Figure basing in real life

Started by Last Hussar, 02 August 2020, 09:48:26 AM

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Last Hussar

Conundrum.

I can get 3 figures across a 20mm base, 4 on 30mm, and 6 on 40mm. They can be tight fitting, even with bases filed - its the man not the base that restricts numbers.

Figures are approx 11mm tall. A good average height for the 800 years up the end of WW2 is 1m65. This makes 1mm = 15cm

The bases mentioned above are therefore 300cm, 450cm and 600cm

Mark a frontage of those, and get friends/family/passing strangers to stand on the frontage. Notice how much space you have.

Why? Its can't all be the rigidity of the metal.
I have neither the time or the crayons to explain why you are wrong.

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Raider4

Quote from: Last Hussar on 02 August 2020, 09:48:26 AM
Why? Its can't all be the rigidity of the metal.

Well it's the fixed poses, whatever the material.

That, and - in general - I find wargaming figures to be a little bit chunkier than in real life.

I know I can't build my Roman legionnaires tightly-grouped in a defensive wall with inter-locking shields, or my Saxons in a proper shieldwall.

Orcs

Quote from: Raider4 on 02 August 2020, 10:09:52 AM
That, and - in general - I find wargaming figures to be a little bit chunkier than in real life.


Really!. Have you not seen the chunkiness of the average wargamer at a show? :)
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Lord Kermit of Birkenhead

I'm working on 28mm Zulus atm - Warlord ones, and ceratinly won't form up in close order !
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Westmarcher

02 August 2020, 10:52:17 AM #4 Last Edit: 02 August 2020, 11:25:57 AM by Westmarcher
The simple answer is that miniature soldiers are to a greater or lesser extent, caricatures of the real thing. Obvious examples are 28mm Front Rank figures with their massive hands, faces, heads, etc. (the musket calibers must scale up to around 1 or 2 inches!) or so called '6mm' Adler with their 10/15mm 'Mighty Mouse' size heads.

Even within the same manufacturer, the sculpts from one range to the next are not uniform due to the fact that these were created by different sculptors. For example, I can place 4 Pendraken Austrian SYW March Attack pose figures in line on a 25mm frontage (their Prussian equivalents are more of a squeeze because of their full haversacks but still 'do able') but, because they have been created by a different sculptor and slightly larger, I can only place 3 Pendraken AWI Marching figures in line on the same base width.*

Take another 10mm manufacturer like Old Glory and I am told that a strip of 5 figures can be fitted on to a 1 inch wide base.  As far as I know, GHQ's 10mm are one of if not the closest to actual human proportions.

* AWI correction: if I select the rank & file poses only, I can also squeeze 4 in line on a 25mm wide base (however, unlike the SYW range, I can only fit 3 command figures in line - the drum sticks out too much)
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

mmcv

Chunkiness is definitely a thing. By the above calculations your figures would be around 6.5 mm wide? Even conservatively 5mm wide? That means they're around half as wide as they are tall. Now I'm certainly on the larger side but I'm not half as wide as I am tall by any stretch. And historically people were a lot slighter than they are now on a average. So I suspect it comes down to horizontal proportions to allow the details to be seen. If someone was far enough away to appear as being 10mm tall you'd likely be able to see little more than a silhouette and maybe a few bright colour splashes.

Steve J

A lot comes down to actually having space for the metal to flow when casting, hence the slightly strange proportions.

OldenBUA

And here I was thinking this would be about the sales of the 'Twister' game by Hasbro, which apparently saw a steep rise in Q2 2020.

https://mojo-nation.com/strong-sales-jenga-twister-mouse-trap-help-hasbro-gaming-revenue-grow-11-q2-2020/
Water is indeed the essential ingredient of life, because without water you can't make coffee!

Aander lu bin óók lu.

DaveH

Often 20mm plastics have the most realistic proportions, possibly because the casting process means less of a need to make things much thicker than reality. I can see that being a greater issue with smaller scale figures as the need to increase thickness above scale is greater, so 28mm figure designers have no excuses....

hammurabi70

Quote from: Last Hussar on 02 August 2020, 09:48:26 AM
Conundrum.

I can get 3 figures across a 20mm base, 4 on 30mm, and 6 on 40mm. They can be tight fitting, even with bases filed - its the man not the base that restricts numbers.

Figures are approx 11mm tall. A good average height for the 800 years up the end of WW2 is 1m65. This makes 1mm = 15cm

The bases mentioned above are therefore 300cm, 450cm and 600cm

Mark a frontage of those, and get friends/family/passing strangers to stand on the frontage. Notice how much space you have.

Why? Its can't all be the rigidity of the metal.

If I use my frame as a guide I find that you would need 4mm (2') frontage to fit me in without my wearing armour, metal, leather or anything else that might bulk me up.  Additionally, I gather from re-enactors that the pike blocks maintain a fist between files.  All up I should think you would need 6mm per figure.  That seems to match your experience tolerably well.  I should have thought troops armed with firearms, or bows, would want more space so might require 8mm to 10mm; I think I would want to go for 10mm per figure.

Techno

Quote from: Steve J on 02 August 2020, 11:49:29 AM
A lot comes down to actually having space for the metal to flow when casting, hence the slightly strange proportions.

What Steve says is absolutely correct !  :)

You have to start with 'chunky' ankles so the metal can flow from a relatively large piece.....the base...and then on, into the figure itself.
Having started with chunky ankles, you're 'forced' into making the rest of the figure a bit on the 'wide' side, so it doesn't look completely waffy. ;)

If you've got too much time on your hands, find an image of the 'classic' human form, with Leonardo DV's Vitruvian man....shrink that down so it's 12mm tall, and see how microscopic  the ankles are/would be.
The white metal wouldn't have a chance of flowing through a tiny gap like that.

You could just possibly cast a figure like that......but you'd probably have to spin the mould anything up to fifty times to get one single figure out. (Which would make the figures hugely expensive)....... Also it would be SO fragile I doubt it would even survive transport through the post !!

The same problem is also very apparent with gun barrels, spears, javelins etc, as we've talked about before. ;)

Cheers - Phil :)



Lord Kermit of Birkenhead

Phil the other thing about chunky ankels is if they arn't then the firgure falls of the base, the classic case being the TT Indian archers
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Techno

I don't think I've seen those, Ian, but I can imagine exactly what you're saying.

Cheers - Phil  :)

Heedless Horseman

Pendraken figure proportions are fine by me...in most cases. Minifigs are 'slightly' more 'correct'...but more fragile...and personally, I would not buy GHQ as a dropped base COULD be catastrophic...might be wrong, though. To ME, the GHQ figs just don't 'look right' in 10mm...even if their proportions are the most correct!   :o

It is always a matter of personal taste. My preferred figs were certain poses from the Old Peninsular range, (if a bit big), for Naps and the OLD ACW figs! The revamped ranges have great body proportions, (Look at the Magister Militum 'hunchbacks!, lol...though I have some!), but I'm afraid that the muskets just don't 'do it' for me...they look like C20 rifles. (This has, however, been satisfactorily discussed before... no worries, anyway!  :). Regretably, MY hobby time has been about nil for some years and eyesight decline has meant that the 10mm leadpile is likely to remain so.  :(

Still, keep it up, PenD...dashed fine little chaps!  :)

(40 Yrs ago. I should have been an Angry Young Man... but wasn't.
Now... I am an Old B******! )  ;)