Figure Class Chapter 3

by Chris Walas

Welcome back! In this chapter we’ll cover considerations for doing sitting figures; we’ll learn how to make and use texture pads and molds; and wonder of wonders, we’ll do an engineer and fireman! If that goes well, we may even attempt the impossible, fitting an engineer into the nearly non-existent space in the cab of a Bachmann Annie! The figures we’ll be doing follow the same basic techniques as we’ve used before, so I won’t be going into much detail on the aspects we’ve already covered. 

Remember that the figures you make are YOUR figures for YOUR railroad. Take a look at what you’ve got on your layout and see where a figure might be used to add interest, humor, or merely to draw attention to some of your marvelous model work. We humans are drawn instinctively to one another, even if one of us happens to be 3” tall. Use your figures as pointers on your layout to get visitors to look at what you want them to look at. If three figures are standing all looking at something, people will automatically look to see what they’re looking at. Just like real life.

Having said that, the figures we will be doing this chapter are for the most part “life-givers”. They add life to the railroad simply by them being there. An empty locomotive is a cold locomotive. When an engineer leans out the window, suddenly that engine is alive and ready to move. Look at your trains and buildings and see where you most need to add life. It doesn’t take much. A pair of figures here, a lone hobo there and soon the layout comes to life. A house is just a building, but when a family moves in, it becomes a home. 

The Sitting Figure

Every garden railroad needs sitting people, and I don’t mean the operators! The sight of empty coaches, empty benches, and empty cabs looks…empty. People riding cars, waiting at stations, eating in restaurants, engineers, well… all kinds of sitting figures really, help to fill in the little world of a garden railroad. That’s the reason so many manufacturers make sitting figures. And even with the variety they make, it’s not nearly enough for most people. The figures I’ll be doing in this chapter are for illustration; I don’t expect you to try to do copies. This chapter is about considerations for fitting figures where you need them. The first figures we did were standing figures. The only fitting concerns were the contact points of their two feet. A basic fitting figure has at least three contact points; two feet and a rear end. In a seat with a back, add a fourth contact point for the back. If that same seat has armrests and your figure is taking advantage of them, add two more contact points. Add another if your figure is asleep and his head is resting on the top of the seat. That’s seven points of contact your figure has with the seat it’s sitting in. 

What happens if these contacts points don’t make contact (or at least suggest that they do)? The figure looks like it’s levitating, magically floating out of the chair! Plainly, it’s not as convincing as a figure that looks comfortably settled into the seat. That’s the real trick of doing seated figures that look good; making them appear to fit the seat they are in. How do we do this? By taking advantage of the form of the seat wherever we can. And by varying the sitting pose to fit the mood of the setting. Figures for excursion cars should be having lively conversations, gazing at the sights, and in general look like they’re having a good experience. Figures for a commuter train should be nodding off, reading the paper or downing their first coffee or martini of the day. Every setting, every era, has it’s own opportunities to make figures unique. Think about who the passengers are on your railroad, why they’re there, where they’re going.