Monday 6 June 2011

Relative sizes in 28mm

Since I've got my hitlist item out of the way early on in the month I was thinking about what I'd like to get on with, and I came up with the thought of painting a squad of Germans up for Secrets of the Third Reich. It was only when I came to put the squad on the painting table that I saw just how different various figure companies must have different scaled rulers.

Both of these are descibed on the boxes as 28mm, but looking at that picture, I'm sure you'll agree that they actually look like they were different scales, not that 28mm is a scale, but a size. Using the magic of a steel ruler, I found that the Bolt Action figure on the left is 28mm to the top of the helmet, while the Shock Trooper on the right is about 28 to the centre of his goggles, making him nearer 35mm to the top of his helmet. A huge difference!

Do you think that the makers are doing this deliberatly? To try to tie you into their range and only their range. Its certainly a possibility.

So in short as I prefer the more Sci-Fi looks of the Shock Troopers, looks like I'll be ordering another box of them this month to gimme the MG teams for my squads.

3 comments:

  1. Sometimes known as 'scale creep'

    Here is another example:

    http://inchighslittleworld.blogspot.com/2011/03/scale-creep.html

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  2. It's Little an Large thats what it is. I don't get it.

    Question - when you measure yourself is it to your eyes or the top of your head ?

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  3. Don't some companies measure their scale to the eyes while others to the top of the head?

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