N is for Nude Naturists, Natural Nudies and Naughty Naked Nymphs!

Well, like the best plot or part-work, one should keep the promised excitement until the end! Don't deny it, I can guarantee that a year from now this will have had way more hits than any other post this year . . .that's human nature!

Although I notice a post from a couple of weeks ago is garnering a lot of traffic, can't think why; too much text, not enough pictures was my opinion, but Blue Box always proves popular!

AND they're not all naked, AND there's at least one more Preiser post in the pipeline, but there's interesting stuff among the titillation of 18mm high pink plastic people with little or no clothing . . . painted on!

My five sets, across the board with two Merten, two Preiser and one - actually - Faller (which has been on the blog before . . . last time we did nakedness I think!), supplied by Preiser.

Below them are - on the left, a comparison between painted and unpainted sculpts of Preiser's older nudes and on the right some odd Merten's waterskiing; although my Merten's are all clothed they did do nudes as well . . .

. . . and as we can see, the Merten nudes have been to a Brazilian clinic if you know what I mean - next to Preiser's, they are err . . . very well endowed young ladies!

I rather like the skiffle group - dates the set somewhat! And to their left, what my odds look like as a full set.

The real reason for this post and one of the reasons for the whole season, this runner (left) has all the figures (but not the props) for at least three of the old catalogued 'six-figure' sets from Preiser, although it's never that simple.

The sets are 106 - Artists, Sculptor, Models and Accessories (of which the part-set top right was supplied to Faller - as seen, with painted figures and unpainted accessories), set 107 - female bathers and accessories (seen above and below as 10107) and 108 - Doctor, Patient, Revue Girls and Accessories (not currently listed, although the doctor and his patient are in the new 'single figure' series).

The budget version of 106 used to have five figure, but I can't remember which one gets dropped, I think one of them also appears in a vignette 'at the window', so it'll be that one!

Over the years the lump of stone the sculptor is working on has taken on more form, it used to be more of a shapeless block, with the beginnings of the side of a head chipped out of one corner.

All three creative's live-on in the new premium range, but only two of the models; now the sculptor has nearly finished sketching-in, but the seated artist has gone off to paint landscapes and his model is now on the beach as 26073!

The other 2607x sculpts are newer designs while the Doctor and his patient are sold together, giving a lie to 'single figure' series, the working girls having been dropped from the catalogue for now.

More nudity, now in the bathroom and the older sculpt makes yet another appearance as a bright-orange shop-fitting dummy/mannequin at a car-boot sale!

Because Europeans generally have a healthier relationship to nudity than us Anglo-Saxons - either side of the pond (speak for yourself Hugh!) - with less of the giggling, smirking or hypocrisy; it was often a feature of the coin-operated layouts you used to get in main stations and termini (do they still have them?) to have a nude (usually from one of these sets or the Merten one's (above) hidden in the window of an attic garret, or bedroom, for the grown-ups to find while the kids watched their train go round and round and disappear into and reappear out of the tunnels.

The two Merten sets I have with a third family group to their right on the top row, and various others sets from Preiser including a newer 'FKK-Strand' (nudist beach) set, again with a family element, it's really not about the titillation or 'stag' element (unlike the larger figures from Marx!), but rather allowing for the modelling of what are - to more enlightened societies - everyday things like tractors or station-trolleys, mechanics or moo-cows.

Remember that while Brexiteer Britains (or American Trumptons?) will get quite hysterical about child-safety at a large public baths (these days read 'high class, tourism related, end-destination, leisure facility, water-park') and see any unaccompanied male over 40 as a potential 'Facking Paedo out to brutally abuse YOUR kid and ruin house prices in YOUR area!', it is considered bad-form to wear clothing into the communal sauna at a German water park, and was back in the 1980's, whatever your age or gender, as the sauna contained people of all ages and both sexes.

Hard to date this one, as the early sets tend to be better painted with Merten, and attached to their runner, while later sets: poorer paint on paper-thin bases. Also Merten kept the same codes and packaging for, like, ev'ER, but these wouldn't suit bases, needing the runner, and with the poor paint - a late'ish set I think.

Below are the contents of the modern 107, the large number of signs are useful, if I had the time, money and space for railway modelling I'd use every sign I could get; try counting the number of free-standing signs in the high street next time you're there, the let-down of any large urban diorama is the lack of signage!

Originally 70 and 71, these were the first beach-sets from Preiser, and were used in the funny little range of 3xx coded sets we looked at briefly the other day, with their instructions on how to make cave-men! Unlike most Preiser beach-sets where the costumes are just pained-on; here they are modelled onto the sculpting.

The 308 contains two-each of most of both sets with one-each of the other four poses, I'm guessing a different four poses in each of several sets to make clear the contents of the 'spare' part-runners?

A couple more from Merten's catalogue, the canvass deck chairs in the lower set are a childhood memory, while comedians have obtained much mileage from the older wooden type, vis-à-vis people falling-off or through them or having them fold-up upon the victim: my memory of those steel-tube framed, canvas-covered one is that that was exactly what they did . . .

. . . if you sat in them too hard, or sat up too quickly, or turned-over to cook the other side too abruptly they would fold over you like some great, damp, sandy, clam, or catapult you onto the beach, earning you a mouthful of grit, much to the merriment of those around you - until it was your turn to laugh at the mechanism-failure of their own idiot chair!

ome more images; it's not just the wagons I photographed the hell out of! Half-hearted attempt at a pose comparison on top, close-up of the other Merten set in the middle and a few loose figures with the lilo's at the bottom, the lilo's were meant to be bendable into shape for leaning against - see some of the catalogue illustrations.

More sets from both makers, the Merten 'Nightlife' is a lot more explicit than the Preiser 'Revue Girls', coming complete with poles for the pole dancers it leaves little to the imagination, whereas the Presier girls can be (and in some sets are-) used as 'just' undressing - for the beach or bed.

Speaking of beds (and other pieces of furniture), Noch have a range of 'adult' sets that make this Merten one look tame, I do have a couple in storage, but they are for another day. The ethylene readymade figure makers of Eastern Europe have gone much further, while Preiser run with humor, having a little kid run off with big-sisters bikini-top!

If you get all the sets in this post you can build a busy beach scene, but what would it have to do with a model railway? Note how the wooden grid that comes with the beach-chair can be used to close the chair, as a platform/footway or as a wind-break or screen, even as a clothes-horse for drying towels!

Someone was listing the Preiser 'Adam and Eve' sets the other day, somewhere else (the bough of amphibiousness!), but forgot to mention the HO set; those big-scale purists huh?!!

Catalogue Picture of 1:22.5 / G-Gauge set

Very useful sets aimed at the real scratch-builder, like a naked 'multipose' set (err . . . because it's a naked multipose set!), you can create the pose you want from a kit of parts and then build-up clothing from a modelling compound and the spare-parts box.

Another one from the new single-figure prestige range is this 'streaker' from the old concert set, originally flashing some 1D-Beliber type fuckwit, she's apparently now undressing!

I saw one in the modeling shop in Basingrad the other day in the same colours as the original (red shorts, black top), so with all Preiser paint now to roughly the same high standard, I guess these are more about selling single figures for too much money, than about real exclusivity?

The rest! The set with the three African skin-types (providing the other 2607x poses above) was first issued about 15/20 years ago (?) in the larger scales (1:22.5 / G-gauge?) and is now in HO as well; I'm not sure where the photographers swimming-suit came from, but he's very-much a 'HE' anatomically, if you know what I mean, and shouldn't want to be seen dead in something so little removed from Borat's 'man-kini'!

That's enough bare-flesh to excite the lonely, the virginal and the puritanical, foaming-mouthed bible-belters (it's only the third group that worry me!) - back to wagons next time!