3D printed figures

[ge_rik]

After reading about the 3D printed figures which are available from ARD Digital in the current edition of Garden Rail, I sent off for some - at £5.00 each they seemed good value.

I bought four:
A driver (002)


Another driver (004)


A guard (006)


And a male passenger (Male figure 003)


The first thing that struck me was how light the figures are - they must be hollow and printed in plastic. The level of detail is quite good, though the faces are slightly blobby but for the price are a lot more realistic than other figures available for 16mm scale . The striations of the 3D printing are evident but I'd imagine after a couple of light coats of primer these will just about disappear. The poses are very realistic, as you would expect from a 3D scan of a real person.

They are quite tall, compared with some of my other figures - the guard is 100mm tall (which equates to 6' 4" in 16mm scale) whereas the the shortest figure (the passenger) is 90mm tall (which equates to 5' 7½") which is actually well within the normal range for real people.

What I think is interesting is that the company offers a service to scan a person and produce a 3D model from the scan. Whilst it is quite expensive at £30, I'd imagine that, in time, the range of figures available will expand. I'm always on the lookout for figures which are compatible with the 1930s era in which my railway is set and so I'm tempted to dress my wife and myself up in vintage clothing and get a couple of scanned figures for my railway.

The figures were bought from - http://designscanprint3d.bigcartel.com/

Rik

[andymctractor]

I bought 3 of these from the Peterborough show.  They are good quality for the price with the weakest feature being the hands, if this level of detail matters to you of course.  
With this in mind I'm trying to find a supplier that provides hands and other physical components.  I know Preiser do body parts but some time ago I may have been reading a military figure modelling book when I read of a source of hands for a number of scales.  Clearly I didn't make a note of this supplier.
Can anybody help with a supplier of model hand in about our scale?

Accurate modelling of hands is surprisingly difficult. Other things like different hats etc are much simpler.
See below my use of Fimo to make sailors hats converting the well known pit stop crew into a bunch of less than competent sailors.


These photos have been seen before on the forum.

Regards
Andy

[Dean]

Hi,

Those figures are from my store, thanks for buying them!

Just thought I would add to the conversation...

The figures are all scaled to 16mm, from the real person, so the guard is a tall bloke, taller than me and I'm 6ft2. One of the things I like is that I have no control over the size, poses, or proportions of the figures, as these are all scanned from real people.

Regarding the hands, yes these are the most fragile part of the model, and we try to get the best compromise between realism and strength. My personal way of dealing with the hands is to apply a few layers of paint first, then sand or file the imperfections.

We are in the process of finishing the figures from Peterborough, and once these are delivered we will be adding more figures to the store. I think the figures people most want to see are the seated figures for the coaches, which will be added too.

Anyway if anyone has any questions please let me know!

Thanks,
Dean