Unpainted figures

[DavidEnghauser]

Who offers the best value and price for oo scale unpainted figures? I am in the US, but order from UK suppliers often.

Thank you

[Steve M]

My recommendation would be Hardys Hobbies. Excellent 3D printed figures, available n multipacks and slightly cheaper than ModelU.

[Conmaira]

It really depends on how detailed they need to be: if they are just background then the cheapest option is eBay with the figures originating from China. These can be out of precise scale, are somewhat generic, nor very detailed and need painting but are really cheap.

For detailed figures, you are really ralking about Preisser or Noch but you do pay for the work involved in their production.

[RogerB]

Another vote for Hardy’s Hobbies. Very good quality and look great when painted, depending on how steady your hand is. R-

[Chuffchuff]

One of the problems you may run into are the differences in height of figures. HO being smaller than OO seems to leave the market open for a mid scale figure between the two.

I have a couple of multi packs from a continental maker , which are a totally different height to Peco oo figures.

That is assuming tall men are a scale 6ft high as a sort of standard height to work from.

Rgds

[Walkingthedog]

I think the problem with HO or Chinese made figures are they are far too thin.

[Conmaira]

I had completely forgotten about Hardys Hobbies, I've looked at so many producers of figures! Yes, they are superb but like most things that are that well made, it does come at a price.

Unless it's something that is going to catch your eye every time you see it, I'm not convinced that the precision is really needed, which is why I lean towards the rather generic cheaper offerings.

Interpretation of scale can be confusing; I have seen or have 1/76 figures that look so different that you'd think they weren't to the same scale! But then again, people tended to be shorter and thinner in previous decades so perhaps the modelling is accurate?

[RogerB]

Here are some Hardy’s Hobbies and some ModelU. I think they are well worth the cost and effort.

I think the lady in Red has had a couple.

R-

[Brian]

More like the lady in Blue is a Peeping Tom type.. how did she get up there?
Porter doesn't seem too worried about her or the guy sitting on the platforms edge!

[IanAlan]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the Dapol OO unpainted figures - they do a passenger pack and a railway worker pack, each with 36 figures (three each of 12 different poses if my memory is correct). A good compromise on price somewhere between expensive super-detail and cheap Chinese blobs. These look exactly OO scale to me.

There's also a Dapol pack of Station Accessories which includes about 20 figures as well as various station items. These ones claim to be OO, but are smaller. I've painted a lot of mine in school uniforms and they make good teenagers.

I also bought a pack of 72 unpainted Gaugemaster figures (six figures each of 12 poses). These have a good variety of tall and short, fat and thin although I would say that on average they were a little below OO scale. They came without stands, which may or may not be an advantage to you.

Both the Dapol and Gaugemaster figures were more suited to pre-1970s era layouts on account of the cloth caps, trilbies and funny 'ladies hats'. They also suffer from a low percentage of female figures, which is understandable with the railway workers, but makes no sense with the passenger packs.

Both the Dapol and GM figures are robust enough to be customised. I've changed or removed hats (turning a trilby into a baseball cap) and repositioned arms. With six of each pose in the GM pack, a little customising and careful use of different colour clothes, hair and skin helps to avoid obvious repetition.