Best places to find most affordable HO scale figures?

[Colorado Midland Modeler]

I've been on the look out for HO scale figures, particularly forest animals that you would typically find in the Rocky Mountain west, (things like deer, foxes, mountain lions, bears, raccoons, etc). It seems like everywhere I look they are very expensive for very few figures. Example, $15.99 for a pack of six HO deer, plus shipping and tax on TrainWorld. (Not to single them out). I've looked at ebay, TrainWorld, Walthers, and a few others. Does anybody have any thoughts/suggestions as to where I could find fairly large amounts of forest critters for more reasonable prices? Thanks!

 

[santafewillie]

Reasonable price is a relative thing. I have gotten animal figures from Mini Prints. They're unpainted 3D printed resin animals from Canada. It's a one man shop I believe. No tariffs or taxes and he comes across the border to mail to American customers, thus reducing the shipping charges. Many North American forest animals are available. Be aware that he manufactures them in the order that the order is received, and there is sometimes a backlog; right now it's about 12 days. I know that others on this forum are satisfied customers as well.
TrainWorld is actually a reasonable place to get figures.

 

[n&w coal]

How about steam engine figures? Engineer and firemen. Hopefully with an arm on the window sill.

 

[Colorado Midland Modeler]

Reasonable price is a relative thing. I have gotten animal figures from Mini Prints. They're unpainted 3D printed resin animals from Canada. It's a one man shop I believe. No tariffs or taxes and he comes across the border to mail to American customers, thus reducing the shipping charges. Many North American forest animals are available. Be aware that he manufactures them in the order that the order is received, and there is sometimes a backlog; right now it's about 12 days. I know that others on this forum are satisfied customers as well.
TrainWorld is actually a reasonable place to get figures.

Thanks, I'll have to keep that in mind. I'll also check TrainWorld again, maybe I missed something.

How about steam engine figures? Engineer and firemen. Hopefully with an arm on the window sill.

I've actually been doing pretty well on that front, as you can see in these photos below

. I can usually just modify existing figures, or occasionally make my own when a custom fit is required.

 

[Gary B]

Reasonable price is a relative thing. I have gotten animal figures from Mini Prints. They're unpainted 3D printed resin animals from Canada. It's a one man shop I believe. No tariffs or taxes and he comes across the border to mail to American customers, thus reducing the shipping charges. Many North American forest animals are available. Be aware that he manufactures them in the order that the order is received, and there is sometimes a backlog; right now it's about 12 days. I know that others on this forum are satisfied customers as well.
TrainWorld is actually a reasonable place to get figures.

Great link! Thanks

 

[RhB Michael]

There are no cheap figures, unless you resort to the e-Bay Chinese made figures. Problem with that is they all look Chinese.

Preiser has a wide selection of animal figures from dogs to deer and everything in between, including chickens. $$$.

 

[Colorado Midland Modeler]

I think I posted this thread too soon, just after checking it yesterday, I found all of these on ebay. Either that, or it works like Beetlejuice and my inquiry conjured them up for me. The only somewhat expensive one was the Woodland Scenics cougars, but I had to have that one. Thank you everyone for your suggestions, I'm definitely going to bookmark that mini prints link, because I'm sure I'll need/want more in the future.

 

[Gary B]

My experience is that the details will end up costing you more than the big stuff when you build a layout.

 

[westtexjohn]

I believe Broadway Limited offers some Engineer/Fireman figures.
And Kato used to have some railroad worker figures but I don't know if they still do.

John