Model figure

• 1. Introduction

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  Model figures occupy a peculiar corner of human imagination: miniature people, monsters, and creatures cast from plastic, resin, or metal, then assembled and painted by hand. Whether the subject is a generic World War II Luftwaffe pilot, King Henry VIII, or a fictional character like Conan, these small objects carry an outsized weight for the people who make and collect them. The questions worth sitting with are simple ones. Why do hobbyists spend hundreds of dollars to own a tiny replica of Frankenstein? How did a niche craft born in the 1950s evolve into a global market worth hundreds of billions of yen? And what does it mean to chase something you can hold in the palm of your hand? The answers run through California hobby shops, Japanese anime studios, and the mailboxes of enthusiasts who once had to trade addresses just to find each other.

• 2. Scales and Soldiers

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  Back in the early 1980s and 1990s, military modeling figures were largely produced in 1:72 and 1:35 scales, with 1:48 and 1:32 holding a smaller share of the market. The choice of scale was not arbitrary. Manufacturers like Tamiya, Revell, Monogram, and Testor's filled the 1:35 shelf with soldiers, vehicles, and combinations spanning World War I through Vietnam, with the largest concentration centering on World War II. Airfix, a leader in the small-scale market, supplied high-quality 1:72 figures alongside planes and military vehicles. The company also offered diorama sets that came complete with buildings, trees, vehicles, and men, giving small-scale modelers something the larger formats could not match at the time. At 1:72 scale, a hobbyist could buy a pontoon bridge kit, an Atlantic Wall scene, or a Waterloo set and have everything needed to portray a given moment in miniature. The 1:35 modeler had no equivalent.

  Tamiya, positioned as a higher-end supplier, later pushed 1:48 scale into new territory by offering German and American World War II figures and vehicles together, making it possible to incorporate tanks, jeeps, and foot soldiers into dioramas alongside aircraft. That combination had only been practical at 1:72 scale for quite a long time. The development mattered because it opened new possibilities for modelers who wanted the detail of a larger scale without sacrificing the context of a combined-arms scene. At the other end of the size spectrum, 1:16 scale kits include motorized vehicles and standalone figures; painting them demands a great deal of effort and time precisely because there is more surface to render correctly. Many gaming figures are measured in millimeters, ranging from 15 to 80 mm, with miniature wargaming figures running toward the smaller end, especially where armored vehicles are involved.

• 3. The Aurora Years

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  In the 1950s and 1960s, plastic model kits of cars, planes, and spaceships became common in the United States. There were also cheap plastic models for the popular market of movie monsters, comic book heroes, and movie and television characters in 1:8 size, roughly 9 inches or 23 cm tall. These included Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. One of the largest producers of monster figures was the Aurora Plastics Corporation, which produced many thousands of figures from each mould. That market eventually disappeared, and no firm since has produced anything to match Aurora's quantities. Smaller 3¾-inch or 10 cm action figures took over the popular market instead.

  By the 1970s, Aurora's figure moulds had been sold to Monogram. By the mid-to-late 1970s the models had been discontinued and were difficult to find in hobby stores. Then, in the mid-1980s, some of the people who had been kids in the 1950s and 1960s resumed their interest in the old Aurora monster models. An underground market developed through which enthusiasts could acquire the original plastic kits. Prices that had once been only a few dollars now climbed as high as $125 for some of the rarer monster models. That revival fed directly into a new wave of production, driven by hobbyists rather than corporations.

• 4. Garage Kits Rise

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  In the early-to-mid 1980s, hobbyists began creating their own garage kits of movie monsters, often without permission from copyright holders. They were usually produced in limited numbers and sold primarily by mail order and at toy and hobby conventions. Garage kit figures are produced by both amateurs and professionals and are usually cast from polyurethane resin. In Japan they often portray anime characters; in the United States they are more commonly movie monsters. Because of the small production runs, garage kits are more expensive than typical injection-molded plastic figures.

  In the mid-to-late 1980s, two model kit companies moved the monster model kit hobby toward the mainstream. Horizon Models in California began licensing vinyl model kits focused primarily on classic horror film characters such as the Bride of Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, and The Phantom of the Opera, as well as comic book characters like Captain America and Iron Man. Screamin' Models in New York focused primarily on characters from more contemporary slasher films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Hellraiser, and franchises like Star Wars and Mars Attacks. Hobby stores began carrying these products in limited supply. By the 1990s, large hobby companies including AMT-Ertl and Revell/Monogram, the same Monogram that had purchased Aurora's monster moulds, began marketing vinyl kits of movie monsters, classic Star Trek characters, and characters from a Batman film, creating an unprecedented variety of licensed model figure kits. The late 1990s reversed that momentum. Hobby and comic stores began carrying fewer garage kits, and producers like Horizon and Screamin' shut their doors.

• 5. The Japanese Figure World

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  Model figures based on icons like Hello Kitty, and on characters from anime, manga, kaiju series, science fiction films, and video games, form a major part of otaku fandom. The global animation merchandising market from Japan is estimated to be worth around 663 billion Japanese yen. Within that world, some hobbyists concentrate specifically on garage kits, gashapon (capsule toys), or PVC bishojo statues. These figures featured prominently in the work of the modern artist Takashi Murakami. Through his company Kaikai Kiki, Murakami produced a number of limited designer toys sold in otaku-oriented stores.

  Authenticity drives price in this market. Figures of characters licensed by their creators are significantly more expensive than unlicensed versions. Among the manufacturers known for consistency and quality are Good Smile Company, Aniplex, Hot Toys, and Bandai. Figures are broadly classified as prize figures or scale figures. Prize figures are lower-cost options often used in claw crane games. Scale figures can cost several hundreds to thousands of US dollars. One category that sits between decoration and function is the noodle stopper, a figurine based on manga, anime, or video game characters ostensibly designed to hold down the lid of a ramen container so it does not boil over. Despite the functional name, they are not inserted into the container; they rest on top by gravity, and because of their ornate designs they are typically displayed as ordinary figurines.

• 6. Collecting and the Chase

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  Model figure collectors, like most hobby collectors, usually have a specific criterion for what they collect, whether Civil War soldiers or Warhammer gaming figures. Manufacturers built a mechanism around that completionist instinct called the chase figure: a model released in limited amounts relative to the rest of an assortment, at a ratio something like one chase figure for every two cases of regular product. The name comes directly from the behavior it produces, with collectors putting in more effort than usual to track down the rare variant. The concept has a parallel in the collectible card game industry, where chase cards work on the same scarcity logic.

  Chase figures are rare in toy lines aimed at young buyers, though shortpacked figures, shipped in lower numbers than other figures in a release cycle, do appear occasionally. They are more common in collector-oriented lines like Marvel Legends and WWE Classics. As of 2009, two American garage kit magazines, Kitbuilders Magazine and Amazing Figure Modeler, serve the hobby, and garage kit conventions such as WonderFest USA in Louisville, Kentucky are held each year, keeping a community alive that once had to operate entirely through mail order.