Replica Metal Soldiers & Models

What's that off in the distance? 

One of the pleasures of the hobby is in a way it's complete pointlessness.  I got these just before Christmas on a whim from Andrew at Replicametalsoldiers.co.uk.  Mrs Kinch has a bit of a weakness for a shiny (or as she calls them "proper toy soldiers") toy soldier, so I got her the special Christmas carol singers set that Andrew had produced.  I must post some pictures of them in a bit. 

Egad! Prussians!

Regardless, while I was completing the order, I noticed that Andrew had these chaps and before I knew it, I had had a sudden rush of blood to the head and had bought them.  The castings are reproductions of a Britains figure of a Prussian line infantryman in parade dress.  They took remarkably little work to get ready for painting, the only job was attaching the plug arm that holds the rifle, which was but the work of a minute. 

Look at those moustaches. 

Once assembled they were painted with my usual acrylics and given a thick coat of yacht varnish.  Proper yacht varnish that requires white spirits and that stinks to high heaven.  That's how you know it's good.  The result is a thick glossy coat that really brings out the character of these old castings. 

Detail is a bit soft. 

One complaint I have heard about these is that the detail is a bit soft.  I don't see this as a problem - it's simply the style in which the figures were produced and it lends itself to a very particular painting style.  You can add or leave out as much detail as you like and the simple style of figures supports it.  I'm not sure that I would paint in quite as much detail (like blacklining the gun barrels for example) next time.  

But having seen both these figures and the special set of Christmas Carol singers, I can unreservedly recommend Replica Metal Soldiers & Models.  At £3.75 per casting (with discount for unit packs), they are towards the cheaper end of the scale for traditional toy soldiers and the results speak for themselves.  I may not wait so long to dip my toe in the traditional toy soldiers pond again - may the Prussians menace my bookshelves for many years to come. 

Do you know how fast you were going Miss?

The LadyBaby seems to be developing very expensive habits and was recently seen behind the wheel of a sports car.  I fear she may pursue a career as a dazzling young socialite with dire results for Daddy's pocket book. 

Wet Palette

Like most of the important things in life - I came late to this one.  Mrs Kinch very kindly got me a wet palette for Christmas.  It’s quite a substantial one about the size of an A4 page.  It’s been a revelation.  I’ve used a great deal less paint and found it much easier to thin my paints appropriately.

The only snag was it was rather large and couldn’t be brought anywhere as the lid wasn't watertight. 

The palette I had came with a refill pad of "wet pads" and palette covers. So I set to with the refill pad and some scissors and an old tobacco tin.  I cut the pad and paper to size and slipped it into the tin.   The result was watertight, light and has proved very useful.  Can’t recommend the wet palette enough - if you're doing any amount of painting at all, I would urge you to try one. 

The Kinchlets are continuing to grapple to with the problems of LEGO.  

New Years Resolution

Some Prussians before the issue of suitably dastardly moustaches  

I haven’t been posting much of late and that has been almost entirely down to a whirlwind of work and Kinchlets.  Toddlers are tremendous fun,  but they do soak up an awful lot of time. 

In the mean time I have been painting these fellas.  They are Britains recasts by Replica Miniatures and they serve no wargaming purpose,  I bought them because I fancied them.   They shall be glossed within an inch of their lives and will then march across one of my bookshelves. The “painting by numbers” approach is very easy with these big figures and there’s something quite soothing and restful about it. 

That’s all for now. We shall see if I can keep this blogging malarkey up - I’ve missed it.