It was a necessity… specially for the small cabinet… the “TOKIO Tube look” is gone… so are The French Foreign Legion and the late British Empire (Kakhi)… gone to my old office to play A GENTLEMAN’S WAR with them…
So there you have it, the part of the collcetion in action stances is gone back to wargaming in Andorra la Vella… and the “ceremonial part” stays in Pal.
About time if you understand me. Yesterday afternoon it was a lot of work putting the Toy Soldiers in boxes to be moved and reorganizing the display on the small cabinet… the whole of six shelves was “gone”… but the result is satisfactory… I was already told once in Facebook that my figures needed space to “breathe”… alea jacta est.
Enjoy!
The French Foreign Legion and supports… are gone to another cabinet in my office.So did the Kakhi British in Afghanistan… 6 shelves emptied in total…This is the new look…You could do with some close ups but you got the idea alright!There it is… door closed and all tip top.The “big” cabinet slightly thinned down in numbers…There you have it… closed down and “up to the nines”…
I do not know if it is the current fashion… but nowadays Facebook is full of examples of those kind of games. Toy Soldiers/54mm/Fun… not that 6mm has lost its appeal of course…
It has been a long time since I painted myself a 54mm miniature!… but here we are (well… me) doing it as if time had not passed by. The Heliograph party (2 figures) and the Regimental Colour of the Gordon’s coming quite nicely using Andrew’s Toy Soldiers as a very useful guide! On the pure painting side I am using too many tricks nowadays… old Humbrol enamels (not dried up), Vallejo I guess and Poska markers… and in the end Gloss finish to be sure!
On my last edited entry on the subject if all goes to plan you will see the final version nowadays still pending gloss varnish of course!
I do found more and more difficult to show my own pet subjects by fear of being boring and tiresome, you must understand that collectors and wargamers are in a state of constant doubt, what will I do next?, do I buy this or that (evidently enough budgets have limits), painted or unpainted (that means I will have to paint myself!)… is what I want available?… or affordable?… it is quite more complicated than you think… and my mind juggles and jumps from one option to another several times a day! Once a decision taken one goes to considerable pains to get the goal, sometimes considerably annoying everyone whom has items commercially available… more or less.
The actual three “new” additions on the foreground
Enjoy your hobby.
Close up of the group used to work the results.Work in progress…A week before…Same as above…Working place… if that qualifies as work… which I doubt!
I woke up today and for the life of me I could not remember what I intended to post today!… to my delightful surprise I stumbled in a post from Andrew at REPLICA… and here you have a choice of pics (there are more on Facebook in the group mytoysoldiersandme). Damn good news… I hope he is back in the saddle again for keeps… Enjoy!
A fine General! (with ADC)FusiliersTerritorialsExotic uniforms…
Really you can field exotic uniforms of Yeomanry and Volunteers that way, curiously enough THE BATTLE OF DORKING intended as a “depressing and alerting” book is somehow revered by the wargames fraternity as an opportunity to turn the tables on the willy foe! (You need all sorts you know…)
That glorious moment when the job is done!… a close look at the matt will show you the hard work and love put into those Toy Soldiers… Ready to March and Fight on the Tabletop!… and remember the main thing TOY SOLDIERS never die…
Those are not mine at all but I can understand the pride of the painter!
First two pics by John Firth and the last by John Clarke. All easy to see in Facebook if you go to A GENTLEMAN’S WAR group… I dutifully bought the rules by Howard Whitehouse… they are fun to read… but not what I do with 54mm Toy Soldiers… You need all sorts you know…
Those are very fine Toy Soldiers and excellently painted, I do not use mine with those rules, and I have to say they are more “historically collected” and only for display because I have them in 6mm too… and there is where I wargame…
French LancersRather fancy lancers…The officer is out of THE PRISONER OF ZENDA… aka Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Funny, today I have a bit of time to write… well… the pic is to the point… by then I mixed and matched manufacturers… I did find DIXON horses fantastic coupled with FOUNDRY riders (but not exclusively… TO THE REDOUBT and OLD GLORY too!).
It was the apex of my involvement in wargaming on that scale, I had a moderate surplus of bits and pieces from here and there and I could easily change “heads” at will with my PROXON minidrill and vice… had a lot of horses of discarded projects (that I would use in fancy units as the mounted Regiment of the French Foreign Legion)… and life in the hobby was FUN.
I still used painting services for the rank and file, and only did paint myself “specials” or closer to my heart subjects. You see I had NO time enough to paint because my real life as an Architect used my time… and I have a family too!… so the only way was to organize, list, buy, get the parcels, customize, send the biggest part to the painters with full instructions… and paint a little myself.
I enjoyed those years of my hobby to the full because time was so scarce. I am older now… over seventy (bot my grandfather and father were dead at my age)… no longer can I have fantasies about long term projects… I’ve done that, been there, got the T-Shirt as they say… but surely enough those new technologies help me pass the time and share my experiences with other people with similar interests.
The Michigan Brigade of Volunteers is a pet subject (as the ACW is) and Custer was better served in the Civil War than in his “Indian times”… the famous 7th had NOT the same stamina as the wolverines… understandable too of course… I own more than a hundred volumes on the Little Big Horn and after reading them… you can have a moderate sympathy with Custer as a man doing his job… but the so called “Indian Wars” were frustrating from a military point of view.
That Custer is better known for his death in a NO WIN situation that for his campaigning in the ACW is one of those ironies in History.
Wow!… time to write without interruptions for a change!… count the present one as an extra Post. Hope you enjoy too.
