Worker with Shovel or Tamper
Worker with Shovel
Immediately after finishing the emergency road flares, I started thinking about how I might animate an N Scale figure, and this came to mind. I didn't have the specific figure I'd wanted to start with, but I found a similar one in the Preiser painters set (79177). Owing to how the little guy was dressed, he kind of reminded me of an Elvis impersonator; of course, that would get fixed with paint later on.
I began by disarming him (sorry, couldn't resist), and drilling out his shoulders. Next I made his arms by stripping the insulation off of some fine electrical wire, and inserting bits of 0.012" spring steel wires into the insulation in a pattern to create articulation points for the shoulder and elbow.
Next, I made the shovel handle from the same steel wire, and soldered on a pair of "hands" made from ultrafine brass tube, which I then sliced to length with a Dremel. Meanwhile, Elvis had to be bonded very firmly to a base, because he was going to be placed under some fairly significant stress as the arms are moved. I fused a bit of stainless hypotube to a block of thick sheet styrene, attached it to a mechanism frame, then attached Elvis.
I'd already had the mechanism figured out from the beginning: a motorized cam that would move the shovel in an irregular pattern, so he didn't look too robotic. Admittedly his arms are a bit too long, but I was working at my limit, and he's not meant to be scrutinized under a microscope. After he was working properly, I painted him. Start to finish, the project took less than a day.
|
|
Worker with Tamper
Once I got the guy with the shovel working, my head exploded with ideas for other figures in action, and the next one that came up was a worker with a tamper, either tamping or poking or prying or whatever. Once I found a suitable figure, I had to modify him a bit—he needed to be bent over to look at what he was doing, which proved a tad difficult as he was corpulent. Once he was in shape, I drilled a hole straight through his chest, from one shoulder to the other.
I then made the arms as one piece that passed through his body, allowing them to move vertically without resistance. Once again the arms were wire insulation over music wire, bent to shape after installing them in his body. The tamper, like the shovel, was spring steel wire with tubing soldered to it for his "hands"; I bent his "wrists" into tiny hook shapes to help keep them engaged with his hands.
Owing to where this worker would be located—standing in an already finished scene—I had to build the mechanism separately from the figure and install them in situ, which was not how I'd normally have done it. I always prefer building animations that are complete stand-alone assemblies, then dropping them into the layout/diorama; this offers a multitude of advantages. The scariest part was putting a right-angle bend in the end of the tamper rod without ripping it apart above-ground owing to shaky hands.
The mechanism was largely similar to the shoveling one. The follower was a lever made from tubing, and the bottom of the tamper rod simply slips into a loop on the end of the tube; I just had to fiddle with a shim to get the mechanism to align with the rod. I painted the worker all black to obfuscate his oddly-shaped shoulders; his movements can be seen clearly via his silhouette.
|
|
Then my head exploded again, and I came up with even more animated figure ideas. However, the madness had to stop: I'd run out of space on the control panel for more switches. Anyway, I was starting to realize that more wouldn't necessarily mean better. When detailing a model, adding just a few details can trick the viewer's mind into thinking there are more. The same may apply to animation: just a few animated figures could suggest there are others.