O is for Ornamental . . . Forts, Palaces and Shrines

The same funny-little four page AHM catalogue/trade update, also had the first shot here, showing five of the initial six Ornamental Shrines from Funimimokei (better known as just Fujimi), which reminded me I had some more somewhere, so another lazy-post was born!

 

 

I think the AHM is about 1968, the loose-leaf trade catalogue from Fujimi is the 1970/71 one, and the last page, mostly forts/palaces is from the 1985 (or 1995?) retail catalogue, but the beauty of them is the nature of the architecture means they can be used as war-gaming accessories, even if the scale's off! Or the parts can be used to make smaller structures in figure scales?

I also love the quirk of a Japanese model-kit company making a replica of the Coronation crown! Question is, would it fool the Yeoman Warders long enough to get the original melted-down and fenced to 'Fast Eddie'?

US Army is for More Clones!

Because I've been editing all the current output over the last few months, things have happened which might otherwise have been 'follow-up's, but a few weeks after I had finished the earlier of today's posts, and the later post today, which was waiting on a set and had put both the finished ones on the back-burner for a while anyway, the following images dropping into my in-box, kindly sent by Dougal Hare (so many thanks' to him) who had no idea the other two posts were in the pipeline.

Like the increasingly hard to fine Bandai 1/48th scale figure kits; this is not a common thing! I had no idea it even existed and I have quite a good Fujimi Mokei archive including all sorts of listings, imagery and several catalogues including an old one. A set of eight figures taken ostensibly from the Revell set but with several figures closer to the Monogram originals; Fujimi F:KIT No.U1.

Classic 1960/70's (I think this is the 1970's boxing?) instruction sheet "...paint the soldiers with civility"! OK? No rude painting of these figures please! No loud colours, no swearing at the cat and do your dressing-gown or smoking-jacket up properly before you sit down at your work station . . . and don't forget to say grace!

The figures, the kit element is limited (as it is/was with both donor sets) to a few small parts; here - attaching the flamethrower tanks and fixing the figures to their bases. The 'modelling' came from the cleaning-up of often quite flashy figures, heavy gate-mark removal and such like, which you can see from the images - in the case with this set.

We looked at their 1:76th scale cousins here (link) and they were equally in need of cleaning-up to get them to a photogenic state! Thanks again to Dougal for sharing this rare set with the rest of us.

G is for Good Gun, Gormless Guys...

Quick box-ticker from the Winter photo-session. With everyone doing the dreaded '88, it was a nice touch for Nitto to provide a model of another Flak type.

This model is now in Fujimi's stable, and still has the horrid figures attached!That's it really, should make it up, but haven't got round to it yet.

10.5cm Flak 38 on Wikipedia

B is for Better, or Best!

I'm not going to cover the Germans this time round, they are too bad, little dwarven lumps of war gaming metal, albeit in plastic! They will appear here one day (if I live long enough everything will appear here 'one day'!), but to finish the current look at these sets; the best of the bunch....

I don't remember the Jeep's runner ever being included in the box, but I guess they were thinking of it when they commissioned the artwork? This set is also marred by a large chunk of plastic crap, but a more useful piece than the British bridge to nowhere, or the mini-bunkers the Germans get.

Basically a mix of pose-lifts from the Britains Deetail and Airfix 1:32nd scale US Infantry sets with a couple of leg changes and a radio-man. I clearly gave the Bazooka to the wrong pose...but then a man running with a Bazooka would look a bit awkward, so...

On the runner, 10 poses is not a lot (for all these sets), when you consider that at the same time you could get a pack of 48 Airfix for 18p, or 100-odd Hong Kong copies for 10p! Kits like this being around 40/50p (I'm talking about 1973-4 here), and that differential continued for years, even know a pack of Airfix 2nd version US is around £4/5, while this kit - if you can find it (and it does get occasional re-issues) - will be around £6/6.50.

Scan of the box-art, another last-stand, with useful helmet painting guide to half the US army!

"Everyone to me! Fall-back on the Jeep, make very shot count! Get that .30 barking!" yelled Master-sergeant John Audie Wayne-Murphy!

I forgot to scan the instruction sheet, I'll try to remember to do it next time I get them out.

B is for British Infantry

Continuing with the look at Fujimi's little figure kits, we arrive at this offering. The figures can be a bit gawky-looking after assembly, but the set appreciates a bit of effort and I quite like it, not least because for nearly 20 years it was the go-to set for a boys anti-tank rifle in small-scale!

The box-art is a spectacular scene of last-stand grit and determination in the best traditions of British defeats since 1066, in a painterly style, while the side of the box hints at the larger oddity contained within...a hollow bridge taking-up half a runner ('sprue') and going from nowhere to er...nowhere!

We are all nowhere...Now, Here!

Instruction sheet is similar to the Japs, with a B&W colour guide, NCO's ranks, assembly instructions and line-drawings of the runners.

The figures - I did this set pretty-much as per instructions, and you can see the uncomfortable poses are the guy standing with his arm up, the chap with the range-finder and the advancing fellow at the back. But a bit of 'multipose' work with knife, glue and limb-swaps can improve greatly.

The MG team and Boys, both make-up nicely and weapons can be swapped between the prone figures. I have used the suggested range-finder matey as the kneeling No.1 and he works well, the awkward pose can be improved by being lent-back a bit so there isn't a 90% angle at the back of his knees.

The Vickers is a week sculpt though, far too small, thin and girly and best replaced with the 2nd type 8th Army one from Airfix.

The runners - one of figures and one of a bridge! If we hadn't had the bridge we could have had a double set of figures with the lovely little 'bits', what were they thinking...the instructions even wanting us to make the ends from cardboard...best used as opposite tunnel entrants on a model railway! Leaving a nice piece of plastic 'card'.

As well as a sheet of plastic card; he bridge at least contributes long lengths of round cross-section rod for the spares box.

Not so important now but back in the 1970's when Plastruct were still making their range primarily for professional/architectural modellers in some weird ABS that wouldn't glue with the stuff on our workbenches (and it cost a fortune), useful lengths of virgin runner were er...useful! Now Plastruct are in a styrene polymer and Evergreen are relatively cheap it's not an issue, but every modeller knows...never throw anything away!

F is for Fujimi Mokei Ltd.

Starting to get the required comparison shots together for the Airfix blog, lead me to get the Fujimi-Nitto box out the other day and while they were in front of me I took a few photographs of the figure sets to get them box-ticked here, too. This is the Japanese Infantry kit.

And it was a kit, not a set of toy soldiers. So it has an instruction sheet with that particular form of English common to Japanese model kits of the 1970's! There's also a colour guide....in black & white! rank badges are given and a potted history of the uniform.

Japanese kit box-art was a cut above ours, and this doesn't disappoint (until you buy and open the box!), with a mountain gun being manhandled while an Infantry thrust 'goes-in' behind. Both the box lid and the line drawing hint at a nifty little gun within and an Infantry section to look forward too...

...but, Oh Boy! What a blob'tastic pile of rejects await! These make the Airfix Combat Group look positively sculptural! The gun defies full identification, there are only 7 poses and of 14 figures (there's a MG gunner missing in the above line-up...he went AWOL for a re-sculpt); 5 of them are for the artillery piece!

However...I was there! And in the mid-1970's these were exotic additions to one's army. A Japanese 'vehicle' was as rare as rocking-horse shit, and it gave the very reasonable Airfix set something to answer all those Lee/Grants bulldozing their way through the palm trees (rhododendrons by the school swimming pool!). By the time they'd been de-seemed and painted to match the Airfix battalion, they grew on you...or were they just easier to forget?

On The Airfix Blog - I'd forgotten to tag them, so they couldn't be found!

N is for New Finds, Pt.5 - Kit Lot

At Sandown Park the other week I encountered a chap who had a stack of kit boxes, mostly AFV's but a few aircraft and a ship or two. Checking a couple of boxes it was clear they were not what one might call mint! The seller leaned over and said "They've been given a good seeing-to, make me an offer!"

Well, I started sorting them into stacks of 'apparently mint' and 'buggered about with' and asked him what he wanted for the buggered-about stuff, which included a couple of bags of bits and all the either empty boxes, or boxes with signs of tampering, plus an envelope of header cards and transfers. A deal was done...

Top image is how they came home, the lower image is sorting in progress. It turned out to be a reasonable spares purchase, not least than because there was a complete Airfix Matilda and Bren/6lbr in their bags, five Midori squeezed into one box with the wheels, tyres and gear-cogs in the other box...no casings for the pull-back motors though, just loose cogs!

The header cards will have to be checked against the collection as there are two distinct printings of the 2nd type 'full-artwork' cards. The early 1:50 Tamiya Crusader was pretty much absent, but the box is good and all three instruction sheets, the parts for wiring-up the motor and the plastic motor-housing were present along with the transfer sheet, so I may get something back on evilBay one day for that?

Further investigation revealed that the little tin of bits for a Cole's Crane suspension (and front mudguard) was from another kit, and this one is complete on the runner, so I feel a couple of conversions coming-on there, one day! The bags of bits contained the missing turrets for the Midori tanks and most of the 'medium sized' parts for most of the kits in the Airfix inventory (no JS.III or modern armour), along with a complete Bloodhound, launcher and transport trailer.

But...no AFV hulls or running gear (clearly in another bag, 'bagged' earlier in the day) and few wheels. The wheels aren't a big problem I have a lot in the spares dept., but turrets without hulls are a bit of a pain! There were also several floor-plates for the 5.5in Gun Paul posted on Mystery Model Monday, but a week when I wasn't on-line, typical!!

There's something very reassuring about a well stocked spares dept. no?

K is for Kommantoe! - Solpa Commandos

While the Cowboys and Indians turn-up quite a lot, along with the various larger scale sets putting in the occasional eBay appearance, most of the small scale Solpa sets are quite hard to locate, and I must start by thanking Thanassis for finding me these, he'd been looking for several years when this turned up, and though the box is quite worn. it's all there and in one piece.

First thing to note is that the artwork hints at all sorts of Hong Kong favourites being available, the Crescent/Blue Box WWI gun, the Nissen-huts and tents, Britains Palm trees, Marx barbed-wire etc...but not in this set, so they might be in other sets?

This is what was in the box, all standard HK fare, there was also the windscreen of a - missing? - Jeep. Not actually marked HK, but I'm pretty sure that's where it came from, the trucks have different wheels to the usual HK ones, but the remains of the mould numbers of the HK mouldings are under these so it looks like they were produced in HK for Solpa. Trucks are ex-Kleeware models while the boat seems to be a new design.

The figures, again we have a mix of the usual fare and some newies; top row are the old Britains Khaki infantry poses, bottom left sees two Airfix Germans while the other three are relatively new and dealt with below.

As before no hint at HK, but - with the exception of the last three, typical HK figures, and the plastic seems to be HK style. The black marker pen on the officers helmet (sorry, I cropped his hand off! Rough justice indeed as he was already missing the other one!) seems to be a factory thing, two out of four trucks, half the figures and the boat all have crude 'detail' added with the pens, an enemy force?

The three 'new' poses. The one on the left seemed familiar and I posed him with the hard plastic Hasegawa kit-figure, but think - upon reflection - that he is based on the similar radio-operator from the early Esci-Revell GI's kit. The middle figure is the old Crescent 8th army pose, much copied by HK, however he's been given a vague German helmet!

The last pose is the wackiest! He seems to be based on the Fujimi kit-figure from the Japanese Infantry set! An interesting set of non-HK, HK production, if you know what I mean, and size as you can see is about 24mm. Arlin Tawser points out that it's more like the Marx WWI German of similar pose, and he's right, the elbow is all wrong for the Fujimi figure (and the legs are too close together), next question; Did Fujimi copy Marx!!!

L is for Languishing

The armour have not been forgotten in the 'forgotten' pile, in fact there are more tanks than anything else but most are still in their boxes.

I built the Esci command Pz.I years ago and wanted to build the other main body types, here - in pieces - are another Esci chassis, the Fujimi SPG and a Nitto (?) turreted version. The Esci is going to be an engineering version when I find out how they treated the hole where the turret went, it will also get a spare wheel rack. The Nitto (?) tracks are as bad as early Airfix when it comes to melting styrene.

Hasegawa tracked tractor strait from the box, I just want to do it justice paint-wise. And the Fujimi Jagd.Tiger II, a while ago while still suffering 'forum disease' I bought the new Dragon Tiger II with German Para's and promised to build it as a project here, what was I thinking...it'll take me another 10 years to finish this one! But it will be nice to compare them one day!

These two aren't even started yet, but I'd like to identify them if any one's got any idea...bought from Dorking Models about 10 years ago, they were all ready old stock, made from old-school resin with hot-water malleable track sections....BT 5 and BT 7 ?

W is for Whiteout

Sorry, just couldn't resist a quick photograph session outside this morning. Shot over the back hedge with the local fields in the background.

Esci 'Smoke Units'

Esci Sd.Kfz.250

Unknown resin BA10 (I think?) and Fujimi KV

Sepia'ed in Picasa!

M is also for Military Motorcycles

There are so many motorcycles it was hard to know where to start, so you're getting a few military ones first!

This is the Kettenkrad - not really a motorcycle! Rather a small tracked vehicle with handlebars. I think this is by Fujimi or Nitto (now the same company) but I can't remember. The Airfix para was painted by me in about 1980, and was always the last man standing in my Pontoon Bridge river crossing assaults! Thinking the older guys cut the bases off (with no evidence), I cut his off, which is why he ended up ankle deep in mud - if he wasn't he'd come off the stand!!

The Matchbox Motorcycle and side-car combination, built strait from the box (it was the only thing worth having from the box!) in it's three colours. I can't think of a single kit for which the two/three colour thing actually worked, but I guess if you were 10 and you 'planes wings were a different colour from the body you wouldn't be too bothered?

Roco-Minitanks little DR rider, you got two to a pack, this was painted when I was about 10, then repainted when I was about 13, I was more interested in my ACW!!

The US Harley is from Fujimi and I lost the windscreen so had to make a new one, this was only made a few years ago, and it's surprising how awful the painting looks in the harsh light of a digital camera.

G is for German

The single most popular subject for military models, war-gaming figures and historical literature seems to be the German armed forces in the Second World War, and as a kid I was as guilty as anyone else of having a bias toward the Wehrmacht. In particular the campaign in the Western Desert and the entire range of armoured cars and half-tracked vehicles.

Toward satisfying my needs on both counts I produced these two in 1989 after getting out of the army, and realising I could spend my own money on whatever I wanted, and I wanted to go back to modelling!!! They represent a Sd. Kfz 222 Armoured Reconnaissance Vehicle and Sd. Kfz 221 Signals Vehicle. While not up to the standard of serious modellers (I entered them in the BMSS Aldershot competition in 1990 and they weren't placed!), they do show what you can do with a couple of cheap kits.

This is the 221, built on the Airfix 222 chassis. The main work was to fill the original turret hole and cut a new one before casting a new turret using the 'push' version of vac-forming, the grenade screens were from druggies pipe-mesh! I added a few tool lockers, cut and drilled the wheel-nut protection covers, scratch-built the 'bedstead' aerial and jerry-can holders, added a sand-channel/plate from the Matchbox LRDG Chevrolet and piled kit on every surface it 'looked right' on! The MG34 was from Armtec. Faults; Aerial is too heavy as are the frames for the grenade screens, and the body of a real 221 was slightly different from a 222.

This is the Fujimi 222 with scratch-built grenade screens and not alot else! The major fault with this one was that the screens ended up too big and less accurate than the little flat ones used on the 221. Again I piled stuff on every surface I thought it looked ok on, as they did (and still do) in real life. Then it was just a case of lots of painting, thin layers of base colour and dry-brushing with base colour plus white or grey.

Width-markers are from stretched-sprue with a flame brought up close to one end. In keeping with photographs of the originals I added a rear-view mirror to the width-marker on the 221.