History cast in stone, plus resin and metal

Norb Lustine would go halfway around the world and deep into his kitchen drawers to bring history to life.

His quest to craft the perfect bust of a crusader knight has taken him from Turkey to the Greek island of Rhodes and to Malta in search of the most obscure details of those crusaders’ lives, such as how they wore their swords or painted their shields. His tools can be as advanced as surgical scalpels and as rudimentary as modified paring knives.

“It really is an obsession,” he says.

Mr. Lustine, a retired lawyer from Silver Spring, is president of the National Capital Model Soldier Society, a group of people who share a passion for making figurines. The hobby centers on the making of miniature military figures and scenes — an art as old as war itself — but also includes other historical figures and even characters from fantasies such as “The Lord of the Rings.”

For Mr. Lustine, the hobby has created a new life beyond the courtroom and brought him friends from all over the world and an interest in history.

“This hobby has just opened up a world for me,” he says.

The society has 50 paid members and about 30 who drop in occasionally. Some of them like to play complex strategy games with scale models of soldiers; others construct elaborate busts or dioramas.

They meet on the fourth Tuesday of each month at Immanuel United Methodist Church in Annandale to show off their latest creations and share techniques for historical research, painting and molding the figures.

Some members gather on the Saturday before each meeting at Granddad’s Hobby Shop in Springfield to work on their latest projects and host a clinic for any novice modelers who wander in.

Each year since 1961, the group also has hosted a major show for the public. Its 44th annual show is set for Saturday and Sunday at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale. Group members also display their creations at national shows and in public libraries in Bethesda and the Kingstowne area of Springfield.

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The local club is one of many, not just in the United States but worldwide, focusing on the hobby of making miniatures. Global exhibitions organized by hobbyists, manufacturers and retailers — the first in Washington in 1993, the most recent earlier this year in Boston, and the next in 2008 in Girona, Spain, near Barcelona — assure that all that artistry gets a proper showing.

Yet in spite of the passion for meticulous detail these modelers bring to their figurines, the hobby itself is loosely structured, with no national or international governing body and intergroup contacts that are at most free-form.

“Most of it is very informal,” says Glenn Merritt, chairman of this weekend’s show committee for the NCMSS. “This all started out from the bottom, and it’s kind of worked its way up.”

On a recent Saturday at Granddad’s, Mr. Lustine — who is fascinated by medieval history and has done extensive historical research on the period — worked on a bust of a crusader knight. The molded resin parts came from a kit he had purchased, but they aren’t nearly enough to satisfy his desire for realism.

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