Ah yes, scale. The simple, yet, most elusive and mysterious concept that still boggles a lot of Gunplars. I found myself once again repetitively posting this over and over again, since there are people who just can’t wrap their brains around what scale is in terms of Gunpla and scale modeling in general.
Simply, scale can be understood by knowing what 1:1, 1/1, or One is to One scale is, which is the ACTUAL height of an object.
Let XHeight (or simply X), be the actual (1:1) height of a mobile suit. XScaleHeight is the height value you want to find out at that scale, and XScale is the scale value. Let say X=18m, the AVERAGE height of mobile suits. Now an average value is when you take several values, say, different heights of different mobile suits at 1:1, add them all up, and divide the total with the number of mobile suit samples. To simplify further, let's just take the RX 78-2's height at 18m (approximate).
Using a SIMPLE conversion, which is not something I invented, but actual mathematical conversion factors (fractions) we learned in high school:
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Too many Xes here, doncha tink? |
X:100 = 18cm (divide 18m, or 1800cm by 100)
Now, I used metric, because it's easier to convert factors of 10 (which one can do without using a calculator) compared to imperial units. As such, 10mm=1cm, 10cm=1decimeter (dm, or decim), 10decimeter=1m, 10m=1decameter (Dm, or decam), 10Dm=1hectometer (hm, 100m), 10hm=1km.
You can use these factors to determine the relative scale heights, as well as widths, depths and lengths of ANYTHING that can be measured. As such, if you want to make a scale model replica of a building as part of diorama, you must know or determine the actual height of the building. That value is its 1:1 scale height.
Scale is also <reversible>, meaning you can start on any size or height, say what scale it is, and factor up or down as the case may be. Scale is also a fraction, as such, it's written as 1/100, et al on boxes.
Let's have, for example, the HCM pro Destroy Gundam, which has a 1/200 height of approximately 20cm. Without looking up the height online, I can determine its 1:1, 1:60, 1/100, 1:144 scale height just using the conversion factors above. I'll convert it to 1:1 first, to make it easier to convert to other scales.
X/200 = 20, which make its 1:1 height at 4000cm, or 40m.
1:100 would be 40cm
1:60 would be approximately 67cm
1:144 would be approximately 28cm
Now, the HG 1/144 Neo Zeong has a 1/144 scale height of roughly 40cm. You can imagine how huge the 1/100 scale would be at 60cm or ~2ft.
