vehicles and people

Most vehicles we use are 1/43.  Sounds like you are not aware of the Scenery Sourcelist.

You will find that the 1:48 Arttista people go very well with 1:43 cars. BTW, about 95% of the car models we have to choose from are 1:43. Also, "O" size 6' tall men come in different sizes, depending on who made them.

You tell me which are 1/43 and which are 1/48.

IMO, don't get hung up on scale until it just doesn't look right. There are a lot of different sized people, cars, trucks, tractors and equipment.

Check out the Ebay auctions of the seller "wehonest_us"  They sell painted people in large quantities for very little money. They sell 1:43.5, 1:48 and 1:50. The 1/50th folks look best with the typical undersized traditional Lionel trains.

 

 

 

I always thought, and continue to believe, that Arttista figures are undersized relative to 1/48 scale.  A 6' man would scale down to 1 1/2" and Arttista figures are smaller, sometimes considerably, than that.

 

They are great figures and look terrific as long as that's all that you use, or at least use in a single scene.

 

- walt

1/43 foreground

1/48 mid scene

1/50 background

 

Forced perspective, like having o scale buildings in front, ho buildings background and n scale buildings for skyline.  Russ

Walt, I agree with you - Arttistas are small.

 

  They are beautifully, realistically detailed though.  I have to say, this Arttista elderly gent is my favorite figure.

 

technically O scale is 1:48 or 1/4" to the foot.   O is the only train scale that also lines up with architectural scale..    with the possible exception of S scale which is a seldom used 1/64..

I even use some S scale for smaller folk,  they look good too.

It would have been nice if the die cast car market was originally established in the USA, but it wasn't. It basically originated in England and 1/43 is English O'gauge and is probably derived metrically. It's also why HO (Half O) is half of 1/43, and it 1/87 instead of 1/96. Even more interesting, 1/96 is a scale used in boat building as is 1/2 that at 1/192. For me it's not so much the absolute size, but whether the characters convey what I want them to for the scene.

 

I'm thinking about building a scale model of Edward Hoppers famous painting "Night Hawks". Brian Scaice has this model now on his layout. To make people for the cafe, I'm going to attempt to sculpt my own and that's going to be a trip. I found some Super Sculpey gray heat-set clay that has more body and holds fine details better than their pink variety. My sculpting skills basically suck, but I figure if I keep trying I'll figure it out. I sculpted some 1/16 pilots for the RC B-17 I built and they came out looking like Wallace and Gromitt, only now as funny. Here they are:

 

 

The pink super sculpey is so soft until you fire it that as you're forming one feature you're squishing the others. With the gray clay it should be better. I hope.

 

If anyone has ever sculpted their own 1:48 folks, it would nice to find out how to do it.