About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

T is for Trojan, not so 'Tiny' Trojan's

I keep meaning to cover - in greater detail - the 'Tiny Trojans' I supplied to PSR a while ago, but with my camera out of sorts and Fuji pretending they can't find the Gardening blog to comment on the images I put there, along with internet access problems (meaning this is coming to you courtesy of West Berkshire Library Service!), when I was leant Giles' camera (thanks Giles!) the other day, I grabbed the first few things I could, to knock up a quick article or two, and as a result, you've got the 50mm Germans instead.

Quick shot of the poses. The grenade thrower has lost most of his black helmet paint, and might have been enhanced with a second red (but I think not; they are both Trojan colours), otherwise this lot is all from the same period/batch. Although sculpting is crude on these figures, they are very well animated; Standing firer leans-in nicely, the Panzerfaust guy was the best available for 40-odd years, having only really been beaten in recent times and their officer has a sense of urgency about him.

The guy running is my favorite, stick-grenades swinging wildly from his belt while he struggles to get a pistol out of its holster at the same time watching the ground in front of him so he doesn't trip-up!

"I vill get you Frenchie! I'll slot your swede, if you stop running away zo bloody fast"

The grenade thrower again, showing both some of the different paint finishes one is likely to encounter, and the size difference between two of the masters/moulds. This size variation is common with both Speedwell (covered elsewhere) and Trojan, and extends to their Japanese Infantry as well. I think this shows earliest on the left, latest on the right, but that's pure guesswork, based on the paintwork.

You can just see the guy on the left has the more orange scarlet colour, while the man in the middle has the darker shade, both of which appeared on the 4th throwing figure in the previous photograph.

More variations, although it's not too clear in the photograph; the tank-killer has an overall coat of greyish-brown which has mostly worn off, it's also unclear (due to his age/general grubbiness) whether this was a gloss coat, or a semi-transparent varnish/wash?

The brown belt-order of the running guy to the left is a more unusual colour, matt green or gloss black being the common applications. Finally a run was made in a very chalky darker grey plastic as show by the MG gunner - far right (Sieg Heil!...geddit? far right? Oh, never mind!), this tends - now - to be very brittle, and this guy is definitely on borrowed time!

The Japanese in a similar vein seem a lot harder to obtain, and I've only got three, in two poses, so it will be a year or few before they're covered here!

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