I am lost here. I am working with 6" action figures, and want to create dioramas to accomodate them. For my first project I have been using 6" to represent 6’. According to my calculations, I created a 10" vertical wall to represent a 10’ wall. My biggest problem is finding what scale to buy certain “prop” items in. I wanted to do an alleyway next, and wanted to add a beat up car in it. With a 6" action figure, a car would have to be pretty big, but I don’t know what scale that should be 1:18, 1:12, or whatever. I also would be making the buildings surrounding the alley about 20" representing 20’ walls. Can someone point me in the right direction for things like trash cans, windows, and such. I bought some dollhouse windows that are about 4.5" high which I think is a close match to a 6" figure with my conversion. Am I doing this right??
Think of scale like this.
1/32 becomes 1 INCH equals 32 INCHES. If you want 6" to equal 6’ then 1" equals 1’ or 12". You get 1/12.
Or knowing that 6 ft is 72", the ratio is 6/72 and you can simplify that fraction down to 1/12.
So now you get a tape measure and measure the windows on your house. You know you are working in 1/12 scale. Take that number (in inches) and divide by 12. That is what scale it is in. If you have a window which is 54 inches tall in your house - a 4.5 inch tall dollhouse window will be the appropriate size in scale [54"/12 := 4.5"]
Homework: How tall is your front door? How tall should it be in scale? How long would your car be in scale?
What, I was supposed to stay awake in math class?
Another way to think about this is that 1:12 scale is also 1" = 1’-0". As I recall, this is the typical dollhouse scale, so you would be able to buy furniture and doors, windows, etc. A car would be pretty big. 13 to 18 inches. I’m not sure anyone makes some this size.
Also this is a common architectural scale so you could go to a drafting supply store, or office supply store, and buy an architectural scale. Get one of the triangular ones. After measuring the object in real life, you can measure your model with the scale to verify/compare. Once you figure out how to read the scale, it will save you the math.
To read the scale: Find the side that is marked “1/2” on the left side and “1” on the right. The “1” corresponds to 1" = 1’-0". The scale starts from the right and reads to the left. About 1 1/4 inches from the right edge is a zero(0). Start your measurement from here. Feet will be read to the left (the lower number, as the upper number is for the 1/2" scale reading from the left side), scale inches will be read to the right of the zero.
(wow, I hope I haven’t confused you with this explanation. I use one of these things everyday, but it’s really different when you try to explain it in writing.)
HTH [:)]
zon
Ok, I wont even attempt to explain scale, as the people ahead of me have already done a great job putting it in understandable terms. All i want to add, is in my opinion, and i think lots of people agree, nothing has to be exact scale. For example, I try only to build 1/35 scale military, because then they are all proportionate to each other. However, if I wanted to build an aircraft, which are extremely rare in 1/35 scale, I would just go for 1/32 scale, which is more common for aircraft. And who would notice but me? Even if I did a side by side height comparison of the a figure in 1/35 and one in 1/32, you could hardly tell, one would just look taller. I think this would go for you to. It doesnt sound like your trying to do the most accurate posible replication of something, in which case you would want exact scale. I think you should do whatever looks right. If a chair is slightly too big or small, who will notice? Thats also good when scratchbuilding, since you dont have to measure and make everything perfectly proportionate and scaled to everything else. Hope this helped, Ian