Ordinary People - HO Scale

The people nobody notices

Passers-by with no story are more valuable on a layout than striking set pieces. These six are exactly of that kind: you could meet them in any street and in any decade of the twentieth century.

Six poses

One man is bending down and picking something up off the ground. A woman is waving a greeting. An older gentleman walks with a cane, while a muscular young man in a tank top stands and looks around. Another woman has set out for a walk and the last of the men is leaning against a wall. The package holds six pieces.

How to place them

HO scale corresponds to a ratio of 1:87 and is the most common one on layouts, so the figures suit European as well as American buildings. A simple rule helps when placing them: a sidewalk is not a catwalk. Leave uneven gaps between the figures, turn one with its back to the viewer and set another so that a post or the corner of a house partly hides it. A crowd comes from irregularity, not from numbers.

Combining with other groups

Because these are poses with no pronounced action, these figures can be mixed into any other group and dilute it. Set pieces with a clear theme, such as a work crew or a group at a shop window, read more convincingly when somebody who takes no notice of them at all walks past.

How many figures per meter

It is easy to overdo the population. In a ratio of 1:87, roughly one figure for every ten centimeters of length is enough on a city sidewalk for the setting to feel alive and still not like a procession. The remaining figures are better kept for another stretch of the layout or for the interior of a building, where their presence will be a surprise for anyone who looks through a window.