Thursday 31 January 2013

Plastic Warrior Show 2013

The 28th UK Toy and Model Soldier Show, better known as the Plastic Warrior Show will be held on Saturday 4th May 2013 at a new venue, the Winning Post, which is about a 5 minute drive from the old hall which will be closed until September 2014 for redevelopment.  Full details of the show and travel directions are on the new Plastic Warrior blog here: Plastic Warrior

This show is generally considered to be the premier event for collectors and wargamers of 54mm plastic toy soldiers with dealers attending from all over Europe and the Americas,  vintage and modern plastic figures in smaller scales HO/OO are also included.  In the past this event has also been used by manufacturers such as Replicants, Barzo and Armies in Plastic etc. to showcase new products.


Sunday 6 January 2013

Russian clay toy soldiers for wargaming

There seems to be a thing in Russia for making toy soldiers out of modelling clay I don't know if they are soft like Plasticine or they harden like FIMO but I am in awe of the patience and dexterity of the people who make them.  The sort of thing I'm talking about can be seen on this website showing a wargame of the Battle of Wachau 1813 with 45mm figures, or in this magazine article about the collection of Sergey Kiselev who sculpted his 30mm wargame figures over a period of 31 years (the photos belie their size until you see them standing next to a zippo lighter). 

Links to these sites have featured on various blogs and Yahoo Groups before but I don't recall where or when so if I should have given credit to someone else for finding them in the first place my apologies but I can't remember who you were.  Anyway my reason for bringing this subject up is that I came across this video by accident, enjoyed it and felt I should share it with a wider audience.

As I am still a bit of a blog virgin it is also an experiment to see if I can add videos to this site.  Posts here have been sparse lately as I have been on a bit of an end of year creativity bender, doing lots of conversions and painting, when you feel the urge you have to follow it before it all wears off. 

Oh yes........... a Happy New Year to all, now enjoy the film.


All I can say is they must have some awful long hard winters in Russia!