…also railway figures can be used. Worker types are especially useful. Cheap as well on flea bay.

Ashley

Mark,

Most people build model boats without crew figures although many would benefit from them. Figures will only be produced at specific scales if manufacturers (who won't usually be model boat kit makers) think there is a viable market.. So you might want to check out the availability of figures before building a boat to a particular scale.

Manufacturing volumes are small in this area of modelling so choice is limited. Often people will convert figures from other areas of modelling.

Colin

Boat kits tend to be fairly "round number" scales. If metric, 1:10, 1:50, 1:100 etc. If imperial, usually something convenient for reading off a ruler, like 1:12 (inch to the foot), 1:48 (1/4 inch to the foot) and similar, or a binary scale, like 1:16 or 1:32. But occasionally, a model is designed to be a certain size to fit either the drawing board it was designed on or the box that the kit is going to ship in. This does result in strange and unlikely numbers.

Figures can be got from other hobbies that have other ideas about suitable scale, but it has to be remembered that while people are all the same scale, they are not the same size. Answer is to look for figures the right height, or near enough. A bit smaller usually fits more easily. Boats are very much a minority hobby, and this is reflected in the supply of the extra bits. Very specific scales require the right tooling, which is a big outlay for a small market. 3D printing is one way forward, but such figures, if they are scaled for one single application, will take expensive time to produce.

Fittings in the model boat world tend to go by size. Things like cleats and bollards tend to keep the same broad design whatever the size – bigger ships/boats get bigger fittings, but they look the same.

Careful measuring on a 1:33 model might show that it is really 1:32 or 1:35 anyway.

Mark, If it is a model of a real vessel then you can work out the scale by proportion of the real length to the model length. If it is a purely hypothetical vessel then your best bet is to measure the height of a doorway and buy figures that will look appropriate with that.

As you say quite rightly the most important aspect is that it looks right.

Another check is the height of railings. These should come about half way up any figures. Doorways on work boats are not always a reliable guide.

Richard is of course right in that the figures have to look right, but a bit of cheating can even things up. LIKE putting figures next to something they ARE in scale with, and keeping them away from (for instance) doors if the figures were either a bit tall, or short for the doors.

Without rereading the posts (as I a typing!) I would sooner see figures on a vessel rather than not.