My garden railroad has a need for lots of horses and the horse drawn vehicles will need more as it is set in approximately 1880. So, some riders are needed for the single horses.

I have found a source of some figures in the UK that may be of interest – there is a notable dearth of figures that are made for sitting on horses; There are plenty of horses, that need the harness fitting if you are using for vehicles; but very few figures for the horses.

A local shop sells Papo horses. They are a French company with a small range of horses, (like Schleich or Breyer), they also sell a small set of grooms and riders which are available as individual figures. These are both male & female but the riders are all young (approx late teenage) and almost all are female only. There is an exception; a set of ‘Action Man’ style cowboys – not what I was looking for, and so far I have not seen them. They are about £2.75 each and are quite suitable for 1/20th scale. The reference number for the girl rider is 25001. Papo also sell some horses with an English style saddle – this has a under blanket which I think is a bit long for my period, but it can be easily shortened.

I bought one of the girl riders, who was dressed in a short sleeved blouse, tight trousers and long riding boots, wearing a jockey cap. I did some fairly severe surgery on her, to change her to a male figure as a start. This can be done with a small rotary sanding drum and a knife for the initial cutting. In addition carve off all the hair, this falls down over what would have been her rear collar, the loss of this will be covered up later.

When I had made the changes, it was time to clothe the new figure. I wanted a much more elderly man, so I also removed the peak of the riding hat; whilst doing that also remove the straps for the hat, and remove of the ribs off the hat. I made a washer like shape, making mock-ups from card until I had the correct size for the interior and exterior shape of the ‘oval washer like’ shape. To make the final one in a reasonably thick aluminum foil – I used some from an aluminum foil cooking tray. This is to give the hat brim some stiffness; I glued onto each side a paper covering which will gave this brim a key for painting later. Put the small brim on one side for fitting later.

The clothes I needed were a quite thick riding jacket, and overalls for his legs, they could also be ‘chaps’ instead. Much ‘cut & try’ was needed here: I used pieces of heavyweight paper envelopes for the patterns; these are very similar to my wife’s full size paper patterns, but much, much smaller! The jacket patterns are a full back, a couple of front pieces (to get the overlap), and a couple of sleeves, finally a collar, and paper cuffs to the sleeves were added when all the above were in position.

When I finally had my patterns I cut the shaped pieces into a sheet of foil. I used the foil from tomato puree tubes which is nice and flexible, but quite strong so it can be pushed about quite a lot. I started with the jacket back and glued, using ‘Evo-stick’, the pieces onto the figure ensuring that the joins are as close as possible. The joins between the arms are the body are the most difficult as the arms are across the chest, and I was leaving them in the moulded positions. I used a couple of cocktail sticks and a piece of thin stiff steel rod to persuade the bits into place. This figure is to be sitting on a horse; I made sure that the jacket or coat flaps are only glued at about belt height so the coat tails can be bent to fit over whatever I fitted around the saddle. When dry I filled any gaps that could be seen, and fitted the collar and cuffs. A belt (again from foil) can be added to the figure.

The overalls are made from the same paper as the ‘try out’ patterns for the jacket; their main job is to cover up the tight riding trousers, they are very basically a rectangular piece of paper that is fitted around the bent legs, with luck it will form the crease as each legs cover is glued in position. They do not need to cover all the legs as they are intended to represent overalls.

I now have a re-clothed figure with a rather young face. Careful painting will make it older or you can add a beard to it, which totally changes it. If adding a beard start off with a basic shape – I started with a tiny piece of .020 shaped like a goatee beard, (‘V’ shaped), glue this to the chin and leave it to set. When dry add the beard hair using filler and detail it as it is setting.

When dry the hat brim can be added and glued in position, the foil centre allows you to curl the edges for a more battered look! The hemispherical shape of the ex jockey cap can now be added to with filler to make a better shape – I have used a generic ‘Stetson’ shape but any shape can be made, some photos I have seen, show a bowler hat with a very small brim, which is very easy to make from the original; cut down the width of the brim before fitting. At the same time and using the same filler you can add some hair to the back of the head, leave space around the ears though.

Here are a couple of photos of the first figure I have done –

the space!






Bear in mind that these photos are greater than life size! The figure is actually 85mm high.


Painting can be done with whatever paints you are used to using; I used a combination of both acrylic and enamel paints, using variations of earth colours, and I gave the figure a ‘salt & pepper’ colour beard. When you have almost finished add a wash of a slightly darker color to bring out the detail you have added. The flesh colour was enhanced to give a ruddier colour to his complexion with a wash of a chestnut colour ink. This is available from Citadel miniatures, they have other useful colours as well, ignore some of the ‘way out’ names for the colours – luckily the paints are now in clear pots so you can see the colours.






He is sat (bareback rider style) on a Papo ‘Throughbred’ horse, and has the reins fitted into his right hand; these are from thin aluminum foil.

Here is a final photo of his own horse, which is a Papo ‘appaloosa’ horse that has been comprehensively re-painted, given a harness set, and a scratch built western style saddle, most of which is covered up when he is fitted into it alas.



© Peter Bunce 2005