I have had my eye on those little packs of Peco figures for some time now, but I have never bought any, because I have always been put off by the rather stiff poses and rotten paint jobs. I think they were originally made by Merit and must date from the 1960s.  

I have decided to develop another small station on my layout, which will serve a small passenger terminal on the docks at Upton.  This has inspired me to buy some Royal Navy figures, but the only ones I could find were these by Peco.  In fact the poses are not too bad when examined closely:



As you can see they are a bit crude, but with a bit of cleaning up and a dab of paint they might be made to look OK.  Whilst I was in the shop I bought a couple of packs of seated figures to populate my growing fleet of DMUs. They consist of (from left to right) an older man, a young couple, what looks like a military figure and two ladies - all wearing the most gaudy outfits! The same applies with these figures as for the RN folks, in that the paint is poorly applied:



First task to clean off all the moulding lines and flash and fill any sink holes.

Bob(K)

Wow Bob  you have your work cut out getting them up to scratch. We have faith though.

 Mike

So much so Mike that I have put a link to this topic in the Index already.

Looking forward to this one, bet they come out so much better by the time you have finished.
Phill

Phase 1:

Starting with the RN figures I used a sharp knife to clean off any mould lines and sprue attachments.  I also filled in the sink holes, the most prominent being on the female officer.  I used plastic modelling filler for this task (see picture).

Then using cheapo acrylics (£4.99 for 20) I then made a mix of lamp black and prussian blue, almost black and overpainted the figures.  I added a small dab of white and then dry brushed the whole figure. this picked out some of the detail. This was followed by flesh over the obvious skin areas, followed by white in those areas such as shirts and hat tops. Now I have a better feel for what needs to be done to improve these:



The next task will be some washes to the flesh areas to bring out the detail.

Bob(K)

Bob, keep going like that & you will do those Chinese painters out of a job

Today I continued to work on the RN figures. First I added some brown wash to the faces, painted in the hair and leather details. Some white highlight was added to shirts and sailors uniforms and a touch of royal blue, with white edging.



details of buttons and rank for the two officers was picked out in yellow and red, and a bit of colour added to the male officer's medal ribbons:





Here is the final line up, which just need the bases painted and a bit of touching up, compared with the originals from the packet:





Bob(K)

Ok thats it, i am now sending all my figures to the master once i get round to getting them. Blooming marvelous, what a transformation you have made, well done.
Phill

The base coat is applied to the seated civilian figures:



Which is followed by a hefty wash of thinned black:



Bob(K)

Finally with a bit of dry brushing and highlighting the detail comes out:







Compared to:



No matter what you do though, they are a pretty ugly bunch (the old lady in blue is Cedric Dapol's mother-in-law).      

Bob(K)

What a transformation  :) superb!

You must have a good camera Mike to be able to get that close up !!

I do, but Bob did these  :D  :D

 Bob they are streets ahead of the originals.   Great job!

 Cedric's mother-in-law looks a formidable woman  :P

 Mike

Sorry  Bob. I was just getting over the Chat room.
I will have to play with my camara to see if I can get as close as that.

Sol said

I will have to play with my camara to see if I can get as close as that.

Sol

Not sure what camera you use, however, the way I achieve these close ups is as follows Using Canon Powershot A460, which is a very simple camera to use, I switch off the flash and use either lamps or natural light.   I position myself about 2-3 feet away from the subject, depending upon its size.  Using the zoom (this camera has up to 16x zoom capability) I then adjust the view to fill the whole frame.  Press focus button to check for sharpness.  If it won't focus, use close up button, recheck focus and then shoot.  If the light levels are low I rest the camera on a support or small tripod.

The truth is the camera does all the work and I am fortunate as it is so straight forward :roll:

Bob(K)

Bob, I have Powershot A580 so I will try those tips you presented to see how things go - that is the advantage of digital compared to film.

A couple of BRMA members from here did a 7 week tour of UK , got back last week with over 4000 digital shots - it will take them a while to sort them out. You could not do that at the same price with film.

Bob

superbly painted figures did you use to paint your soldiers when you were a boy?

cheers Brian.W

henryparrot said

Bob

superbly painted figures did you use to paint your soldiers when you were a boy?

cheers Brian.W

Brian

You have spotted my secret  :roll:, and the truth is I still do paint the odd military figure when I get the urge, although I now prefer to spend the time on railway subjects.  I am one of the Airfix generation and much of my boyhood in the 60s was spent building planes, tank kits and painting oo/ho scale figures. I still have many of them stored away.

Bob(K)

Bob
I was the same i built countless Airfix Revell and other kits in the 60`s
ships and planes mainly plus a few others .
I do not have any of them anymore .

I do have some of the models my dad made in his later years there are working ones though
I have a 5ft uboat upstairs that actually submeges and rises the kit cost him over a £1000 when he bought it with all the gear.
Trouble is i havent got much interst in it plus i have never looked how it works.
There is also a proper steam pleasure boat i would say its a victorian era one agian i have never tried to fire it.
There are also various other ones he built as well.

I also have a complete DUKW unbuilt kit with all thebits from deans marine whether i ever try to build it i have no idea.

cheers Brian.W

Bob,
   Some more great figures there. I especially like the Naval characters.Have those Wrens got the seams on their stockings straight???    
 :wink:
Cheers,John.B.