News, Views Etc . . . Airfix Blog - Space Warriors Page Update

Continuing today's space theme; I've added a bunch of comparison shots between the Airfix Space Warriors and various other sci-fi figures, these are to be the first of many, so 'watch this space'!

Looking today at various Hong Kong/Hing Fat sets, Cromoplasto and Torgano from Italy, LB (Lik Be), Thomas/Poplar and a couple of Timpo's Captain Scarlet figures.

BS is for BraveStarr . . .

. . . but it's probably bullshit!

I've been told (by 'old guards' in the hobby) these were produced as BraveStarr knock-off figures from the Mattel action-figure TV tie-ins, but having used BraveStarr (or Brave Star) myself in the past once or twice, in-fact I now believe they are Galaxy Rangers' knock-off's from Galoob's similar action figure line!

There have been several robotic or Sci-fi type Wild West themed things in popular culture over the years including the original and recent re-hash of Westworld (where they are meant to look human), DC's Weird Western Tales and later Johna Hex, while Tex Arcana - I think (Arcanna, Arcaana?) - is another one, and there were various short stories in Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal).

Morbius did one I seem to recall (or was it a 2000AD Tharg's 'Future Shock'?), where we see them from the backs round a camp-fire, all Stetson's, gun-belts and leather jerkins, talking 'supper' until in the last panel they are revealed to be aliens - eating a human? I may have invented the last bit; the pink monkeys may only have been herded into the corral, for eating later?!

Anyway . . . Galaxy Rangers not BraveStarr or Brave Star or Brave Staar!

So far I've tracked down 10 foot-poses, but they do keep turning-up, so I'm not 100% sure if this is all the poses. Robot 'cowboys' with ray-guns, I'm told (yep; by the 'old guard') they were Hing Fat branded (but don't know what the header card said, or if it was Hing Fat's) and are seem to have been issued in the same colours as their (Hing Fat's) MPC Astronaut copies.

The second figure on the top row and the first on the bottom row (both blue) are 'fem-bots' being clearly modelled as females!

Mounted Figures; three of the four poses found so far, the reason I've only shown three is not down to a lack of robot horses, but that the fourth (below) doesn't sit well in the saddle! The middle-one is another fembot and there are only the two horse-posess found so far, each coming in black or several shades of oxide red-brown.

The black horse above is the sporty, turbo-reconnaissance number with aerodynamic cowls over the head and tail and an overall streamlined or slim look, the brown ones are the broader, heavy APC's for ramming stuff and kicking things about! They even have Star Wars AT-AT knee and shoulder-joints and a scaled-down AT-AT head!

The other rider on the left, on the right the three commonest versions of one of the standing figures; the mould tool obviously flexed badly, and you find more figures with flash down the leg than without.

But the flash can be either side and is very heavy, needing carving away, rather than the usual light-slice with a scalpel, it's frankly easier to paint it as a scenic shrub or rock, or short-circuiting flames! I'm guessing they were two cavities, next to each other and the 'bridge' of tool metal between them would bend upwards, allowing both legs to over-spill?

They are - Like most Hing Fat stuff - a bit on the small-side, around the 50mm mark and are here compared with a right eclectic bunch of ner'do-wells I had to hand as I sorted some of the 'space' stuff.

From the rear.

They are - Like most Hing Fat stuff - a bit on the shite-side, both in sculpting and finish, but they are pretty unique, so I think a good paint-up and some scenic-basing would improve them considerably, especially given there's nothing to really judge them against. Singly they could also be used as stand-alone 'Mechs' in small-scale war-gaming forces or for steam-punk stuff.

Several of the figures have jet-pack type objects on their backs, while the fem-bots have wild manes of hair.

I'm not terribly happy with the photo's on this post, I think I did them a bit hurriedly, so we may return to them one day, or I'll take better images for the Hing Fat entry on the A-Z - when I get round to it!

 

03-10-2020 - Confirmed as 'Galaxy Cowboys' by Hing Fat (phew!) on Sean's Fantasy Toy Soldier Blog, and thanks to Chris Smith for pointing me there; they'd been there all along!

R is for Robot Follow-up

Having added that set of five eraser-robots from a charity shop the other day, I popped into WHSmith in Basingrad on Friday, and a year or so after I bought the pink-bot in a sale, I found they had three more at 50p each, one was damaged but the other two were fine, so the quid was parted-with

Here's the two new - rather frowny - miscreants, one arm's fallen-off but they are a bit loose anyway and there's nothing wrong with it, the one I left had the receiving-stud broken-off, two for a pound; you can't say no!

With apologies to Ray Winston - I know he's the Daddy really!

Droid Army - a round-up of robots, all previously Blogged here I think, bar the BraveStarr Galaxy Rangers robo-Wild West figures from Hing Fat et al - not sure about the silver PVC chap, have we had him? I've more of that type in storage so we'll return to them again; I'm sure. Droids come in all shapes and sizes!

Three pens and eight erasers; office-bots!

R is for Racing, to Sandown Park!

So, another weekend, another show, I was very reserved and managed to spend only £11.50p the whole day, but people's generosity contributed to the small but useful haul of plunder I carried away in two little paper, 5"x5", sweet bags!

The queue at twenty-past ten; the rain had been and gone a couple of hours earlier, the sun was shining and British Airways had used their extensive, state of the art computer systems to clear London's skies for to create a quite Saturday morning for the dweller's of the Home Counties - which was nice of them!

I'm not 'suggesting' the rest of the world is laughing at us, but we've lost two wars in the Middle East, fucked-up Libya, left the Egyptians to their own miseries, turned Syria and Iraq into charnel houses, sent the people of Greece to the food banks, watched 10,000 humans drown in the Mediterranean, voted Brexit and now can't get the national flag-carrier into the air, yet in two weeks time dumb-people are going to elect the Tories again, after 40 years of Tory and Tory-lite, 'New' Labour policies, we're so myopic we are incapable of reading the writing on the wall - No, I'm not suggesting the rest of the world is laughing at us - I'm telling you they are!

You don't want more pictures of greying, balding, pot-bellied, middle-aged, white men, most of them in too-casual wear (hey, I'm describing myself, it's no great criticism!), bending over tables of old toys so soon after the last lot, so straight into the plunder I think . . .

. . . with a fiver's worth from Abid's rummage trays; Blue Box knights, one with an original weapon, all with better paint than some of my existing samples, two Marty toys including a painted one, four Spot-On ethylene's, a copy of the Timpo foal, probably by one of the early Brits in that question-mark group of Kentoy-Speedwell-Trojan-Una or VP, a Festival carol-singer and Toyway Indian (sans base!).

An early hard plastic railway figure, possibly Hong Kong, or a margarine premium type thing (?) is the only HO-gauge piece. Kinder (?) Snoopy, 3 Deluxe/Topper ground-crew in the rarer - but more recent - orange, a Blue Box tiger moulding (but probably Red Box issued; as it's airbrushed), a bunch more Bravestarr Galaxy Rangers (I'm trying to build a set of one each of every pose in each colour, and one spare of each pose to paint-up!) and a plug-in/swivel-waist sumo wrestler. Lastly (top right) is a Takara for Hasbro figure which I suspect is a Halo video-game, tie-in figure?

Adrian Little gave me these! The two big Indians are more of the 'maybe Argentinian' ones looked at yesterday which I bought from Adrian at Plastic Warrior two weeks ago, but I left these as they were much larger and had holes in their bases, yet the paint and plastic looked like the others (which I think I posted yesterday - but that was published last week sometime, this is late Monday!), so I thought I'd better get them all together again, and Adrian said "Have them"! The blue remnant of something the green Indian plugged-onto is visible sticking out of in his base!

The barrel; I think it may be a wine barrel from an old tin-plate 'O' gauge wagon (it's wooden under the paint) and that the Castrol ends have been home-added, but as they have been carefully scaled to fit; they could be a more commercial thing? Anyway, now it's posted here it goes-on to my Mother's barrel collection (seen on the Blog passim) so its provenance ceases to worry me! 1:24th racing-car stickers?

Finally these were also a fiver, with several given to me by the seller! I did offer to pay for them but he insisted - I think he likes that I tell him what they all are as he seems to be a Farm Toy specialist? He had a lovely tray of painted Britains animals I had rudely referred to (jokingly) as his 'junk tray' earlier in the day - and he follows the Blog!

I'm never too sure of the athletes, Marx UK also for Kellogg's/Nabisco/Quaker or one of the smaller cereal makers was what I told him, I do sort of know, but you can't remember everything 'on the spot' without all your folders in front of you and some of this stuff was Pepsi or Coke, while the sculpts were common to Marx US I think and in the same cream plastic! It was Kellogg's - I think!

A Gem Indian was a nice find as were the Gemodels Life Guards, while the Gem-looking ice-skater is another Festival-marked piece. We had a chat about these on Black Dragon ages ago, and I'm only more convinced now sure that Gem (George Musgrave) was behind Festival, it's just the how and why, my own feeling was for/as an own or sub-brand of Culpitt? Specifically - the seasonal stuff (Christmas and Easter) and a range of mini-candle holders, and that seems to be the case.

I also spent £1.50 at another stall, but the results were so interesting I'm posting them separately tomorrow.