DalaGStanator's Customs, Mods and Experiments

In recent years, a local company named Dan As (דן אס) began distributing a small range of nice, imported miniature accessories branded Building a Model (בונים מודל) at select variety stores. I've only seen them available at two chains where I live, though it might be different in other cities. In addition to things like trees, benches and (fake-wheeled) micro vehicles, they offer at least two different sizes of realistic hand-painted figures available throughout the world under numerous other brands. According to the info on the cards, they're made by Superier [sic] Traders International. Here, these 1:50 scale figs are sold randomly in bags of seven for ₪10 each; only about $2 USD at the time of writing. Last Tuesday, I bought two bags to try them out with my models and use them as references for future custom figs. With how cheap they are, I find them surprisingly well-painted and sculpted and the variety is also quite good. Even the repainted duplicates look distinct from each other despite sharing the same moulds.



While they (unfortunately) don't have bases and therefore can't stand on their own, I did manage to fit two between the studs of a LEGO baseplate. They scale perfectly with the Fire Duo, though most are a bit taller when not counting the FFs' bases. One good thing is it will surely make them easier to trace when making figs, animals, plants or certain objects (e.g. tools and appliances). I won't glue bases to them since none are planned to be modded or customised. Below are example uses with some of my current scratchbuilds.

As passengers or workmen:



Being the same size as the FFs, every build that was scaled for those will (naturally) work for them as well. Of all these 14, only two of them are seated - a boy in green and a girl in a red dress. The girl is either mismatched or supposed to be a child, but the boy fits better with the rest. Would've liked if they had some with hands in "steering wheel" positions for vehicles, which I have yet to see if there are. It's clear I didn't have figs like these when I made the seats, because they're too short for either of the sitting ones (except in the teal Stroudley-like coaches). Nevertheless, I'm happy all this public transport will finally have a purpose even with the lack of seated figs.

In the cab of 69420:



Had to Blu-Tack these two to the footplate since only one stood up without it, and their suits looked more appropriate for a modern crew than a driver and fireman.

As stand-ins for the Ghostbusters:



These four happened to be painted in suitable colours to look like the "flight" suits worn by the GBs, even though they weren't "loose-fitting" and only looked right from the back. The proton packs, badges and Winston's skin were digitally edited. Hoping to sculpt them more accurately for use with the Ecto-1, along with Dana, Louis, Janine, Slimer and (maybe) Stay Puft.

Apart from the sitting girl in the red dress, they're (most likely) too big for Plarail despite being smaller than Plakids; won't stop me from showing them at stations or other areas with Blue Tracks, though.