New Recruits and Imported Goods

A lick of paint.........assorted additions

Following the 'train game', I've been tying up a few loose ends. This will be a slightly shorter than usual post as life is getting busier by the day and I am working on a substantial (I hope) post for  the festive season. Best laid plans etc...but we shall see.

I had a number of  pieces either part painted or just waiting their turn and I have finished quite a few of them. Here are the results for your perusal.

The milkman was a ready painted gift from my good friend John some time ago. I already had the Britains Dairy cart, but it was more than a little shabby and the horse with it consistently fell from the shafts when the cart was moved. so a sympathetic overpaint, carefully avoiding the original transfers was carried out. I wired the horse to the cart shafts and also glued it to a base for even more stability, before repainting it as well. The original model came with milk churns and I had half a dozen of these in my lead pile, but with no lids. I made the lids out of small plastic shields made by Games Workshop and a little nob of green stuff. More paint and then a gloss varnish. The end result is both stable and 'shiny' and I am quite pleased with it.  

In this photo you see the fourth recruit to my 'street gang' who I have obviously nicknamed the 'Peeky Blinders', at least for now. This is a fairly common Britains figure and I have just undercoated another to join these young men. They are of course accompanied by their 'dead hard' canine and are due to receive an even more menacing recruit in the next few days.  Obviously these figures can be used as ordinary citizens but I quite like the potential of involving semi armed citizens in a scenario. We shall see how that thought develops.

 

Here we see the new street vendor with his barrow. I haven't found anything for him to sell yet, but I will probably do two or three different lots of stock. The barrow was very kindly given to me by another good friend, Brian Carrick. He also gave me a nice figure to push the barrow, but I've found a better use for him as you will see in a later post. 

A Britains landgirl/farmhand and milkmaid. Both of these figures were in pretty good original paint condition with just a few signs of wear and tear. I therefore decided to just retouch them up and retain 90% of the original paint and patina. I have given them a new base and a coat of varnish however. This may seem like a crime against collectables but these are pretty common castings (in fact I think I have 2nd copies of both). Just retouching like this is something I like to do when the original casting is in nice condition but not mint.  

The beautiful Benbros Maid Marion has received the same treatment as the previous figures. She is a much more valuable/collectible figure but she had patches of exposed metal on her arms and head so I decided to 'tidy her up' as lightly as possible.

I am not sure who made the Chelsea pensioner, but I love the character in the figure. I think he was part of a mini diorama, being presented flowers by a young girl. I can see him presenting flowers to a member of the Royal family or putting flowers on the grave of an old comrade. His fighting days are done, but he will grace a future tableaux or two.

The kneeling Khaki Infantry Officer was an overpaint as well, but I think he's a conversion anyway. I am not sure Britains ever made this particular version. 

The splendid Officer is a slight overpaint as well. He will play a part in my Xmas tableaux. 

Waifs and strays.......Temu parcel

I was recently introduced to the Chinese website Temu. It's a bargain basement Amazon, where you can buy all sorts of goods. I have since placed two orders for a miscellany of items and thought I would share with you all, some of the range of interesting and useful items that I found. 

A set of resin printed barrels and crates. Perfect for barricades and wagon loads. I am already thinking about a brewers dray! I really need a brewery for my toy soldier world. Any ideas for a name? This set of 15 pieces cost £4.19! Just over 25 pence an item.

A resin cast Buddha (smaller than I expected...see my comments later about sizes) and a lovely fountain. £1.96  and £1.84 respectively.

Victorian lampposts. I already have a few quite nice examples. Far right is a metal recast I think. The middle one is a beautiful example made by the Lemax (Christmas Village) company. I bought 5 of the latter but they were far from cheap. The Chinese version costs less than 50p each and are  pretty good for the money in my view. I bought a dozen for £3.65. I shall pop them onto a wooden base to give them a bit more stability and 'jobs a good un!' They are black plastic with clear plastic windows in the top. 

Fruit trees. My Orchards always feel a bit thin with just the two Britains apple trees. These cost the huge sum of £3.98 for the pair!. Put on a decent base they will go quite nicely with the aforementioned apple trees (see 1st picture).

I can already hear cries of 'why are you throwing good money away for twigs and hay you could find for nothing? Convenience is my unashamed answer! I can't be bothered finding the right, dry material, tying it into bundles after cutting it to an appropriate length, when I could buy them for 50p a bundle. These are great and will provide loads for most of my farm wagons and carts. 

 

I have wanted to model a small graveyard for my churches for ages. Yes I could have made some tombstones out of balsa wood or foam card, but they wouldn't look as nice as these. £5.20 the lot. Can't wait to paint and landscape them.

Six feet of realistic roadway ready to be cut into more manageable lengths! This stuff looks and feels great. Its rough like sandpaper, but lies perfectly flat as you unroll it. That's my table top road surfaces finally sorted and all for the princely sum of £5.54!

So there you have it. Not everything I've bought (brushes and a pin vice and drills), but an idea of the sort of great little items you can buy to enhance your tabletop world. Cheap, postage free, and delivered to my door inside 10 days. I am not suggesting you buy any of the obviously counterfeit/copied goods, but I now know where a lot of the Amazon stock comes from! Identical products but a fraction of the Amazon price. Look at the Dolls house accessories, laser printed models, modelling supplies etc and you will find it hard to resist. I used Paypal so no card details given.

 My only words of warning relate to sizing and prices. If buying laser printed or resin cast models look carefully at the sizes in the description. Otherwise that Godzilla that you thought was cheap for £1.50 might be only 2 inches tall! Also, the same products seem to be available from multiple sellers, at the same time and for different prices. I have also noticed that the prices are not the same twice in a row. These points aside I have found the experience of shopping on Temu excellent.

As a final example, let me show you my makeup brushes! No I am not announcing a lifestyle change to the world! These makeup brushes have long been used for dry brushing models. I looked at some in the supermarket and they were over £5 for one larger brush. This set of 13 brushes cost £1.34!

 Well that's it for today. I hope you have found something of interest. My next post will not be until Christmas Eve, that's assuming life doesn't get in the way! 

Tara a bit!