D is for Design Eye - Ultimate Explorers 'Castles'

Looked at in Plastic Warrior's little brother One Inch Warrior, many years ago now, and not by me, but I made it my business to track them down once whoever had covered had done so!

Interactive books, or 'activity packs', there were two and we will look at the other shortly, Castles dealt - obviously - with medieval forts, and you get some figures in two scales (approximately 54mm and 15mm), some plastic jewels for craft projects (make a crown type of thing, a clip-together catapult, a booklet (authored by Susan Churchill), a scroll, some game-playing paraphernalia and the game itself, which hides . . .

. . . a fold-down fort! Specifically, the entrance to a Norman castle tower/keep with raised walk-way to a barbican gate-house, draw-bridge and mote. It's quite a complicated arrangement with several layers and various connecting pieces, along with a couple of other features.

Here on the left the rooms of the keep are revealed by a fold-back section of the wall being pulled away, while on the right a wooden portcullis can be raised and lowered - a slight 'continuity error' is that it takes the drawbridge chains with it!

The figures; Earlier this year I suggested elsewhere that the king might be based on a statue of Alfred the Great, but then spent a few days trying to track it down on Google and while finding several, including a couple in similar garb, none of them were the right pose, so it may be a more unique sculpt, or based on another statue (Richard I, or John - it still looks familiar?), he's compared with the similar figure from the other, Egyptian, set.

Above them are the three poses of small figure - crossbow, longbow and swordsman. I have found sevearl sets over the years (and lost one!), and I now have samples in both a hard polypropylene (left-hand trio) and a soft PVC or replacement material in a similar soft rubbery composition - right-hand.

 

Airfix figures of this age tended to 23mm, so they are getting on for 20, but the knights are a tad smaller, while the Egyptians have heavy bases, so 15mm or 'HO' compatible is a better bet, they can be used with the fold-down fort . . . or on the carpet.

The catapult is a little unsteady in that the swinging arm is rather suspended in thin-air and held in place by a rubber-band. On the left a pair are accompanied by Airfix yobbo's of the Sheriff of Nottingham's mob for size reference.

On the right the machine is compared with stone-throwers from Zvezda (lower, similar wheeled-catapult), Orion (white, a later Einarm with wrought-iron spring action) and the Elastolin Onagar, but here in its undecorated (and rather glue-smeared) for-France Ougan-branded guise.

Well, he follows me all the time and they were in the queue! Taken on 19th May, for those getting hot under the collar . . . and it's a question answered! Egypt next.

A few hours later - I found this in the folder for the Egyptian set, it's a cage behind sliding wall sections, there's a winder behind it (as artwork, not working!), so you can send your pitiful prisoners into the dungeon to rot!
 

O is for Ougen (by Elastolin!)

'O' is another difficult one to come-up with! And I've already got this out on STS the Animal collecting forum, but it's an interesting shot I took two and a half years ago and which has been sat in Picasa like a proverbial turd ever since!

A quick Google reveals that what little there is about Ougen is all Elastolin related, so not premiums (as I had thought - getting mixed-up with Onken I think!), rather the French marketing arm of Elastolin (Germany - the old enemy!). I'm sure Plastic Warrior has told us all about them in the past, but mine are in storage and Garrett says nothing!

Really just a packaging comparison shot, for what will have been late-1970's-mid '80's? With an Elastolin original on the left (contents aren't original though! Or; very 'played with'!), the Ougen item in the middle and then an 'HEIA' header-carded bag to the right, not sure if it was a brand as in Heia, or just an abbreviation for the information in the yellow disc...Hausser Elastolin International...Animals?