Grateful for any insights on the scale of Atlas diecast 1:43 models and how the look together with 28mm miniatures. You cannot always trust the scale descriptions...Thanks!
Never a truer word was spoke! Of course this also applies to the "28mm" miniatures you are attempting to scale these against. I have a handful of nominally 28mm miniatures from the old Kriegspiel and TAVR lines that are tiny and indeed look best against, believe it or not 1/72 scale vehicles. On the other hand, the Empress and Underfire moderns are really more a case of 32mm. These IMO work best with 1/50 or 1/48, although I'll use 1/56 especially if there's nothing else available. Middle range figures like Eureka, Empress Vietnam (indeed all their Paul Hicks sculpts) Rubicon etc look better with 1/56. Add to this variants in basing. Most of mine are based on flat steel washers but many folk use plastic bases that add a good 4 or 5 millimetres to the overall height and it's the height more than bulk that tends to give the perception of things being in scale, even when they aren't.
There's also a weird thing where smaller looks better bigger. Like most people I use 1/43 diecast cars and even the occasional 1/43 truck, largely on the basis of availability. These work well enough.
I am less convinced by 1/43 tanks. I don't have any Atlas 1/43 tanks but my limited experience with 1/43 tanks suggests that they will look HUGE, even with one of the taller "28mm" ranges. A few years ago I bought a diecast Chinese tank advertised as 1/50. Measuring it, the thing worked out to be about 1/45 or 1/44. It looks grotesquely large even though the difference between that and 1/48 isn't that big, it's just a step too far IMO.
Two factors come into play, firstly it will likely not compare well with photos of actual men scaled against an actual version of that tank. You can probably ignore that and justify it on the basis of 'tanks are big things' even though they aren't quite as big as many people often think. The real killer tends to be when it gets parked against terrain. Our perceptions are sharper here due to comparison with something most of us are familiar with. If the top of your tank's turret is above the eaves of a one storey house, it's going to look a bit odd.
Of course it all comes down to individual perception.
There are 3D prints of T-64s available in both 1/56 and 1/50 if you want a smaller scale version.
October 06, 2012, 12:52:25 PM