Acquisition - Modelu - HO and O Scale

Since I batched painted that group of HO figures I have been sort of looking for something of a higher quality. The Preiser figures are fine for background figures but the planned layout is not very deep and there will be a definite need for some better quality figures in the foreground areas. I have done a little research on the various model railroad forums looking for what other folks think are better. Two keep coming up Miniprints and Modelu. I have been looking at both online and while I will buy something from Miniprints at some point I'm not impressed with the offerings I see online at this point.

I have, obviously, spent a lot of time on the Modelu site as well. Both of these are 3D print companies. Miniprints seems to follow the more traditional "sculpted" method while Modelu is doing 3D scanning of people in the appropriate "costumes".  I decided to pull the trigger on the Modelu figures first as I'm really curious about how good the scanning is. The photos online certainly look impressive.

For this first foray I selected the Railroad & Lineside pack 9029-087 and -048 Transitional Era Crew Bundle. One pack in HO and one pack in O just to see how much of a difference there might be scaling the files up and down between different scales.

The figures arrived yesterday (they were out of stock, basically just needed to be printed) from the UK and I must say at first glance I'm pretty impressed. I think I'm going to work on these as soon as the church is finished. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

HO Scale 9029-087 Transitional Era Crew Bundle. 5 railroad crew figures basically fresh off the printer.

Here is a better look as they come out of the package

I went ahead and cut them apart to make them easier to clean up

Here is the HO group after a rough clean up. Mostly the bottom of the feet and removing the supports

HO Scale 9029-48 Transitional Era Crew Bundle. The same 5 crew figures

Here they are after the same rough prep

A close up from the front

and from the back.

I received a 15% discount for my first order from Modelu which made the two packs come to 44.52 (in pounds) which works out to be about $55 so each individual mini was about $5.50 after shipping. That's pretty good for the O Scale and I was thinking a bit outrageous for the HO Scale (although the HO pack was 15 pounds and the O Scale pack was 25 pounds), again though that's just quickie math. Using this average these are still cheaper than Miniprints HO scale figures. But to be fair I do need to order from them to get a good feel for the product. Right now its a big thumbs up for the Modelu.