# Scale info needed



## azdave (Dec 3, 2015)

Hello all,
I am helping my boys with a school project. It is a diorama scene of a fictitious battle. They chose Star Wars because they are Star Wars crazy. They want to do a Death Star scene but the Death Star surface tiles are just too hard to find. I suggested the do a forest scene with trees, at-st, at-at, bike troopers etc. I also said to include a ship or two flying over head. Maybe two tie fighters. 

My question pertains to the scale of each Item. The trees, figures, ships, at-at etc. How do I caculate the scale for the ach piece in the diorama? 

Thanks,
D


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Scales are easy enough to understand. They are just a fraction of actual size. So, 1:1 is life size. 1:2 is half size. Most model cars are 1:24 or 1:25 actual size. Large items like an aircraft carrier may be modeled in 1:700 scale, because the real thing is so big.

When making a Star Wars scene I would worry less about things like trees and focus on available figures or vehicles. If you can find some figures that are around an inch tall, then a TIE fighter would be roughly 5 inches tall. You don't have to be exact. I recall from when i was a kid, with the 3" original Star Wars figures a TIE fighter was about 15" tall. 

A good many of the trees you buy in hobby shops are 1:87 scale and intended for model railroads. You might find some 1:50 (O gauge) trees that are bigger. But, the run of the mill hobby trees are about 3-5 inches tall. That works ok with figures in the 1 inch range. Of course trees vary in size and shape. A Redwood can be 100 feet tall. The trees behind my house are 7 feet tall. You can also make trees using dried branches, roots, twigs, etc. and model railroad lichen, synthetic foliage etc. Plastic aquarium plants make good jungle or alien foliage.


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## azdave (Dec 3, 2015)

Thank you for this information. It's still a little confusing. I found the at-st. The kids want to put a storm trooper standing next to the at-st. Or a driver opening the top hatch. How do I know what size figure to look for? I have 3 inch figures but that would look odd.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

The problem is that all of the Star Wars toys and figures are not made to any particular scale and most are fit the box size. You will have to eyeball things. And, its not like you can buy a box of 1/48 scale Stormtroopers or 1/72 scale Rebels as you can with military soldiers. And most of the vehicle toys tend to be of more similar size than actual scale so a TIE fighter toy is about the size of an X Wing. In the toy realm, larger ships will be in smaller scales and sizes for practical purposes. 

You can try to figure out what the scales of your components are and its easy enough to do. Start with a human figure, for example. The average modern male is 6 feet tall, so take 6 and multiply it by 12 to get 72 inches. Now, if your toy figure is 3 inches tall he is 1/24 scale. (24 x 3 =72) 

Doing some online research, it seems the AT-ST is about 30 feet tall or 360 inches. So, in 1/24 scale to match your figures, you need a 15 inch tall AT-ST.


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