WHY WAIT ?

Sounds good, you say ? However, you ask, "Am I supposed to twiddle my thumbs until the first        P Scale model houses and streetcars appear in the marketplace?"

NO ! That's exactly the huge benefit of plunging into a new but well--defined scale .

Just look around you for the huge number of small trackside and small-town accessories that people could be interested in if they produced an interesting product in a modest production run in , say, one-sixth --- two-inch-to-the-foot scale.

First, let's call it P Scale for convenience . This is a good mnemonic, calling Barbie's Playscale to mind .

Second, let's consider the hundreds of roadside and trackside and small town accessories that are available from Walthers in H0 scale . The first items that come to mind are background flats. Here you have an interesting choice between one-sixth (2-inch scale) apartment-above-small store flats AND the identical product in one-twelfth (one-inch scale) used as background in a Forced Perspective viewscape. (... can't lose !) .

I have always been amused (I say "always" because my first electric train by Marx in 1942 seems like Forever ago) by this observation : It has seemed to me that , whenever one model manufacturer produces an  F-3 diesel loco, every other manufacturer quickly calls up their favorite Asian model company and orders production of an exact, direct duplicate. This inevitably stretches the market so thin(ly) that no one makes any money .  In Homer Simpson's infamous phrase : Doh !

The great benefit of attempting a model of a background flat taken from a real life small town or city vista is their enormous variety. The chances of (accidentally) duplicating --- unintentionally --- someone else's background flat are miniscule . The more the merrier ! ... and not just storefronts with apartments above ... BUT how about office buildings --- many small towns have correspondingly small office space situated above, for example, movie theatres and other small businesses --- banks, business supply shops, etc.

Telephone booths, gumball machines outside candy stores, clothing dummies in a window display, a newspaper rack displaying real headlines,  books in a bookstore window, a shoe store (infinite variety) , A cigar store (your imagination can run wild here) .

Now here's the Beauty Part !  EVEN IF NOT ONE SINGLE MODEL RAILROADER  PURCHASES  your product, think of all the opportunities that exist to market this stuff at a  Barbie Conference OR at a GI Joe or other model militaria program. All the Barbie Buyers have never had the opportunity to fill out the many gaps in their small towns. I hope to provide many other new ideas in coming Miniature Universe BLOGS. As one counter-culture author offered "STEAL THIS BOOK IDEA !

Requirements for representations of an earlier era

                                                                                                                                                       Do you need fresh new ideas? We could really use, not just routine two-inch-to-the-foot (one-sixth) scale items, but :

Realistic male 12-inch figures (male action figures) --- We’d like to see real men in work clothes, standard business dress --- jackets and suits, with ties --- and other every-day street clothes. Unless you're committed to fighting World War II all over again --- an action that we would not recommend --- stay away from GI Joes in uniform, glorified Nazi soldiers, bombed-out ruins of invaded countries, and so on. It's like taking your best girl to a high school prom while wearing your grandfather's cast-off schmattes .

Realistic female 11½-inch figures ! They're often called fashion dolls, but we'd rather see the everyday housewife or working woman . Can anyone get this right? Not everyone looks like Anorexic Barbie with the impossibly thin Goose Neck at a fashion show . The key word is "realistic" .

Vehicles : die-cast cars, in 1:6 size, are admittedly not easy to obtain ; you might take this opportunity to try Forced Perspective by placing foreground figures at varying distances from the viewers' eyes in such a way on the Viewscape as to suggest decreasing distances from us full-size humans. Set designers for Broadway plays and Hollywood movies do this all the time. Position the smaller scale autos as background in a forced-perspective diorama. More on forced perspective in later posts .

Buildings: An excellent opportunity for some artisan or manufacturer to make and sell stores, offices, apartment buildings, and all the other structures found in the average hometown. We can recommend starting with false front background flats like those that are available in O Gauge and smaller for model railroads, often very nicely done. That would be another utilization of forced perspective, as in a stage setting or many film backgrounds .

Houses: Finally, some excellent (doll) houses are being sold in 1:6  (2 inches to the foot) scale; with those sizes placed in the foreground and other sizes (1/2 " scale and 1/4" inch scale - O gauge ) even further from the viewing eye;  the viewscaper then starts to really build depth and distance into the scene.  

Clothing appropriate to the era --- what your parents and grandparents wore every day to go out into the street. The difficulty here is that fabrics are very difficult to scale down, is that they look like wool rugs grabbed off the floor and hastily wrapped around the figure. The problem with so many figurines is that they are dressed using fabric that doesn't scale down. We have found that the most realistic figures in a viewscape are the ones that are cast and the clothing skillfully painted on . Examples to follow in future Miniature Universe BLOGS .

Furniture: "Shrunken Treasures" seems to be featuring some good looking wooden and upholstered furniture that look like they belong in those great houses. Picture Bespaq's line of outstanding furniture in this larger two-inch-to-the-foot scale !
                                                                                                                                                                Basically, we need all the many different accessories for daily living that are available in other scales --- a real opportunity for artisans using this new Forced Perspective approach to develop and market a whole new line of miniatures .  Suddenly, your day is populated with interesting and meaningful research and creation ... a nice change from current activities . P.S. Research can include appropriate --- of that era --- Sears catalogues, Ladies Home Journal, news magazines like Time and Life, and, of course, illustrated books on clothing .

Our hope is that these street scenes can provide the right scenery for , say, an entire line of dioramas, including streetcars .