P is for Pack of Paint and Pirates

I have forgotten the origins of several items in this year's Pirate Posts; it comes of trying to keep track of thousands of things and truffling a few away every few days or weeks, through the year for ITLAPD!

So, this may have come from Peter Evans who has sent several parcels to the Blog since last year's ITLAPD, it may have come from Brian Burke who's also sent stuff which hasn't been H is for How . . . 'd as I'm waiting on Blogging some bits from it, or it may have been saved for me by Adrian Little, or bought by me at Sandown Park in March, where I both saw Adrian and bough a bunch of rack-toys?

I really can't remember, and there are no clues in Picasa beyond the fact that I shot the pictures at the end of March? So I will thank all three for all their help and support for the Blog over the last year while trying to convince myself it may have been a charity-shop find . . . or even a Hawkin's Bazzar purchase in Basingrad! But I'll tag it 'contribution' anyway!

This is the thing anyway, and how cool is it? Too cool for art-school, that's for sure! Perfect 54mm figures (I wonder if there's a second set of three other poses in the full line?), unpainted, which four paints and a brush, the brush being one of those naff kiddies ones with stiff bristles cut flat and only of use for stippling - thankfully being phases out of even the cheapest craft sets buy a better generation of 'cheap' brush from China, which are closer in design/construction to 'proper brushes, just made of short-lived bristle material!

Normally I'd leave them on the card, but as it's a modern set (from the Tobar graphics) and they were such nice figures, I whipped them out for a closer look! As stated they are 54mm and a softish modern PVC-replacement polymer.

We have three standard tropes, with a slight twist; the de rigueur treasure chest man, the slightly Asian-looking, mean-looking oriental cutlass man, and a 'hook hand', but he's actually using a cargo-net/large fish handling hook (which may have a colloquial name?), rather than having a hook-hand!

D is for Walpamur....no, W is for Duradio...Doh! P is for Paint it Yourself!

Adrian Little (of Mercator Trading) let me photograph these from his stall at Plastic Warrior's 31st show, back in May, and they (PW) have covered them to a greater depth with other sets in their Hilco Special - available from the usual source.

Hilco plastics as made for plastic production, i.e. not ex-Johillco lead-casting sculpts but new mouldings, being three poses each of guardsmen and cavalry, with paint tins of what was then 'household' enamel allowing for Life Guards only (no blue!) and the Guardsmen to be painted-up in a gloss finish, like there commercial brethren, matt-painting came later with Herald and co.!

The six poses: Three of which (household cavalry) seem to have been lifted from Marx, with the guards bearing some resemblance to Crescent's 60mm figures, although date wise, I suspect the trail is actually Marx-Hill-Crescent?

We've seen the lower image before (Marx originals and a Crescent bugler), but I shot the upper, commercially painted Hilco figure this year sometime; I don't know if he came into the collection (and is upstairs) or if I shot him on someone's (probably Adrian's) table? I think he was in the mixed-lot with the Crescent Romans and Cherilea saloon table? If he is here, I'll dig him and a Marx one out again and do a close-comparison as they look pretty-much identical bar the base?

The paint . . . it's, errr, painty! You can do painting with it, you know - colour stuff in! It's in a little tin, call it a 'tinlet' if you like, it comes with a lid, and a label!

A much better set from the point of view of painting as you get red, yellow and blue, so can mix any other colour you fancy, but only three poses, even though the lid shows six from the old hollow-cast lead range.

However . . . I thought they were metal when I got them out - carefully - to photograph, the tray seemed much heavier and when my thumb caught one of the swords I thought there was no 'give' in it. Adrian assures me they are plastic though, so it must have been the extra tin of paint adding weight to my imagination!

 

There are another three or four sets shown in the aforementioned PW 'Special'. And . . . why didn't I do these on TLAPD! Doh (Double Doh!)

M is for Mao!

A classic bit of factory-painted Atlantic now...

7510 - Mao - Chinese Revolution; these are in 54mm and mirror the plastic colours I've seen them in in the small scale (red, blue and brown), although here painted. This line included the four 'revolution' sets (I think the backing card is saying 'the great revolutions'...not sure Hitler or the risible Duce were revolutionaries...reactionaries more like!), the Carabineri band and several sets from the Italian modern forces range, but none of the 'true' World War two sets, which it probably pre-dates.

H is for Humbrol

Added a new tin of Humbrol to the collection today, well, I say 'new', it's second hand, but seems to be unopened, and, more interestingly, would appear to be a really useful, previously uncatalogued colour best described as 'Track & Chassis Rust'...bargain!

More mud-hopping finds from that strange toy strata in the vegetable garden again!