus figures look great!

Woe to anyone who is trying to do an Old Western layout, with action posed figures of gunfighters, badmen or lawmen.  In O scale, there is practically nothing.

Yes, Artista and others have a few Old West figures, but they are boring cowboys, standing with a rope or a drink in their hands, or shoeing a horse, or doing some other mundane cowboy thing.  And, yes, they have Old West Saloon girls, Old West doctors, lawyers, and blacksmiths.  All ho-hum.    Through all of my searches, I think I found one badman and one Sheriff in O Scale by Knuckledusters, poised to draw on each other, and that was it.

There is one set of 3-D printed figures by a company, of rustlers on horses, but their cowboy hats all came out of the 3-D printers looking like 1930s fedoras.  So, you have a bunch of rustlers who look like Humphrey Bogart on horseback.

Knuckledusters makes some great Old West action figures, in pewter,  looking identical to the great characters in the most famous western movies, but they are all in 28mm, for gaming only.

So, this leaves the old plastic really bad-looking Marx molded plastic "cowboys and indians" sets, which are just too poor to bother with.

I guess, I'll have to make my Old West layout into something else.  South Park anyone?

Mannyrock

I have a similar problem for a "fantasy" module I'm thinking about to recreate Old San Juan in Puerto Rico with the subway running underneath. I would need figures of tourists, musicians, crafts vendors, artists and people dancing. Here's hoping some enterprising 3-D printer will recognize that there's a market out there for custom O scale figures.

How do you guys feel about ceramic figures. I really have no idea of costing and I never tried, well it would not actually me.

Plenty of zombies and Bigfoots, but sorry, nothing so obvious as a dancer or street musician.  (A sign of the times.)

Mannyrock

Although pricey, I think Arttista O scale figures are excellent.

For you baseball fans, I think Kramer Products (out of business) metal O Scale baseball figures are outstanding:

I got my 1st set of Kramer Products baseball figures 25 years ago from the Choo Choo Barn, and my 2nd set last year from TrainZ.

@Catdaddy posted:

How do you guys feel about ceramic figures. I really have no idea of costing and I never tried, well it would not actually me.

Can ceramics in that size have the sharpness of detail of, for instance, a pewter figure?

Most of my figures are cheap because, if I had to pay $10 a person, I would have no money for trains.  However there are some scenes which need good detailed people.

I got these from miniprints.com.  2 for $15.60.  You do have to paint them.  Instead of painting faces, I just brushed them with weathering powder.  The powder found all of the nooks and crannies and really brought out the details well.  I also had some tiny Chessie decals so I used those for the vests and hats.

Have Fun!

Ron