Minifig bodies are just out of scale with themselves. The average adult person is 7 to 8 heads (as in their own head) tall and their shoulder width is about 2 head heights wide. However a standard minifig with normal legs and no accessories is 4 heads tall but their shoulder width is about 2 head heights wide. So just in terms of height to width minifigs are about half as tall as they should be.
I believe in tabletop wargames this is reffered to as 'heroic scale' For example heroic scale warhammer models tend to have larger hands feet and heads, larger weapons and pouches, all to make the model more readable and easier to paint. By contrast things like tanks are much smaller than they should be, to make them reasonably sellable and playable
It is not uncommon in the model railroad and modeling community to make very large objects smaller so you have a reasonable chance to model it in the space you have available. Even large attractions like Miniture Wonderland often scale down sports stadiums and large ships so they can be included without taking over the entire layout. Sometimes smaller objects are modeled larger because of the limits of the modeler and material he is working with, but that is less common.
So th e problem with minifigure scale isn't so much height as proportions. In scale modelling and toy soldier land we have a few systems for defining scale: eye height is the most common in wargaming, and lego figures are 35mm from floor to eye line. This equates to 1:48 scale. However they are much wider than a real person, with a much bulkier profile. This means that a 1:48 scale vehicle will always be too narrow to accommodate the right number of figures. Compare to model train sizes where lego had to be bigger than scale to fit with the figures!
4:54 Hi a guy who know a bit too much about trains. The measurement you're referring to is called the track gauge, and for standard LEGO train tracks, it's actually 4 ft 8.5 in, not 5 ft. The width of 10 ft (technically 10 ft 3 in) that you mentioned is what we call the loading gauge. The loading gauge specifies the width and height of a rail vehicle, and it's separate from the track gauge. It's interesting to note that two countries can have the same track gauge but different loading gauges. For instance, if you're building a MOC of a British train, it would be narrower (9 ft 3 in or 9 studs) compared to an American one (10 ft 3 in or 10 studs) due to these differing loading gauges, even though they both run on the same standard gauge track. (Yes, I did use ChatGPT to fix my comment. I like to write but comments aren't my strong suit.)
Thing is mini figures aren’t to human scale either if 1 stud is one foot then they are 3 studs wide st shoulder and 5.5 tall. A speed champions car would at minimum need to be 7 studs wide inside to simulate any normal car
I usually think 4 stud is 1 meter. so minifig scale cars are actually 7 stud wide, because most cars are 1,75 meter width. But i still build a car MOC with 6 stud wide, because it saves money and pieces.
For boats there's different sizes of hulls (Unitary) like there, with the largest being dozens of inches long, the Lego set 60266 is a ship thats around 2ft wide (but thats only because they combined 2 smaller hulls)
I love the so called playscale. I have the Razor Crest in Minifig scale and playscale and as awesome as the very detailed interior of the UCS version is, you can’t help but feel it totally oversized compared to the minifig.
Same, I built that set recently and just could not understand why they made a UCS version when the original is so well scaled. By the way, you can open up the cockpit to the rest of the interior by removing the technic rectangle (and weapon storage) that goes between, then you can add a ladder in and the interior is basically perfect.
The railroad gauge is 4feet 8 inches. But the gauge is not the center messurment, but rather the inside to the inside. this is a interesting measurement, because while a lego figure may have any length, be very short or long, standard gauge is a very specific size, so we can specific a very exact scale. So the scale is exactly 1:38,3.. so .. well a stud is pretty close to a feet. While, true, that is not really minifigure scale. I see it this way. A minifigure is really two people sitting side by side. Or possibly a person and a half say in a airplane seat. This kind of solve most problems. A train now suddenly is just normal with 1 seat on each side.
The size of a train’s body has little to do with the gauge it uses, (the term for the distance between the inside faces of the running rails) which the most common standard is, well “Standard Gauge”, 4 feet 8 and 1/2 inches or 1435 mm. A train with a similar sized body can have somewhat wider or narrower wheels. Trains with the same wheels can have bodies the vary greatly. I work on the New York subway. Our train fleet has two different body widths and three different body lengths. So you have a variety of of sizes but all share the same track gauge. (8 feet 7 inches wide by 51 feet long, 10 feet wide by 60 feet long, and 10 feet wide by 75 feet long.)
I tried building 10 stud wide trains once, it was a massive investment in parts and didn't run well at all. Switched over to 8 wide and you can build some really amazing looking models that still run quite well (especially when you "cheat" and lubricate the axles). Though they are technically 10 wide counting handrails and the pistons on my steamers, but the main frame is 8. Though I also build my road cars 8 wide, so that means the trains look too small in comparison, but I'm like 15+ years, so a bit late to change now.
The main problem with making things minifig scale is that minifigs themselves are wildly disproportionate to real humans. Their legs are the same height as their torsos, and if you look at irl people you can see those aren’t our proportions. So even if something is minifig scale in terms of overall height, the figure ends up looking strange next to it because of how off their proportions are
I was always thinking of a minifigure scale house with accurate room configuration, how big that would have to be. the staircase would just be too tall for a minifig to scale
Shoot your bricks: …it’s actually nearly impossible to create an accurate Lego model car with the right length… My friend, who is a pro Lego designer: *cracks neck and various joints intensely, followed by hours of intense plastic snap, crackles, and pops*
As other people have pointed out, Minifig scale is impossible because Minifigs themselves are completely disproportionate. There was a great post on Mocpages back in the day that outlined how Minifigs were shaped like old school-bully characters, and overlayed a Minifig on a human silhouette. They're weirdly short and squat, which is what creates the width issue. I use a 1-stud = 50cm scale for everything except Minifigs, i.e. the minifig is not a metre across, but a 2-stud object can be
1 stud is less then 1 foot from what I’ve heard. Most people base a minifigure to be 5’10”-6’ I believe I saw that number in a Lego books once but I might be wrong
modern train track is 4'8". closer to 4.5 than 5. The lego tracks are about the right width for that. they're 5 studs wide, measured on center. And real life trains absolutely look ridiculous on their tracks.
In the lego military community, people tend to build in either 1:35 scale, or 1:45 scale. It's mainly preference for who uses what scale. Other builders will build in between those at like 1:40, or 1:42. The problem with the minifigure is that it is too wide for there to be just one scale because it is not proportional.
A minifig is 1.6cm wide at the waist when the average adult is about 40 cm wide at the waist, which is about 1:25 scale. A minifig is 4cm tall when the average adult is about 180cm tall, which is about 1:45 scale. A small LEGO city dwelling (e.g. mini modular) is some 12 studs wide and 6 studs deep, which is ~45 sq. cm, while a small apartment is about 20 sq. m (200 sq. ft) = 200000 sq. cm, which is a 1:66 scale. So "minifig scale" is not a real scale, it's not a single number, it's a lifestyle. LEGO is not for scale models, it's a creativity toy.
@@Giggles4692the problem was he did height for studs but not width and since mini figures aren’t the same width as height it makes it inaccurate when measuring width
Thats really common shorter wagons with 8 wide building tech, they feel too wide, while 6 wide accurate lentgh wagons feel too thin, wierdly enough 6 wide shorter wagons and 8 wide longer wagons feel about right
Don't forget that minifigs have a totally different width to hight ratio than humans. May Rule of thumb is this: ideal main body width for passenger cars is six; vans and trucks are allowed to be 8 studs wide. However, the best example for the right size of a LEGO car is set 6612.
IMHO, the best examples for the right size of a LEGO car are 6523 and 6540. Unfortunately, to be to scale with 4w cars and 6w trains, I would have to design 5w trucks, which didn't go well because most of the required parts are only intended for 4w and 6w (windscreens, car roof hinges, wheel holders...)
I've used the 1 stud = 1 foot scale for the last 20 years. It makes model building so easy. I only ever built one 10 stud wide train though, it looked perfect but was too huge.
@@ShootYourBricks That's what I do, though it is still a compromise as you only get two seats per row that way, were real trains usually have 4. But I tried 10 wide once, and it was a nightmare!
@@digitalrandomart3049 Then you end up with half studs, which is prohibitively difficult to set up with a simple small space like a car. Let alone making it playable and look good.
Minifig scale is a real puzzle since a fig doesn’t have the same prepositions as we do. And we don’t work in a world where everything connects to studs and fits in a system. So it’s impossible to pin point. However I’d love to have 1x2 foot bills 💵 and 1x3 feet 📞
I scale all my stuff to the _width_ of a minifigure, rather than the height. They look short next to all their cars and stuff, but at least they fit normally enough. Compared to when you scale to their height, and you barely have enough space to fit two figures in a car
I'd argue that using the "height" of the minifigure isn't good to use as standard, as minifigures are exactly stylized in that regard, squished down. If we apply the same logic for the width, an avarege man shoulder-to-shoulder is 1,5 feet wide. A lego minifig is 3 studs wide counting the arms as the shoulders, making 1 stud equal to 0.5 feet width. Making 6 feet wide car's proper stud-size 12 studs.
Now one thing to note regarding ships is that they come in a lot of shapes and sizes, there are probably cargo ships that are 12 foot wide, but yea most are a lot bigger
@@ShootYourBricks even small cargo ships are much wider than 12 feet. The real-life old pirate ships and small caravels of the 1600s-1700s were about 30 feet wide. And those were really small. Cargo ships are just not doable on minifig scale
@@tammo100 People have built the Japanese battleship Yamato as well as the Titanic in minifig scale. Of course it's possible. Just only for teams of advanced model builders.
They should, but that complicates existing scales. For instance, with the Eiffel tower, quick math works the microfigure scale to ~300 ft tall, about 1/3 the scale of the real thing.
As much as I love the simplicity of your conversion, I have to point out that minifigures are too wide, and thus a more accurate measure would be to take a value between measuring their width as if it were a person and their height as if it were a person. Additionally, since these things /are/ to match a minifigure, not a person, perhaps we should be using a different number for width measurements than we use for height measurements. Now having said all of that, I think I'm just going to use your method.
To be fair, it's just the limitations of Lego. If you apply the same analogy of 'correctly sized car should fit 2 people side by side' to a normal bus (12 meter ones), which should be able to fit 5 people side by side, 10258 London bus is the one you're looking at!
I’d say six studs is the best scale to work with. I’ve built many steam trains and six is the best scale to work with so that it doesn’t overshadow the landscape. Same goes for the cars.
I think this leads into a good discussion about lego Star Wars and how less than $100 sets are way oversized to scale but then the bigger ones are way to small. The prices are brutal on sets that are bigger than they need to be
Phht, like the BARC speeders.. hah! For by grace you have been saved through faith. and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, - Ephesians 2:8
The thing that bothered me the most is the different heights of floors in Lego buildings. You build two three story building’s and one is taller than the other? I realize that normal buildings can have 8 ft, 10’, or even 12’ ceilings. But it’s annoying when you start designing a MOC and discover it’s a midget compared to the building you we’re going to place it next to.😜
I normally design my building MOCs to be 9 or 10 bricks high (+/- a plate or two) for the ground floor and about 7 to 8 (+/-) for the upper floors. Bearing in mind that a brick's height is 1.2 studs, that gives floor heights of about 12 feet and 9 feet (using the 1 foot = 1 stud scale). Also buildings usually have some depth to the joints and the floor itself. If you're designing a MOC it helps to consider its context and criteria, so if it is supposed to match the height next to a particular building then it's worth having a look at that first and designing to fit.
Really informative video comparing LEGO sets to real life vehicles! To have a proper scale, I usually consider 1:35-1:45 minifig scale. The range is quiet big as a minifigure's proportion is just completly off. The height of a minifig is about 1:44 while the width is about 1:38 so there is no definite minifig scale but rather a range the model should be built in to be considered minifig scale. Nevertheless speed champions models are oversized (approximately 1:25-1:30) but I can understand that as they still want to include a minifig while still retaining a good structual integrity. Just for reference, the Lambo Countach is about 2 meters wide which is about 6 studs in 1:43 scale. This would it almost impossible to include a minifig while still making it look good. The issue doesn't end here tho. I'm currently working on a 1:44 recreation of the Eta-actis 2. It's an incredible small ship to tackle. It's about 15.5x12.1 studs wide. Going with 1:44 for height didn't work for me as it looked cramped next to a minifig so I needed to go with 1:38 to make it look better just because a minifig's proportion is off.
Their proportions aren't right to a normal human. They're either too wide or too short. Minidolls have better proportions, but I don't know anyone who prefers them.
And because of their flexibility and range of motion their vehicle are even more warped in appearance. Cars aren’t so bad but beyond that it gets wonky
The first lego city sets where made for HO train system, so the scale was 1:87. The current scale for city / modular buildings / trains are between 1:40 and 1:50
There is a group of LEGO model railroaders promoting something called L Scale. They say that Lego trains should 1:43; a typical seven foot doorway works out to 1.95", which is 6.5 studs; which is hard to do. Making a stud an even foot makes seven studs tall 2.125", which works out to 1:39.5, or let's just say 1:40 scale, at the bottom of @Dodos622's range. So that is a good rule of thumb; my son and I made a model of our current railroad museum from blueprints before it was actually built, and that was the scale we used. It turned out just about right. Your assumption about trains is correct. The width and height of trains (known as the loading gauge) is not determined by the track width, but by clearances when going by things like station platforms, tunnels, and bridges. Ten feet/ten studs is indeed the average width of most standard gauge trains, the height varies depending on the loading gauge (or plate) you are using. BUT, most model railroad tracks have much tighter curves than real railroads. A full-length passenger car for example can look very awkward on a tight model railroad curve, with the center of the car hanging way over the inside of the rail, which also made it more likely to tip over. So, it was not uncommon for model railroad manufacturers to model passenger cars much shorter than reality, so they looked and tracked better on tight curves. Going a step further, Lionel trains should be 1:48 scale or O scale, based on the gauge of the track. But most of the pre-War Lionel tinplate and even some of the post-war Lionel trains were actually 1:64 (or S scale) for the same reason that LEGO trains are smaller than scale -- small tracks with tight curves. If you put a LEGO train next to an old Lionel tinplate train (like we have), you will see they are very close in size; a tinplate Lionel boxcar I have in front of me is six studs wide, 26 studs long, and has oversized trucks and couplers, just like LEGO trains. The fact that minifigs are not correctly proportioned aside, a stud per foot is just an easy way to scale LEGO creations based on drawings or blueprints. You just round everything up or down to the nearest foot, and count that many studs. The finished proportions also look pleasing next to a minifig.
@@JJJGGG538 yes, the cars that came out with the LEGO city sets were indeed HO scale, so they look correct on an HO Scale layout. Conversely, I have seen a LEGO City setup from the 1950s-1960s that incorporated a Marklin HO scale train layout. It looked good. My son was given boxes of random LEGO pieces that included doors, windows, and benches from the original LEGO City sets. I used to them make a station that duplicated an incomplete HO scale station I had on hand. LEGO Micro figures are roughly HO scale in height; so I populated it with Micro figures. I have a plastic tree that dates back to my childhood; looking back, it may have come from a friends LEGO City setup, or my memory may be correct, and I found on the ground somewhere. When I realized it came from the original LEGO City set, I added it to the station, the cars would have been perfect as well if I had some. I then placed the station with my son's LEGO layout on side and my HO Scale layout on the other, with the station facing my track.
My channel is uses a lot you have used in the video, I build my Cessna plane to the exact correct scale, I also like thinking 3 studs in LEGO = 1 meter. I loved the video thanks !!
there is also the problem, that in lego the smallest measurement with "regular" pieces is 1 stud. you can go a bit smaller with some brick modified, special pieces or building techniques, but it still doesn´t translate to reality. like if you build the body of the car with 1 stud bricks it would mean 1 foot/30cm width of car body on either side, of course you are not going to be able to fit 2 minifigs, if you have to "waste" that much space... even something like windshields, if you assume 1/4 stud, it would still mean glass as thick as 1/4 foot or 7,5 cm when in reality its a fraction of that...
Actually, metric is technically given exactly due to the Minecraft sets. In Minecraft 1 block is a cubic metre. In the Lego sets, one blog is 2 studs wide. Therefore, mini figures are roughly 275cm tall, or in Imperial about 9 foot tall. Now isn’t that a horrifying image.
Measured center to center across two studs = 8mm = 0.3125 in (5/16”). I’m from the USA, and can still testify that metric is so much simpler. Imagine skip-counting by 5/16” or .3125” … just- ouch. I’m really good at it now, though! (Remember that the distance across 3 studs from center to center = 2 studs = 5/8” = 16mm.)
Agree with you regarding the small cars, minifig scale differs depending on how you measure length or width. I think the new 8 wide speed champions are great with lots of nice buildings techniques and more accurate design but they are not minifig scale. I have been using 1:27 scale for mocs recently. Ideally we would have a taller minifig with bendable arms and legs so they fit scale wise. 5 and 7 wide is actually a better fit for the available wheel sizes (one of the size constraints) more of a challenge to make (I’m just finishing a 1:27 scale 7 wide Land Rover moc with 30 high wheels )
I think Jay and Nya’s evo race car is the closest to being correct from an official set, not as big as speed champions, still sits 2 figures side by side
You also have to consider that mini figs would be nearly 3-4 feet wide at this scale. Each foot takes up one stud plus their arms. The only conclusion is mini figs are extremely short
I believe most lego modelers go with S scale (or semi scale), which is scale used in train modeling. While things may not be accurate, they're big enough to look cool and close enough in scale where nothing is too jarring
Both the old Lionel tinplate trains and the American Flyer S Scale trains were S Scale (1:64) in size, even though O Scale Lionel is supposed to be 1:48 scale. If you put the commercially available LEGO trains next to one of them, you will see that the size and proportions are pretty close. L Scale, the name given to LEGO scale trains whose scale is based on the track width, is 1:42 scale. LEGO train kits, like Lionel tinplate, were made smaller so that they looked and behaved good going around the tight curves that come with LEGO track, they are much, much, much tighter than actual railroad curves. Correctly scaled Lionel and LEGO trains are larger and look better, but have a hard time negotiating the tight curves on LEGO tracks, as my son is finding out.
@@survivingworldsteam I was just confused at the use of S Scale, which is smaller then LEGO trains. Lionel O Gauge is pretty close though. It goes beyond just the tightness of the curves, compared to the track gauge, most LEGO trains would need to be 10 studs wide to be accurate! I've gone with 8 myself, not counting piston rods and the like. And yes, if you try and correctly scale passenger cars in terms of length, they really don't like standard LEGO curves (and especially switches!) Even my 52 stud passenger cars already have difficulties sometimes, and they are only about 75% the accurate length.
@@scottthewaterwarrior to try to resolve the confusion, I have a Lionel 1679 tinplate boxcar here. Measuring it with LEGO studs, it is about 7 studs wide and 25 studs long. If I then place this same boxcar next to an S Scale American Flyer boxcar, you will see it is the same size. So even though Lionel is technically O scale, many of their offerings were closer to S scale. American Flyer did the same thing in tinplate, and finally decided to come out with their true S Scale two rail track after World War II, rather than continue compete directly with Lionel in the O scale arena. Lionel collectors know that Lionel played fast and loose with the concept of scale over the years, offering some products that were a true O scale, and others that were smaller. If Lionel can "get away with that", so can we. As you have done, scaling them down a bit makes them work better on switches and tight curves, the same reason Lionel did.
The biggest issue with 10-stud trains on official Lego track is that Lego only makes curved tracks at a very tight radius. The larger the scale of your train, the sillier it will look around these unrealistic curves.
My 8 wides already look quite silly! I did build a 10 wide steamer once, but it took 3 9v motors (1 on the engine, two under the tender) to power it, and even then it could only run at one speed: any slower and it got stuck on curves, and any faster it would flip.
As other people have pointed out Minifigs don't cleanly fit into the 1 foot per stud ratio, and large part that's because of the proportional sizes of the Minifig's body.
All you silly people fussing over measurement systems. Scale is scale, whether you working in meters or feet. 1 stud = 1 foot is close enough to 3 studs = 1 meter. They are both about 1:40 scale. And when I am modeling something; I have often switched between them in scaling them down, it's whatever works best for me. Modeling will always have it's limitations based on materials and what is humanly possible. I beat the subject of model trains to death already, but another example is that the HO scale slot cars used to always be too wide so they could fit a pancake motor inside. The whole purpose of all of this is to have fun. Don't sweat the details so much that you can no longer enjoy it. At that point, you are taking this much too seriously.
I like the speed champions' scale for my city because it's focused on pedestrian areas and the cars look and feel awkwardly huge like they are in real life.
I had an art education, with drawing and sculpting to live models. One of the more important things I learned was 'art anatomy does not have to be right, it has to look right'. Something similar goes with Lego minifigures. As mentioned in the video, the mini figs are horizontally uhm, a bit off. Way too wide compared to their height. This translates into all kind of weird problems with cars and trains, once to try to fit them in. All in all, Lego is not a 'model-building-medium', it is a world building medium. You can make what you want!
What i liked about the lego movies is that they showed that most scales could look good in the right context. Cars ? Tiny ! Space ship ? Toy accurate ! Interiors ? HUGE ! And it's not even a hard set of rules. Like you said it's about imagination but also aesthetics. It must feel nice and look good.
I was thinking about this the other day. A standard car should be 5 studs wide. But windows and axles don't lend themselves to this. I'm a massive fan of models that manage to get minifigs sat next to each other. I'm thinking; 10197, 77017, 5988 + others that use this seat mould. Other than the fire station, I think this is an area where modulars with vehicles have been let down.
As someone who is both in the lego and transformers fandom, i've learned that scale is more of a ... suggestion really XD If it feels "right" i'm usually fine with that.
Because minifigs are not proportional to a human, you need to adjust the proportions on what you want to model. Making it look good in lego is easier, but making something look good in proportion to a minifig? That’s where the master builders reside
Actually, Standard gauge track in the United States is 4 feet 8 1/2 inches. 5 foot gauge is considered broad gauge and actually was the The gauge that the South used during the Civil War period.
But three and a half inches is not much. There were some steam locomotives that were built for five-foot gauge that were supposed to be shipped to the Soviet Union during World War I. When the Communist Revolution took place, the locomotives were never shipped, and were adapted to our standard gauge by using wider tires, they were bought by the Frisco a few others. Search "Russian Decapod" for more details.
How I see it is I put them in different scales, personally I’m not a minifig scale guy, since it’s to hard to make so I just separate them into Minifig scale( usually hard to build) and city scale( downsized or slightly upside, but good enough)
You could just look up the scales for the different types of lego figures - the community has extensive material on the subject. The minifigure comes in at 1:43 by height or 1:25 by width. Since those are very different, if you build anything to scale, no scale will feel quite right. And cars are always to tall if you try to build them in minifigure scale, so most just build them bigger.
Since minifigures arent proportional to real people, determining minifig scale isnt as easy, as you make it out to be. Thats also the reason, why you can hardly fit two figs next to each other into a car. So theres some wiggle room with minifig scale. Also a point you didnt really go into, is that lego play sets usually dont aim to be perfect minifig scale, but rather a scale, thats both affordable and playable. Who would want a cargo ship as large as room with thousands of containers for play? For display sets, like some ucs star wars sets it makes sense to be roughly minifig scale and you could argue, that it would for speed champions as well. But as the shift to eight wide cars shows, lego apparently prioritises more detail over accourate scale with these.
Besides the added brick count and cost, an exact scale train would have a hard time negotiating the curves in LEGO track. It would also look awkward, Lionel scaled down their prewar tinplate trains for the same reason.
Not sure if you have seen mocs by RGB900 and Calin on flickr, they make 5-6 stud wide godly car mocs which have low profiles. Their mocs may not fit minifigs but when displayed beside figs, they are in scale and look perfect in a diorama. So one way to look at it is not trying to fit a fig in the vehicle per sè, but how the vehicle looks when beside a minifig.
This is why I don't build my car MOCs with the LEGO fenders, they make every vehicle look like it has a widebody kit! Course I also build 8 wide, so...
There's a whole group of people who make scale trains. It's 1:48 scale which is O scale. I've seen some people even use O scale track, wheels, and couplers for more realism. AND THEY WORK. look up 1:48 scale train.
@@ShootYourBricks it looks like there's someone who sells kits even. I'm planning on starting my own designs as well. I want to do a Lego garden RR, and integrate model RR components, have DCC power my trains and stuff
