Since the forum has been deleted, I wanted to start a new thread, dedicated to the upcoming human figure packs. These were announced last year, and they have not been many updates on these. Feel free to discuss your thoughts on them in addition to other future figure pack suggestions or ideas you may have. :)
I feel the human figure packs will not only be a good idea for Bachmann HO line, but I also like the idea of using them with other ranges, past and present, such as ERTL, Bandai TECS, all the iterations of Wooden Railway, Tomy/Plarail/Trackmaster and so on.
The ones I'm looking most forward to are the Hatt Family, Narrow Gauge personnel and Railway personnel.
These are long overdue and welcome additions to the Bachmann Thomas range.
Wanted to bump is thread up again in light of the two new HO announcements, the open carriage and STH's car.
I feel like these two have more or less been picked because of the figure packs. Topham's car is an iconic vehicle usually almost always present with Sir Topham Hatt on the show, and the open carriage being a thing makes sense if fans want to put the figures inside the carriage to give the figures a ride around the layout.
Hopefully Bachmann can provide updates on the upcoming figures soon. I'd really like to see more figure packs soon depending on how the first six turn out. A passenger and Sodor Celebrity pack in particular would be a lot of fun to see as discussed earlier in the older thread before it got deleted.
I wanted to bump this thread in light of what was revealed today! The teaser of the Hatt family figure pack. I read in the comments that the plastic bases will be removable as well which is a nice feature I'm glad they implemented. Can't wait to see more in the next Thomas Tuesday!
I saw the models through their facebook and I feel like they're very spot on! They would be very good for multiple ranges and not just the Bachmann line!
Given that Bachmann has made plenty of non-Thomas HO Scale figures, it only made sense to start making them for the Thomas line.
Sodor Brass Band would make a great idea, as well as Quarry and Dock workers.
How about Jeremiah Jobling, Mrs Kyndley, Tom Tipper, Sir Lowham Hatt, the Ffarquarhh branch line policeman, the grumpy passenger, the thin clergyman and the fat clergyman, Old Bailey, Cyril, road vehicle drivers, etc.?
Bumping up this thread again in light of the painted figure pack samples being teased on Bachmann's social media! Very excited for these and can't wait to see them in the Trainworld livestream next month!
Anyone have any ideas/suggestions for future figure packs?
It's so good to finally see some painted samples of the figures. Hopefully it won't be too long of a wait now. I am curious to see if these will be true OO Scale, or if they'll be slightly larger than a OO figure.
As for future figures, I'd love a pack of "Sodor's VIPs." This would include the Duke and Duchess of Boxford, Sir Robert Norramby, the Mayor, Reverend Awdry, and maybe Alicia Botti.
A pack of dock workers and a pack of quarry workers would be great too.
I'd really like a figure of Sailor John. I think a pack of with him and Skiff would be really neat. Bachmann could easily use the tooling for Skiff to repaint him in his "Railboat Tours" livery and pack him with a Sailor Joe figure later on.
A construction workers pack should be an essential addition, what with Ms. Jenny being one of the most high-profile human characters... Some generic passenger packs would be good as well, for the sake of bringing a station platform to life...
I also think it would be worthwhile adapting these figures to N Scale, what with the difficulty of procuring appropriate stand-ins for Sir Topham Hatt and the like... though I do think I will pick up The Hatt Family in HO for my purposes regardless, to recreate the comedy of the old oversized HO figures towering over the engines, ha ha!
I really like the idea of a Sodor "VIP" pack featuring the more famous characters on Sodor. There's a lot of great options that would work for that pack. Announcing a figure pack with Awdry next year for the 80th anniversary would be one of those poetic announcements that would be an all around solid choice. Hopefully we can get passenger packs and other packs featuring dock workers or quarry workmen. Construction workers with Miss Jenny would be great too, hopefully those can announced alongside Jack and other construction vehicles, which I wouldn't rule out since we have Bulgy and STH's car on the way. Though admittedly I would prefer Trevor being picked first before the pack characters but that might just be me.
I would also love to see the figure packs introduced in N scale as well one day! I think that the HO ones will sell really well (at least based on the responses I've seen on the figures so far), so I would be completely open to seeing some of the packs make their way into N scale in the future.
Tbh realistically here are some figure ideas I had .
Sodor brass band
Sodor VIP - Duke ,duchess, earl ,mayor, Alica botti , lord callan
Sodor workers - miss Jenny , dock manager , Tom tipper ,Cyril the fogmen , the foremen , Jem Cole , hand keeper Jack
Other pack - Alfred , Alfred's wife , little Thomas , fuzzy the dog , Mr.Bubbles , Ruth the inventor
Passengers - thin clergymen , fat clergymen , the grumpy passenger , bird watcher , the lady with the large hat
Another idea is a first responders pack
SSRC people , and police officers maybe some people for them to save or stop like the climbers or sailor John , baz or Bernie
Maybe another passenger pack
Containing the welsh bird watcher , the lady in the pink skirt , the puppet show entertainers , and chef (maybe Mr.jolly if a render of him was made as he has had some merch of him made )
I'm amazed by how beautifully the painted samples of these figures turned out. I appreciate all the diversity included, I really have a soft spot for Katy the sheep dog being included in the Farmer McColl pack probably because I really love dogs. As someone who works in a school I also really like how the teacher with school children pack turned out. Sir Topham Hatt is easily a favorite figure of the bunch and I love how the rest of the Hatt family and other figures turned out. All around, the figures were the real highlight of the stream for me and I'm excited to see the figures released and how much fun fans will have putting them on their layouts. It's still absolutely surreal seeing all of these figures being made at all.
These human figures are so good. I hope we keep getting them. Capsule making the Earl this year makes me hope Bachmann will try their hand as well. I can't wait to get my hands on these and see the narrow-gauge pack next week.
Idk how many people know but one of the railways personal shown is actually the Wellsworth station master. During the Brenner season he actually has a running gag where he consistently has fights with James. For example, in the one JBS song you can see him nodding disapprovingly. It's so cool he's getting represented.
I haven't seen anyone else talking about the recent hi-res images of the figures, so I guess I'll break the ice.
I don't think they look very good at all. I think they look pretty bad. It's such a shame because the sculpts are very detailed, but the paint is so sloppy that it ruins them. I especially can't stand how they attempted to paint the faces. Capsule Plarail managed to do figures much better, and they understood that it's better to not paint eyes and mouths at this scale. It's almost laughable how poorly these turned out.
I really hope the final product is vastly improved because I'm currently regretting my pre-order.
To be fair most model train figures are painted like this anyway, but the factory ones are likely to be slightly better as well, rather than these hand painted samples. But with that said not a huge fan of the actual faces. Does not look right and will make them out of place with most other figures. It's also a little concerning we haven't seen the narrow-gauge pack yet. They never ended up being shown at the NMRA show. Really hope they weren't lost.
Bachmann commented on the Facebook post with the figures stating that they are preproduction painted samples. The final products will have an improved finish.
I preordered everything except N scale. I was disappointed in the figure painting. I hope that its significantly improved for the production as i will have multiple dioramas. I would like to buy these figure sets and then some but we cannot have a poor paint job on finished products if there are to be more coming in the future. I want these figures to succeed.
I think these figures are super good I hope to see them out by the end of the year . If you look at most figures in this scale we have nothing like it .it's super detailed with eyes something very few OO or HO scale figures have done .
Quote from: RailsByRick on August 28, 2024, 02:10:12 PMI haven't seen anyone else talking about the recent hi-res images of the figures, so I guess I'll break the ice.
I don't think they look very good at all. I think they look pretty bad. It's such a shame because the sculpts are very detailed, but the paint is so sloppy that it ruins them. I especially can't stand how they attempted to paint the faces. Capsule Plarail managed to do figures much better, and they understood that it's better to not paint eyes and mouths at this scale. It's almost laughable how poorly these turned out.
They could be prototypes for all we know lets not get ahead of ourselves.
Quote from: harrison05 on August 29, 2024, 06:24:24 PMQuote from: RailsByRick on August 28, 2024, 02:10:12 PMI haven't seen anyone else talking about the recent hi-res images of the figures, so I guess I'll break the ice.
I don't think they look very good at all. I think they look pretty bad. It's such a shame because the sculpts are very detailed, but the paint is so sloppy that it ruins them. I especially can't stand how they attempted to paint the faces. Capsule Plarail managed to do figures much better, and they understood that it's better to not paint eyes and mouths at this scale. It's almost laughable how poorly these turned out.
They could be prototypes for all we know lets not get ahead of ourselves.
Bachmann replied to someone on Facebook saying: "These are preproduction paint samples. Final products will have an improved finish."
Quote from: Awesometrain77 on July 25, 2024, 01:09:40 PMTbh realistically here are some figure ideas I had .
Sodor brass band
Sodor VIP - Duke ,duchess, earl ,mayor, Alica botti , lord callan
Sodor workers - miss Jenny , dock manager , Tom tipper ,Cyril the fogmen , the foremen , Jem Cole , hand keeper Jack
Other pack - Alfred , Alfred's wife , little Thomas , fuzzy the dog , Mr.Bubbles , Ruth the inventor
Passengers - thin clergymen , fat clergymen , the grumpy passenger , bird watcher , the lady with the large hat
Another idea is a first responders pack
SSRC people , and police officers maybe some people for them to save or stop like the climbers or sailor John , baz or Bernie
Maybe another passenger pack
Containing the welsh bird watcher , the lady in the pink skirt , the puppet show entertainers , and chef (maybe Mr.jolly if a render of him was made as he has had some merch of him made )
Awesometrain77, your ideas for future human figure packs are great. I also think there should be more packs with animals. Bachmann needs to make a pack with cows and bulls. I'm surprised that they weren't Bachmann's first choice for animals.
They should also do a pack with Sir Lowham Hatt and maybe even Mrs Kyndley. If the resin buildings are reintroduced, Bachmann should also just consider doing Mrs Kyndley's cottage.
As for animal packs they should do ones with tigers and pandas. Maybe even ducks and ducklings. But then again, you can get those from other brands. Or do these have to be "Thomas," related?
But if you care to hear more suggestions for people packs, then I would like to suggest maybe doing one with the grumpy policeman from Thomas in Trouble, the barber and the customers from A close shave for Duck, Jeremiah Jobling, Harold's pilots, staff from other railways, Alicia botti, the circus from the model series, cuffy the clown, etc.
Quote from: JLK2707 on September 01, 2024, 04:59:42 AMThey should also do a pack with sheep, Sir Lowham Hatt, a dog, a cat, and maybe even Mrs Kyndley. If the resin buildings are reintroduced, Bachmann should also just consider doing Mrs Kyndley's cottage.
You do realise that Farmer McColl comes with 3 sheep right and a Dog? "Katie"
Thank you for pointing that out Mulfred100.
Great seeing pictures of each of the figure packs as well! Anyone have a favorite pack that's coming out soon?
I think my favorite for sure is the Narrow Gauge personal pack. Love Mr Percival and love seeing him be represented in the merch, and having his wife for the first time ever is a really nice bonus. The generic workmen and the two BMQ drivers are also really nice to see. I don't recall which one it is on hand but one of them is used consistently as Peter Sam's driver which adds to it as well, in my opinion. The general driver pack is a close second. Love that it comes with the station master that has a running gag of not being able to stand James in the Brenner era. A really solid pick for a figure.
Yeah. That stationmaster is funny.
Quote from: Chaz on October 24, 2024, 05:57:11 PMGreat seeing pictures of each of the figure packs as well! Anyone have a favorite pack that's coming out soon?
Personally, besides the low-hanging fruit that is the Hatt Family, I'm looking forward to the Railway Staff. That'll liven up anything, be it a layout or static display. Also a fan of the Narrow Gauge Personnel. That was one I was pleasantly surprised by.