Scale in Modelling (split on Gus's request and Playmofire's consent)

[playmofire]

I was comparing the scutum to various illustrations last night, and it's really a little too big, and not curved enough,

You've hit on here the problem of whether or not items should be reproduced exactly to scale in all aspects.  Quite a number of vehicle diecast makers have come unstuck with models which have been produced exactly to scale - i.e. in, say, a 1:50 model every dimension (except of course the thickness of the metal!) has been exactly scaled down to 1:50 and the end result has looked horrible and not particularly like the real thing.  When scaling down (or up), the end result has to look right overall, and this means that some of the measurements are not exactly to scale.

[Martin Milner]

I noticed particularly when posting the Roman figures that Klicky dimensions vs. adult human dimensions differ. After looking at klickies for a while you forget that they're not standard human dimensions because they look so...right.

Of course this was all part of the fantastic design job done by Hans Beck, having the klicky dimensions more child like (bigger heads compared to body size).

[Gustavo]

Playmobil industry itself (gB designer groups, through this generation, since we have klickys & vehicles around) seems not to have a pattern yet ... which is good, I think. It's a young toy! (About my age, 32, 35?)

I read somewhere (Collectobil, maybe, I don't remember (...)) that Playmobil came up with purpose of being a line of vehicles mainly. Fact is that playmo vehicles have gone through evolution, all the way from the '70s up to this day.

First cars look like old "Fiats" -- as we say in Brasil, a Fiat ... -- Then there came the new lines of cars (3211, 3758, among many others).

There was the first plane ... Then the new jets.

There's the (in)(famous) 3050 pirate ship, which is a pearl to talk about scale ... And there's the classic 3055 (the klicky Darwin mini playmo Beagle), and now a wonderful 4444.

And there's the old(er) boats, first it came up the Viking one, fabulous!, then the Roman one, not so great, and now the Egyptian one, that, according to Andi's recent review, is much more interesting and realistic than the Roman one (which should have been bigger, and had the underground with at least one storey of rowers (...)).

So, once this is such a fertile theme, that reaches many and many Playmobil collections (I didn't speak about animals -- including dinosaurs and now a whale! --, buildings ...) it looked nice to give the idea of splitting it up ...

Thanks, Martin!
It's a very interesting subject to bring into its own thread.
Lets see if anyone else gets interested in a really wonderful (& useful (...)) subject.
 

Gus

[Martin Milner]

I read somewhere (Collectobil, maybe, I don't remember (...)) that Playmobil came up with purpose of being a line of vehicles mainly. 

I read that in "Story of a Smile". As someone mentioned recently, the whole Playmobil design started when the price of raw plastic went up dramatically in 1973, and Hans Beck was asked to design a toy line that would use less plastic than Geobra's previous toys (which included toy telephones and sit-on tractors).

Hans started with the idea of a line of toy vehicles, but soon realised that the figures were much more interesting to children than the vehicles, and switched his focus.

Hans's great strength, apart for being a fantastic designer, is that he spent a long time watching children at play, and then designed his toys to suit their favourite styles of play.

I can't help wondering if the some of the current design teams have left this "watching" stage out of their pre-production processes.

[cachalote]

in playmo-pirate-ships (my specialty) the scale is all wrong.
an interesting fact though, is that they look very much alike the drawings of "caravelas" and "naus" form the xv and xvi century which are quite "symbolic" or, if you like, quite "childish".
when you look at this drawings and you look at playmo-ships, a kind of internal coherence exists on both - important things like sails ald hull tend to come bigger but you don't feel any imbalance in proportions.
hans beck understood this very well - for a child a sailing ship is very much a sail+ship.
i agree with martin: in more recent sets this expertise seems to be a little out of control.

[Martin Milner]

The problem with ships is they have to be playable with.

The largest Playmo ship is the 3940 with 4 gun ports on each side. It's just about manageable for a adult to carry it around and not destroy the house.

The 100 gun HMS Victory, not the largest ship every sailed by the Royal Navy, was 227.5 feet long - a scale model in 1/24th scale would be about 9.5 feet long, and 3 feet wide, and have a crew of about 1,000 klickies.

So we probably won't see a scale model of HMS Victory from Playmobil, but the 3940 is large enough for me.  and it is a good representation - it looks right.

 

[Gustavo]

Michael (MacGayver), has a big ship, more in scale ...

I agree that it has to be playable.

Even so, concerning the Roman galley, I think it should be of the 3050's length, but thinner, and with actual rowers. Maybe Playmobil avoided doing it because it'd enter the "sensible" subject of slavery ... (All the rowers should be chained, like the captive prince [3328, knights] ...) It wouldn't be good, in Playmobil philosophy (...). And, well, maybe no, they didn't think about any of these things at all, but simply that it'd be easier not to make a big ship, but a small one, ans slip the fact that someone has to row (...).

Gus

[Martin Milner]

I don't think a Roman galley with actual rowers would have been playable or sellable.

If you add another deck below the existing one, the ship will be top heavy. You might possibly counter this with extra weights below the waterline - all adding to the cost and size of the set.

Then you'd need ten more klickies to man the oars - no point having the oars with nobody working them. In the UK that adds £20 to the set cost right there. That adds 50% to the current cost just to have some guys hidden below decks.

You'd also have to add at least 50% to the cost of the galley itself, so that'd be another £15 at least.

So now the set costs at least £75 compared to £40, just so you can have 10 slave klickies hidden away inside.

No, I'm happy to have to as it is - representing and not recreating. I know in my imagination that there are rowers working those oars.

[Gustavo]

I don't think a Roman galley with actual rowers would have been playable or sellable.

I agree. However, not having the guys below makes it not playable (or interesting) to me ... I'm interested in Roman soldiers, mainly for stories , but I don't think I'd gladly like to buy that model of galley.

Differently occurs with the viking boat: I'd buy it gladly. It's pretty possible to me.

&, Appart from all this, I completely agree with your argument about representation & recreation. It's an interesting concept, in the understanding Playmobil and of what Playmobil is, and what's its purpose*. In my view. So a agree with you completely and not blindly.

Only, the galley gets to be playable by children (and other imaginative people). Not by me (or my kind of imagination).

(&, However, it might as well become, in the future ... )

Gus



*Sometimes I get us wishing things done perfectly ... It isn't real for what Playmobil is, I think. This is why my idea of the galley with rowers is absurd, in a way, not only "philosophically", but economically as well. (...)

[Justindo]

I agree with a lot of what has been said.  While it's nice to fantasize about Playmobil ships built to scale, in reality they'd be gigantic and totally impossible to sell, let alone move!

Of the pirate ships, I'm most happy with the large 3940, mainly due to its large but not huge size and its gundeck with plenty of canon.  That said, I do wish it was just a bit longer and had an additional mast and two sails per mast like on the new hideous pirate ship.  (The double sails are the only thing good about this new ship, in my opinion.)  Making such a ship as I described would be easily possible for Playmobil and wouldn't add too much to the cost ($10 or so, I'd estimate).

To me, the Viking ship is the most perfect ship Playmobil has made to date because the dimensions are good and its quite authentic looking.

The Roman Galley is neither a total success nor a total failure in my opinion.  I'm glad Playmobil didn't have another actual full deck with space for rowers as this would have made the ship too tall, too expensive, and would have added little value, at least to me.  That said, they really should have made the ship longer with at least eight oars per side.  My fantasy would be to make it a bireme with two rows of eight oars on each side, but I'm not sure if the proportions would work in terms of height.  Criticisms aside, however, the Roman galley is a reasonable representation of one.

Also, slaves didn't row Roman war galleys.