S is for Seen Elsewhere - Ancients and Medievals

Although we're starting with part of a fantasy vignette, which sort of covers both periods while actually being of neither! It's a odd genre, fantasy, sort of mythology without the real people or places, yet always with the extraordinary odds, but mostly a more medieval setting, with lots of iron and steel dragging it away from the Ancient period, which is technically set in the Bronze Age?

McFarlane Toys have a series of Lego-likey sets pertaining to the recent phenomena known as Game of Thrones, and each of the sets, alongside all the standard and shaped bricks, have a number of PVC vinyl figures, this is the  . . . can't remember and it's in storage now, black throne, iron throne, throne of steel . . . as you can tell I haven't followed it at all! There's a dragon I think, and some snow-yetis who live in a wall, and a 'babe' who keeps getting her 'tits out for the lads'?

Although they look like action figures, they are more like the stuff we've bee seeing from 3D/4D/4M; plug/slot together, soft polymer 'kits', and while the standing chap (character or generic guard?) has slight movement in his helmet and a separate sword (which keeps falling off!), he's no more sophisticated than a swoppet, just better detailed, but with little interchangeability.

The semi-dead, skinny-cadaver bloke on the throne is a 'site specific' sculpt and just sits there looking bloody miserable and a bit evil. But they are nice figures; about 55/60mm, they'll fit-in with all sorts of other stuff.

Ooh, these are nice! Proper 'Ancients'; they're Greek Greeks . . . from Greece! Sculpting is similar to the Crio premiums, but they are 120-odd mm, I have one somewhere, but this quadripartite squad are 54mm and while they may share a sculptor, and could be another Crio issue, I suspect from the colours and single pose (I bought them individually, but from the same seller) that they may be from a local (to Greece) board-game? Help appreciated on this one!

Fun shot - there are several sets of Hong Kong Romans, taken from various sources, but these conversations (mostly paint) from Crescent knights are the most fun, Peter Evans gave me two or all three of the small scale (25mm) ones, and I think the 54mm's may have come from Chris Smith - cheers both!

These two are the larger figures from the Design Eye books which we looked at on Small Scale World a while ago, but I also shot them both for another place - Horus and a generic royal who could be one of Eleanor's brood; Richard I or John?

Ultimate Explorers - Ancient Egypt
Ultimate Explorers - Castle

Taking us nicely from Ancient to Medieval;

These are Acédo, late soft polyethylene production (I think I have some hard 'styrene, earlier ones somewhere, but the chocolate/maroon bases and colour schemes are the same I think), and rather nice, there's a late Norman look to them and a clear French'ness, I feel, to the sculpts?

I wasn't sure about this chap as he was hard plastic, but came with the above, however I was assured he was another Acedo, so he'll do! He needs a sword, but I have a bag full of old swords including broken ones, so I'll have a look and see if there's something suitable for a blob of glue!

I scored these at the Spring Sandown Park show I think, and they may have been on the blog - checks; yes they were, and so were yesterday's Elastolin aliens, but that's the nature of these posts! Compare this catapult with the probably Ougan one in the above Design Eye castle-post link, a much nicer finished item altogether!

The maneuverable mantlet shields and blacksmith, back with his wheel! As we have seen them before I can't add much, but they were a nice group of lesser-common siege accessories and crew in the smaller 40mm range, happy to have them!

News, Views Etc . . . Design Eye

As I mentioned last night, I've put the Design Eye A-Z entry up here;

http://smallscaleworld-d-e-f.blogspot.com/2021/10/design-eye-design-eye-publishing.html

I haven't done as much on those blogs as I'd hoped this year, but the day when I really get stuck into them is not far off, or nearer, whichever gives you more hope!

D is for Design Eye - Ultimate Explorers 'Ancient Egypt'

Sad that the series only ran to the two sets, but then the recent Klutz sets with figures only managed four titles, while the ones a contributor found in Europe for PW magazine was only two as well, I think, but between the three similar lines you get a clue as to what a larger run might include - Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gladiators, Medieval, Pirates, Space, Circus, Farm & Zoo . . . I guess a Phidal Disney for 5.99 is easier - more figures less craft faffing!

Because similar things lend themselves to similar photogenicity (if that's a word, and if it isn't; it should be!), so this post is almost the same as the last one, just with different images, which might make the blurb sparser?

Cover and contents here, similar mix, but paints and an ink-stamper up the ante on craft in the absence of a catapult! The 30 (3x10) HO figures of the medieval set are replaced by only 12 (3x4) in this set, but there's less play-value in civilians I suppose! The booklet doesn't seem to have a byline/given author this time and another board-game is printed on the back of another fold-down . . .

. . . of an imperial or religious monument, this being a conglomeration of the Great Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel (famously moved under UNESCO funding, several hundred meters, in my childhood to save them from being flooded by Lake Nasser after the building of the High Aswan Dam), married with a pair of obelisks and Karnak's restored Khonsu Temple walls as a backdrop.

They are rendered as they would have been at the time, so colourful and no missing heads! there's also a couple of Sphinxes and a pop-up religious procession, again it's all sized to use the small figure included in the set.

Card game playing pieces lye behind a two-sided painting guide for both sizes of figure, but the guide is clearly using larger-sized models of the three diminutive sculpts, it would take a master-painter indeed to get that level of detail onto the actual figures, also they look more Egyptian here!

The two finished 'wealthy Egyptians' actually looking more Babylonian or Biblical! I only have these in the hard polypropylene type plastic, I don't know if a soft PVC'ish issue ever occurred? The one thing I failed to record when doing these shots, was the other issuer (there's two versions [earlier publisher?] of one back-cover) and it may be that there's a link between issue and plastic type? I can add anything relevant to the A-Z post at a later date?

Upper shot is a reverse-order of the previous post's, the lower shot is the same image as last time - I forgot to take two slightly different ones! The Crescent 'berserker' was found to be only 50mm to his helmet top, so the king is approximately 54mm to his eye-line which is how some measure them anyway, you could call them 60mm at a pinch, it's all subjective and the Horus figure in this set has  a very deep base - he slips on to one of the card press-outs if I recall correctly.

Those press-outs include a number of Pyramids (about 10?) in various (7 or 8?) sizes, a gold-plated funereal-barge and attendant tender!

I also found an image which belongs on the previous post so I'll add it there later, while there are a couple of scans which will go on the A-Z entry, and which I'll try to get done later tonight.

D is for Design Eye - Ultimate Explorers 'Castles'

Looked at in Plastic Warrior's little brother One Inch Warrior, many years ago now, and not by me, but I made it my business to track them down once whoever had covered had done so!

Interactive books, or 'activity packs', there were two and we will look at the other shortly, Castles dealt - obviously - with medieval forts, and you get some figures in two scales (approximately 54mm and 15mm), some plastic jewels for craft projects (make a crown type of thing, a clip-together catapult, a booklet (authored by Susan Churchill), a scroll, some game-playing paraphernalia and the game itself, which hides . . .

. . . a fold-down fort! Specifically, the entrance to a Norman castle tower/keep with raised walk-way to a barbican gate-house, draw-bridge and mote. It's quite a complicated arrangement with several layers and various connecting pieces, along with a couple of other features.

Here on the left the rooms of the keep are revealed by a fold-back section of the wall being pulled away, while on the right a wooden portcullis can be raised and lowered - a slight 'continuity error' is that it takes the drawbridge chains with it!

The figures; Earlier this year I suggested elsewhere that the king might be based on a statue of Alfred the Great, but then spent a few days trying to track it down on Google and while finding several, including a couple in similar garb, none of them were the right pose, so it may be a more unique sculpt, or based on another statue (Richard I, or John - it still looks familiar?), he's compared with the similar figure from the other, Egyptian, set.

Above them are the three poses of small figure - crossbow, longbow and swordsman. I have found sevearl sets over the years (and lost one!), and I now have samples in both a hard polypropylene (left-hand trio) and a soft PVC or replacement material in a similar soft rubbery composition - right-hand.

 

Airfix figures of this age tended to 23mm, so they are getting on for 20, but the knights are a tad smaller, while the Egyptians have heavy bases, so 15mm or 'HO' compatible is a better bet, they can be used with the fold-down fort . . . or on the carpet.

The catapult is a little unsteady in that the swinging arm is rather suspended in thin-air and held in place by a rubber-band. On the left a pair are accompanied by Airfix yobbo's of the Sheriff of Nottingham's mob for size reference.

On the right the machine is compared with stone-throwers from Zvezda (lower, similar wheeled-catapult), Orion (white, a later Einarm with wrought-iron spring action) and the Elastolin Onagar, but here in its undecorated (and rather glue-smeared) for-France Ougan-branded guise.

Well, he follows me all the time and they were in the queue! Taken on 19th May, for those getting hot under the collar . . . and it's a question answered! Egypt next.

A few hours later - I found this in the folder for the Egyptian set, it's a cage behind sliding wall sections, there's a winder behind it (as artwork, not working!), so you can send your pitiful prisoners into the dungeon to rot!
 

K is for Kingly Kings King'ing-it!

I know we keep returning to this chap but he needs returning to...we'll it's 'chaps' from now on . . . these two came together the other day in a 'new to market' lot (with a Cherilea saloon-barman!), they have clearly been painted at the same time, by the same person, with the same paint. I think all previous mentions of the one being converted from the other (here on the Blog and elsewhere) can - in future - be discounted.

I guess what happened was (clicks-into fantasy, alternate history mode . . .) the sculptor wasn't happy with one attempt, so re-did the sculpt, someone from the factory came to look at them and said "They'll both do" and ergo - they both went into production?

Or it was simply a deliberate act to obtain a Richard II and Prince John (they're brothers - they should look similar)? Or a Richard and a Sherriff; remember the opposite (even: 'opposing') set for the Lone Star knights was the Robin Hood figures? Whatever the reason, I think it's clear now that these two were contiguous production.

Ultimate Explorers were a series of interactive book/craft sets, published as One Inch Warrior magazine was at its height, two of which containing mostly small scale, they were covered at the time, in that organ, although we will return to look at them here one day. Paul at PW Towers may have back issues of the mag.

The Castle set (published by Design Eye) contained about 20 18mm'ish figures in three poses, a nice clip-together catapult and this figure for painting. I believe it is based on an actual statue, but don't believe me, I originally thought it was the Alfred one in Winchester, and it wasn't! Does anyone know if it is a copy of a real statue, and if so: which one, where?

[A quick Google while posting finds a similar statue of Riched II somewhere - Bradford?]

There was a second set called Ancient Egypt also with small figures, it was however - while still an 'Ultimate Explorer' - published by Portico Publishing and so - in case both sets were re-published - I'll add both to the tag list.

There were four, then there were five and then there were six, now there's eight!