One of the first things to think about in working with miniatures is scale. How small should you go? How do you make all the items the same proportion? I never really paid attention to the numbers on the metal figurines I used for role-playing games, because it was standardized. Tossing in some of my collection of plastic figurines had a pleasantly comical effect. But to get a realistic look in a diorama, you have to be consistent in scale. Please be patient with my ignorance if you know this already, and feel free to correct me if I got it wrong.
Dollhouses use 1:12, 1:144, 1:6- what does that mean? The first number is the size of the piece, the second number is the size of the item it is copying. At first I was confused, thinking that the second number was a different unit of measurement (like 1 inch to 12 feet). No, it’s 1 inch to 12 inches. Not the same as a map, which does switch units. A lot of dollhouses are 1:12, Barbie is 1:6. Using this system, a 24 inch tall table is represented by a 2 inch tall table in the 1:12 scale.
Then there is milli-meter scale, is that the same? No, 25 mm scale does not mean that 1mm is the size of 25 mm in real life. In this scale they are using the height of an average man as the standard (about 1.8 meters). So in 25mm scale, the character is 25 mm tall. Converting that to “English”, 1 inch in the diorama is 72 inches in real life, or 1:72 in dollhouse scale.
Then there are train scale sizes, which use letters. (All of this is making me think of the struggles NASA went through). O, HO, S..? They use the measurement of the space between the rails as gauge, and the base unit as the size of a train. So a 1:1 scale train is .. a train. One of the most popular model trains are the Lionel sets, which are usually “O”. HO means half-O.
[…] with this craft I see why. I decided to create a bookshelf and books, and had to figure out scale (see previous post). My first bookshelf, made out of foamcore and paper, is hilarious. It’s so […]