Sunday July 27, 2003

Adding Figures To Your Layout

By: Cindy (General My Way) Wise

Once we had our track layout complete with the track we sat back and admired our work and were very proud of our accomplishments, however we started thinking of what we could do to make it even more realistic.  For us one of the first obvious things was adding figures to enjoy the racing.

Once we decide to add figures, we started researching them and we came upon this dilemma: Most of them that are in our budget were unpainted.  This presents the BIG Question: Can we paint these and have them actually resemble people on a scale slot car layout? The answer is Yes.  And it is much easier than many people would tend to believe.  My first step was to contact SCW and order some of the figures that Artin has to offer.  SCW offers them for $3.50 for a set of 6.  They offer 6 different figures, 2 of those are of different sitting men , one is a woman with little boy, the other is of a man/woman couple.  All of these are sitting figures which I liked (And I am the Boss). many companies offer mostly standing figures, and although true fans seem to stand all the time at a race because of heated competition, my goal was to fill our bleachers.

I ordered four complete sets, which I feel helps fill an Artin grandstand efficiently.  I know you are probably asking what does she want with 6 of each figure in the same layout. Well, I painted each of the 6 in a different way, so they do not look like too repetitive. One thing to also keep in mind when ordering figures is that with a creative mind, and a little patience, you can alter track figures with your Exacto knife. Some examples of this would be removing a hat for a person with just hair and no hat, or cutting a pair of people into to separate people.

When the figures arrived I was on a mission.  My first step was to use my Exacto knife and trim away any excess flashing, which surprisingly was very little. Next I laid the figures out and put a little thought into how I wanted to paint them.  I chose Testors Acrylic Paints to paint these figures.  Yes, it is shiny but I had it on hand and didn't want to go purchase more paint (Budget ok?) However you can purchase paint for the figures which is not glossy, or you can use this, then apply a dull-coat afterwards.  At this point I used my flesh color and painted the flesh part on each figure, then I painted every part that I wanted of each color. For colors that I wanted that were not available in my set, I mixed up some of my own colors, this was done simply by trial and error.  After I had all figures painted I laid them out on my paint table and sprayed them with a dull coat spray paint.  Once they were all dried they were placed in the grandstand and I must say they brought life to our track.

I will not claim that my way of painting these figures is the best or the correct "scale" way, but it is the way I chose and the best part is..it works.  If I can do this, certainly so can you, they do not have to be perfect to fill a grandstand and provide decent scenery. Scale enthusiasts can take these figures to another level, however for our home racing, these fill the seats just fine.

Cindy (General My Way)

As always, feel free to email me at wiseone@yhti.net about this article or just the hobby in general.

Or better still, drop into the Home Racing World Message Forum and let us know your thoughts. 

A thanks goes to Slot Car World for providing me with these figures, they have a great selection of these so give them a call today.