This is a fairly simple task which I've been meaning to finish for some time. It involves boosting ticket sales to increase ridership on the Erie Northshore's doodlebug "The BEE".

Here's how the interior of the BEE usually looks:



...and here is the solution:



I don't know the manufacturer, but there were about 100 of them in a box of train stuff my wife found at a garage sale many years ago. All of the sprues are identical, and you may have seen some of these folks sitting around at stations or riding in vehicles on my layout.

Painting is underway, with a few extra figures thrown in....some are intended as locomotive crews:



...and finally completed. Since these folks are going to be riders and not on platforms waiting for a train, I wasn't too fussy about the paint jobs:







If I get ambitious, some of the ones shown will end up as locomotive crews.

Here's an overhead view. I used Woodland Scenics' "Accent Glue" to affix the bums to the seats, leaving them removeable if necessary. I'll be able to re-assign seats or even transfer them to other passenger cars (in case I don't feel like painting any more of them).





The seating arrangements for the engineer and fireman are somewhat limited, but they can complain all they want - neither of 'em have a leg to stand on.



The view from outside isn't too bad, at least with the roof removed and some strong overhead lighting:







With the roof on, but still on the workbench, the figures are still visible. My guess is that they won't be very noticeable once on the layout, but will probably show up in photos.









I may add a couple of layout photos later, but this concludes Part 3 of my Challenge.

Wayne

Wow, short and sweet, but hard to beat!!!!!!!!

Painting figures has to be tedious work, great job..

Tsk, tsk, tsk.....I didn't see any pupils on those figures....

Seriously....You need Jobian patience to paint figures...I couldn't begin to do that...

Hey Doc, you should take the woman with the green dress and place her against a window looking out.......it looks like her "headlights" are pressed up against the window!!!!

scubadude Wrote:Hey Doc, you should take the woman with the green dress and place her against a window looking out.......it looks like her "headlights" are pressed up against the window!!!!

Yeah, I thought the female figures to be a little too buxom but got a little careless with my scalpel. The flattened effect wasn't really apparent until the paint was applied and naturally, since I didn't want to be rude and look at her with those naughty-bits partially exposed, I painted her with my eyes closed. :oops:
Personally, I prefer "small and perky", but I don't think that kind of surgery had been perfected in the '30s - that's my excuse anyway, and I'm stickin' to it.

Wayne

Here's the "BEE" leaving Lowbanks:




...and eastbound on the Chippawa Creek bridge:




The passengers are more noticeable than I thought they'd be, and not just in photos.

Wayne

Doc, your BEE is all times a good eye catcher!

My layout doesn't have many people.. I don't have the patience to do that kind of great detailing

Wayne I just dropped a few hundred N scale figures in the mail to you. Take your time, if I don't get em' back for a few weeks that's O.K.

[quote] Wayne I just dropped a few hundred N scale figures in the mail to you. Take your time, if I don't get em' back for a few weeks that's O.K. [/quote ]

Let me know when you get Mike's done ,I have a 100 or so Z scale figures you can practice on.Oh yeah,as long as I have them back painted by April 6th 2013. :mrgreen:

Great work! I have several sprues of unpainted people KI got at a flea market years ago. You're inspiring me to give painting a try!

Ralph

For HO scale and smaller, I find the most difficult part of painting figures is getting a wide enough variety of colours so that it doesn't look like all the townspeople bought their clothing at the same sale.  
If I'm painting blue, for instance, I'll do a few different LPBs with the same blue for one article of clothing, then alter the colour by adding some white (or yellow, green, etc.) and keep doing that until it's time to go to a totally different colour.  When your paint is bought primarily to paint locomotives and freight cars, it makes for a fairly limited palette - black pants and dresses, with boxcar red shirts and accessories.    
Of course, photographs show all the imperfections which an observer might not notice when the figures are on the layout.
Another problem with figures is finding a variety of suitable types - many can be modified by cutting off and re-positioning body parts, but too many on my layout are overdressed for what's usually supposed to be a summer day.  For my '30s era, I've learned that hardhats can be carved into those cloth caps so common in that period, but ladies fashions are usually pretty era-specific.
For larger scales (S and up), figures require a lot more attention and also offer a lot more possibilities to create something really outstanding.  A couple of guys I worked with were into miniature military figures, mostly historical, and some of the stuff they did looked like it could get up and walk away.  
I really should crew all of my locomotives, and since many have large lead weights on the cab floors, there'll be some heavy-duty surgeries happening.  On real railroads, some amputee victims of rail industry accidents were fortunate to be kept on as crossing watchmen or switch tenders, but on my road, we hire them as engineers and firemen.    

Wayne

Horrors! Having to learn about subjects (like ladies' fashions) that you've carefully ignored all your life.

I started using single ply ( from a two ply tissue) for furled sails on my HO scale sailboats. I quickly discovered that it can be use to modify the clothing of HO scale figures, cut to the approximate size and shape, and then attached and formed with thinned white glue, or Carpenters glue. Once the glue is dry, the "clothing" can then be painted.
Sometimes, it becomes necessary to " undress" the figure and start from scratch. I have a set of jewelers screwdrivers that I have modified into razor sharp micro chisels, that I use to cut, and scrape the clothing off the figures that need "a change of clothes ".
Then, there is the case of "Bathing Suits" which, as you can see here, are only "paint"
[attachment=13954]
The Red dress on the figure standing at the bar was done with the tissue paper.
[attachment=13953]
With all the figures on deck, "running out of colors" was highly probable. The lightening, or darkening of each color was the best answer.

Great job on the figures gents.