Scenery
:
People
Life-Like G Scale Figures
Nov 3, 2004
By Noel Widdifield
LSOL.com Managing Editor |
Author
Bio
I recently visited one of the hobby shops in my area as I do from time-to-time. I saw a set of new G Scale figures from Life/Like Products.
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I recently visited one of the hobby shops in my area as I do from time-to-time. Although I order most of my major railroad purchases from mail order dealers, I like to buy the small things for my railroad from local dealers. Of course, I buy all of my paint, styrene, wood, glue and many of the accessories from these local dealers. After I had selected several painting items and a couple of books, I saw a set of new G Scale figures from Life/Like Products. They were a set of railroad figures. Life/Like Products has several products available in G scale. For several years they have offered four sets of figures and have now added the fifth set called "Railroad Figures" Code 1805. 
The older sets include "People Working" Code 1801, "Station Workers" Code 1802, "Townspeople" Code 1803, and "People Walking" Code 1804. The figures are molded in soft plastic and in 1/29, the men measure between 5'6" and 5'11", the women are about 5'5" and the children are about 3' 8" tall. The "People Working" set includes a guy with a pick, one with a shovel, one with a jackhammer and one with a short maul. The "Station Workers" set has a laborer carrying a large crate, a conductor, a laborer with a wheelbarrow and a worker with a handcart. The "Townspeople" set has a couple of men walking, a woman in a hooded coat and a little girl. The "People Walking" set has a man and woman in winter coats, a woman in a winter dress and a man in a hooded sweatshirt. The "Railroad Figures" set has an engineer, fireman, and two brakemen. 
Each figure in the set is glued to a piece of fairly thick clear soft plastic. The figures must be separated and the clear plastic forms a base to help hold the individual figures upright. I carefully remove the clear plastic from the feet of the figures when I am ready to permanently put the figures into place on the railroad. I remove the glue residue from the feet of the figures and use a Dremel tool to level the bottoms of the feet so that the figures will stand upright. The figures are painted in realistic colors, but some of them are too shiny to look authentic. A light spray of Dullcote or similar product will reduce the shine. The figures are easy to bend and can be modified by cutting and repositioning the arms and legs.
When doing the repositioning, a piece of fine wire inserted into both parts will help hold the repositioned legs or arms in place. I bought the same sets a few months apart and discovered that the same individuals in a set were sometimes African Americans or sometimes European Americans. With these variations in the sets you can create several scenes fairly inexpensively. Before I started painting these figures, I have placed most of these figures back away from the front edge of the railroad because the features were not painted well enough for my taste. With the last set, "Railroad Figures", I decided to detail the figures. Since I had been painting a variety of figures over the past few weeks, it was easy to finish these to be more realistic. 
 
Taking a few minutes with a fine brush and some of the TAMIYA Color flat paints I made a big difference in the realism of these figures. If you are looking for several 1/29 figures and you don't want to pay beaucoup bucks for them, I would recommend you purchase a set and see how they look on your railroad. If you want to make them look even better a few minutes with flat paint and a fine brush will give you an excellent inexpensive set of people to start to fill up your railroad. The suggested retail price for each set is around $16.00. That comes out to less than $4.00 per person for the figures at the market price. If you have purchased any of these Life/Like people, tell us what you have done with yours. Better still; send us a picture of your people. Top of Page
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