Animals on your railway

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All scales

google 'st jean-sur-mer'. you'd be surprised how many indoor layouts, both uk and euro outline!

mikey
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[user=316]Gwiwer[/user] wrote:
As all of my birds are currently Preiser I would be interested to know of your (or anyone else's) opinion on the various brands.

I'm perfectly happy with what I have but if there are others which might be better I'd like to find them.

And a flock of Presier gulls dosen't come cheap.

Hi Rick,

 

I have both Langley and Presier seagulls and I would definitely recommend paying the extra for the Presier.  I compared the two in my blog article and the Langley are nowhere near as good.

 

Neil


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Do these count?



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They certainly do, Peter:thumbs
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I tried counting the sheep but fell asleep.

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Lovely piece of work and with a nice (and very appropriate) touch in the signwriting for the "S"crap Dealers :lol:
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Yes, and there really is a genuine locksmith in Aldershot called B O Locks!
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I havent got around to thinking about farm animals for the countryside section of the extension to Lesspoint but I do have a couple of cameo scenes I would like to include.

Does anyone know if any of the manufacturers offer models of different  breeds of cattle , sheep or pigs or are they all just for example "a cow" and if you want a Friesian or a Hereford then painting in the breed colours is the answer ?


Richard. A sorely missed member who lost a brave battle in 2012.

 
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You've touched on a sore point here, Richard.
I believe we're very poorly served in OO for model animals.
A certain manufacturer who shall remain nameless (H****y) offers cows that look as if they were based on a striped abominable snowman.
Their sheep are worse.
I once did a survey for another forum on model sheep.
The winner then was Dart Castings for their white metal versions (which look very familiar somehow).

The only solution I can think of is:
Use a generic model.
Flatten some Milliput into a very thin sheet and wrap around your base model.
Use the scalpel to scribe the body details (eg longer hair etc.) of the breed you want to portray.
Paint appropriately.

Don't discount children's toys.
I have seen many of the right size which are very good models - usually on market stalls and the like.

Last edit: by ddolfelin


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Up  to  the age of about 6 I remember being very much into farms and farmyards and had an extensive collection of prewar lead and early hollow metal animals and equipment . They were of course in a larger scale than 00 but many were very well detailed and  many different  breeds of stock were  available .

As technology has moved on so much I would have thought it fairly easy to produce an accurate  model of a particular breed . It might of course be a bit difficult to get them to stand still long enough to use a scanner :lol:


Richard. A sorely missed member who lost a brave battle in 2012.

 
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I expect you found them cheaper pre-war Richard.
:lol:

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Yeah - Pounds Shillings and Pence was always cheaper than decimal !!!!!!!:lol:


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I have to agree about the Hornby cows; the black and white ones have a diagonal band of colour around the waist!  Peco ModelScene sheep are probably a better bet than their Margate-issued cousins.  

Knowing the Peco location in Beer very well (I worked across the valley from them for two years and was able to watch the BHLR steam trains go past as I did so :cool:) I can only guess that the staff there take one look out of their design office window at Lord Clinton's sheep in the next field and turn out a half-decent copy!

I have just received a pack of Preiser black and white cows which, while they are better than Hornby, still look a little unusual somehow.  Perhaps we need to allow for international species variation.  Australian (real) cows look different to British cows as well.  

The Presier kangaroo on the layout is well sized and shaped but is a garish orange colour when the real things are most often shades of grey or a distinctly dusty red.  The best horses and goats I can find (Preiser again, and some Noch items) are rather poor colours but could be repainted; the actual moulded shapes are not at all bad.

I also have several packs of Preiser birds.  The gulls and pigeons are reasonably good considering the size of them (only a couple of millimetres) and I'm not complaining about that as the alternative is making my own which I simply don't feel able or inclined to do.

The layout also features dogs, cats and bees.  Don't get me started on why the first two seem so hard to make even faintly resembling the real thing when birds can be got to look good.  And the bees are just raised black dots on the Noch beehives but do look effective in context.
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Yes, Preiser do some good stuff in this area.
A pity their HO people don't realistically fit into an OO context.

I use milliput for (stationary) birds.
Mostly pigeons.
Less is more but the paint job does most of the work.
I find that pigeon droppings lend authenticity to roof slates and chimney stacks.

(see post 63)

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Oh yes.  Nothing like a mix of guano and lichen to enliven the colouring of a country cottage or even an urban scene.

Some of my out of the box buildings have the latter and have gained a bit of the former (the real thing!) just from being outside!
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:lol:

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[user=394]ddolfelin[/user] wrote:
Yes, Preiser do some good stuff in this area.
A pity their HO people don't realistically fit into an OO context.

I have to admit I never understand this?  What size is a OO person?  Or an HO person?  I always look at work, where the height of everyone starts at 4ft 9in for Samantha, 5ft 4in for Catherine, Trevor, Greg, Kevin and me all between 5ft 6in and ft9in, Steve and Andrew 6ft 5in.

Don't even get me started on our widths or girth!  Which of us is typical, and who scales down to what!
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I think it's a matter of proportion - especially heads.

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Chris i think the manufactures use 6 ft as the scale datum for men
5 ft for women. but i bet i am wrong..
:thumbs:lol::cool:
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I use a mix of HO and 00 scale people and while a few hundredths of an inch is said by some to be barely discernible I think that it sometimes is.

If we compare Bachmann 00 figures beside Noch HO for example the 00 are visibly taller and certainly much stockier.  On the other hand as Chris says there is no one standard person and I also understand that having spent some of my younger years with, shall we say, good company of well under 5 feet tall.
 
And here's me at a whisker over six feet.

I shall continue to use a random mix of scales around the layout as the difference really isn't so great and in my case I am not seeking a rivet-perfect precise scale model anyway but something which just "looks right".
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