1/35 figures

You can also check MK 35 and Verlinden.  I believe both have some sort of French canal boat in their respective lines, along with appropriate crew members, all civilians.  Also try firms that make German U-Boat figures with their mix of civilian and military garb--Andrea, Royal and Accurate Armour have some in this field; may be others.    

Beyond my ability.

EasyMike

 

Rich:

...I...express surprise because there are "many" others I know of who are building wooden work vessels in 1/38, and I think they share my problem....

 

Scratchbuild your own and sell them to your 1/38th friends.

Given people were shorter in days gone by 1/35 scale figures would work, shims could be removed to 'shorten' a few. Variety in figures heights is one aspect many modelers overlook.

Rich

...I...express surprise because there are "many" others I know of who are building wooden work vessels in 1/38, and I think they share my problem....

Scratchbuild your own and sell them to your 1/38th friends.

I wouldn't care what material they're cast in. I only express surprise because there are "many" others I know of who are building wooden work vessels in 1/38, and I think they share my problem.

I dont find it suprising. In injection plastic, teh widest selection is of  WWII Germans, All other types are a distant second. In resin and white metal there is far more variety, but I would venture that Third Reich figures still dominate there too. Seafaring figures are pretty rare by comparison to begin with and narrowing it down to civilain merchant marine I say you would be lucky to find one let alone several.

Thank you both. I have looked at the Preiser figures before, and found nothing I could use.  The Historix figures are beautiful. There may be one or two I could get by with. I've been looking for these for quite a while; have googled all over the world with little luck. I'm surprised that such as I want appear  not to be marketed.

Preiser makes some civilain figres that are railroad related in 1/35 or 1/32, but as far as being merchant marine specific, you will probably have to do some conversions. How different are MM uniforms/clothign from USN? If there are not major differences, Verlinden, Trumpeter,and Italeri have some sailor figure sets (landing craft and PT boat crews) that may work with conversions of heads/headgear.

Historex?? Made generic figures in 54mm (aprox 1/35 scale) Shepard Pane used them for conversions in his dioramas. Try some of the mail order search engines or comparable scale model RR figures.

There is resin refugee figures available for dioramas, search a bit & update this thread with your findings.

Really, No??