S is for Seen Elsewhere - Space!

I got confused last night, that bronze figure wasn't Lido, it was Archer, but these (first shot) are Lido, seen elsewhere, not that long ago, but I'm trying to get stuff cleared from Picasa, and off the PC, so let's get these out of the way!

 

Lido, Captain Video, the large versions! I'm missing the robot, and there may be a fifth pose, but as a sample which didn't exist two years ago and has literally come in as one's and the painted pair, it shouldn't be too long before I've tracked down the missing miscreants! Note the 1930's leather American football or early Tank Crew helmet, on whom, I assume, is the actual Captain Video himself?

 

I don't know if the two painted ones are factory or 'home' painted, but if home, it was a long time ago, so contemporary with the unpainted issues, I'm not going to strip them, as I have unpainted versions, and you can harm 'styrene in a way you don't damage 'ethylenes, trying to clean them.

 

While this is the latest (and not even the best) line-up of Archer robots. These have all come-in over the last 24-odd months, and add to previously seen samples here, with two Archer on the left, a probably Tudor Rose in green, a - smaller - silver copy by Glencoe unknown and the 'heritage' reissue of the answer-robot! House of Marbles or Keycraft Global? They've both carried the game in recent years?

 

As with the Lone Star 'Richard I's, there will have to be a final comparison with all of them, as this makes about 11 robots now!

 

I wondered where the turquoise one had gone (it's in other images), and upon finding it realised the Glencoe are from the old tools (I think there's a long post, somewhere else on the Wibbly Wobbly Way, which explains it all), so I dug-him out on Sunday afternoon, and here's a corrected image with, from the left

• Archer
• Archer
• Glencoe (recent)
• Tudor Rose
• Unknown (smaller copy)
• Board Game 'Magic Answer Robot' (current)

1 is for 1st Rack Toy of the New Year!

Just a quickie, picked this up on my rounds the other day, it's BJ Toys again, and a new one on me, sadly the four main figures are a disappointment, but I have been noticing more and more Paint Your Own sets, a trend spotted here a few years ago, with the cheapo'sets in The Works one Christmas, and which have since featured several times a year!

 

And, of course, the real interest here is not the handful of 45mm Matchbox GI copies, but the four 90mm Chinese Army figures, original sculpts, although, sadly hollowed-out behind, so after painting - for display only!

 

But they are dressed as they would have been through the war with Japan (second Sino-Japanese War) and the Civil Wars, in total from 1927-49, and which ultimately brought the Communists to power. A bit different, and hopefully, a sign of interesting things to come, from the Toymen of the Far East?

B is for Boxed Bersaglieri!

I mentioned - back in Rack Toy Month - that Brian Berke had been to Italy and sent us a bunch of stuff, and now the show reports are out of the way, I'll be getting it up here, alongside my 60th Birthday Present from Adrian, back in the spring, the rest of the London visit stuff, and, and, and . . . it's never ending, and ever-growing, but Thanks to Brian for these, he sent me so much imagery, that it's pretty self-explanatory, leaving me not much to add, and I've broken them down into sections.

These were covered somewhere else, not that long ago, and I can't remember where? I have checked the blogs I thought they might be on, but couldn't find them, and they may have been on a Faceplant group/page, so apologies if it's you, do please put a link in the comments as I think you showed different figures?

 

Current-stroke-new production, from Giochi Preziosi, these figurines are larger than average, and depict the modern Italian armed forces, with three Bersagleri (light infantry), three Alpini, two Para's and an airmobile infantryman, a Special Forces 'insurgent' or infiltrator, and a 'Lagunare' which Google is translating as lagoon, so Marine or Dragoon (light cavalry), or possibly 'Peacekeeper', as lagoons are calm, and he's wearing a blue beret?

Packaging

Brain selected the Bersaglieri officer and trumpeter, and you can see they are attractively packaged in single figure window-boxes, which should keep even larger figures within the budget of a pocket-money collector, and also, obviously, makes them usefully touristy, in size - those luggage limits are getting serious!

 

Officer

 

A lovely figure and an unusual subject for those more used to WWII Allies and Germans, he's posed in the distinctive jogging run employed by the corps, unlike our own light infantry who do a short-stride, faster march, and wears the feathered Vaira headdress. He's a very serious-looking chap!

 

Bugler

 

The Bersaglieri are famous both for their brass bands and for their specific bugle bands, which hark back to the days when many commands were passed by bugle, most have now been disbanded, but one is retained and appears regularly on ceremonial occasions.

 

All the bugle calls can be found at the bottom of the Wikipedia page!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bersaglieri

You can see the figures are around 90-100mm, and seem to be manufactured in a modern PVC-replacement polymer, probably of the semi-rigid Papo/Schliech type?

 

Combined Shots

 

Again, you can see for yourselves how each figurine comes with an integral landscaped base, and a separate matching display plinth, probably in a harder polystyrene or 'propylene. Esercito simply means 'Army'.

 

So, many thanks to Brian as always, and more to come!

L is for Les Tuniques Bleues

Recently released in English (2008) and now known to some of you as 'The Bluecoats' this pair are characters in their own long-running series of comic strips and albums dating back to the 1970's, and in the style of Lucky Luke, that is, the Euro-comic style of bandes dessinées.

From the left; Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield & Corporal Blutch, marked Dupouis '98 (the Belgian publisher), these were by Papo,  and are a modern replacement-PVC around 80mm (Blutch) and 95mm, but I didn't measure them exactly, when I shot them!
 

D is for Dere's More!

When I went to upload the images for the previous post, I noticed it had changed its name from Robot Erasers to Robot Erasers_1, and wondered what had happened to cause that? Cancelling the upload for a minute and going back to Picasa I put Robo- in the search bar and found these, under the plain Robot Erasers folder-title!

Apparently they date from early December, so I must have been planning some robot follow-ups then, or just found them going cheap? Anyway, they are interesting for being more of those eighties transforming type battle-suit 'vehicles' (some of which have pilots in one country or toy-line and full autonomy in others), and which I try not to get bogged-down in, they were a kids thing, from the generation after me and I just don't need to fill my head with more fictional details!

 

I know enough now to guess they might be Toei Animation-like Voltron or Manzinger types . . . maybe? From Japan, and might be the inspiration for the new Lootcrate one? You can see that they are much bigger than the standard eraser or pencil-top types (45/60mm) but smaller than the new one at around 80/90mm depending upon headdress.

 

I had to use the shaving mirror to hold them up, it happened to be at hand!

They also clearly have some age, and three have taken a fair bit of battle-damage, but I think my feeling, at the time, was to get them while they are cheap, in the hope I can pick up bits, when I spot them in the future, to complete the rest.

 

Obviously there seem to be six here, and while I could swap arms to make the left one whole, or the head to make the middle one whole, I suspect they are part-specific named characters, so for now this is how they stay!

That's enough novelty rubber or plastic sci-fi crap for a while, so something else later, I am slowly importing all the image-folders from problem folder to new Picasa, so I'll find something . . . Although I should get the Easter stuff lined-up as there are several in the queue I think, and Brian B sent some lovelies the other day!

ELC is for Extra Large Crowd

Or - B is for a Bunch O' Biggun's

I'm not being lazy, I'm out in the garden, this isn't the weather for blogging; this is the weather for a good dose of fresh-air! Especially when you have firewood to cut, firewood to split for the coming winter, and a tree or two to deal with! Shot a slow-worm yesterday, so that's all the native reptiles bar an Adder photographed in two weeks . . . and I got Adders twice a few years ago!

But I have a load on on the back-burner, have received all sorts of stuff from Arto, Brian B, Chris Smith and Theo van der Weerden by eMail, two lovely lots from Chris and Peter E via the mail system and am awaiting a few more bits and bobs to add to things.

But I did mention - just as we went into lockdown I think - that I was bringing all the ELC figures together and would Blog them as a group, and this is that post!

The good guys, or at least; I assume they are meant to be good-guys for the target age-group who may still believe in such fairy-tale nonsense! We all know those at the top are robber-barons, intent on screwing someone, somewhere, whether they have title over them, or not!

There's a weapon missing from the palace guard/man-at-arms and it's probably an axe or a lance, as his sword is in it’s scabbard?

Might be good, might be bad, and probably depends on how much silver you have to cross their palms with! What games-master's might call the 'independent adventurers', or 'non-aligned', the witch looks to be a good fairy, the other two look a bit rough-about-the-gills to me! I could fix the swords, but they'll only bend again when they go back in their bag, better to wait until they have a tub or shelf of their own and straighten them the once.

Badder than bad things which have gone to university and had themselves elected joint-heads of the being really-bad department! Some sort of Troll on the left and an airborne Ork on the right . . . an airborne Ork? Isn't it enough than Orks are pretty awful already, that you'd go and give them a pair of wings, f 'f 'sake!! And these were sold to five-year-olds!

Is it a Troll and an Ork, or an Ork and a Goblin? Flying Goblins . . . even worse!

If the previous two were bad; one of these is dead and the other's eight-foot and has burning-eyes! These are the anti-heroes of the piece and no mistake!

Berserker says -

Cumm'ooohn dude, this isn't funny! I don't mind the odd 60-mil, but . . . WTF?

Scale wise these are collectively around 90mm but vary considerably, although at this size it doesn't really matter, especially given the fantasy nature of them as a whole, and they will go perfectly with similar figures from other manufacturers.

To the eyes the three medievals are 80mm (King, designed to ride and stand) and 85, the witch is only 75-mil, while the rest are 90-100mm, the red-eye from horrorville being the top end.

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Bullyland - Disney

I didn't get the name of the importer/distributor for these it may be an outfit called heo (small 'h', Fulbourne, Cambs. And like a short-form of Heimo? Well, well, well!) who claim 'we distribute popular culture', but as guesses go it's not terribly scientific, based as it is on the only business-card I can't tie-down to any of the other posts from Toy Fair 2020 in the queue!

Not that I was thinking of getting the importers name, we spotted these on a counter as we removed ourselves swiftly from the venue to a local hostelry, for a pint, so I grabbed a few shots in passing, as you don't often see Bullyland these days?

Three Disney princesses and a . . . err . . . a 'Prince' - although he could use a dentist, and would benefit from a hat! There's nothing to choose between these and other makers in the same sizes/materials, but a passable alternative to Schleich, Papo or even (and increasingly) Phidal. And as I've said before; these will all paint-up as wild-west 'belles' (well; not the Beast - obviously!) with no problems at all.

A couple more and some bad-girls! I ought to do a guide to all the princesses, as you are supposed to be able to tell them from their dress colour . . . a word to the wise; never date a princess who wears the same dress for scripted days, weeks or - if magicked asleep - decades. I know Napoleon wanted his a bit 'ripe' but eeeuwe!

I hate these two squeaky bleeders! I really hate them, I hated them as a kid, and I'll still hate them on my deathbed. Oozing in mawkish sentimentality, slathered-on like Nutella, but without the nice aftertaste, they represent to me - harbingers of the end of days; Warhol'ian self-cannibalism through junk-culture, bread & high-pitched circus! Nice figures though!

B is for Brucy Bonus!

Cap't Pugwash me'harrties!

I nearly ran out of time yesterday, but this was waiting in my inbox from Brian B (the real one!) and I just got it to go here as a late entrant!

It's Captain Pugwash!

D is for Desperate Diggers Doing Dark Deeds

Or maybe just carving a latrine into the beach! But to be fair, it's commonly a dead-man's chest, or a live man - up-to the neck . . . or a casket of plunder, that requires a hole to be dug!

I picked up another Charbens digging pirate at some point, then Peter sent me a reissue he had painted (main images above), so although we ticked that box years ago, I dug-out (geddit!) all the Charbens diggers for a comparison.

All four? I don't know how I ended-up with four but the camera doesn't lie! Variation between the Charbens seems limited to shade of paint, with a strict-enough pattern being followed by the out-painters, while Peter's is more realistically-muted in the palate used.

Also this chap came-in from somewhere, possibly Peter Evans, I thought he was one of the Tim Mee baseless figure, of whom I have a few somewhere which we looked at years ago, with the Charbens I think? But he's not! He's my first Plasticraft, and he needs some black marker-pen to be removed which may prove problematical. He's about 80mm but would be closer to 90 if he straightened-up!

H is for Hawkin's HALO Heroes

That's not what they were called, as far as I can remember, just made for a half-reasonable post-title! These are unusual in being branded to Hawkin's Bazaar rather than the more commonly used moniker of the parent; Tobar, and being from the storage lot must be over 7 years old, actually titled 13109 PBF Parachute Soldier.

The five-figure stock code matching Tobar's current codeing, as does the manufacturer code (038728) but while the postcode given is Norwich, it’s different to the current Tobar postcode, however;  there was a solvency problem with Hawkin's a few years ago reported here at the time and it'll all be connected to that.

They are 95mm and made from that odd sort of recycled plastic which is best described as 'sandy' textured, and I must have grabbed all four poses when I saw them, however . . .

. . . they are 'similar' versions of the more recent, slightly smaller (80-mil-odd) Soldier Force figures from Hunson, sent to the blog in the last year or two by Brian Berke. While all the details are not the same, the painting style and plastic type is the same and it may well be they are all from the same contract manufacturer, and that I missed-out on a larger version of the 'Max Headroom' character (or is it Chip Hazard from Small Soldiers?) on the right?

PA is for Position Available!

My personal assistant is providing no assistance whatsoever; her mind wanders from the job, she insists on playing with the exhibits, growls at the merest sign of forthcoming admonition, takes endless extended breaks far in excess of the European Working Time Regulation guidelines and wanders off without so much as a 'by your leave'?

 Case the joint

 Check flanks

 Aaaaannnnd . . . . . . we're in!

 Oh! What's this?

 Ooops, spotted! Close your eyes and he'll go away!

 More room needed in this otherwise bijou residence!

 That's better!

 It's that dragon again?

Are these things edible?

Anybody wishing to apply for the post should do so through the usual channels.