P is for Polish Roundup - 2 - Wild West

I also picked up a nice little lot of PZG Wild West figures back around Christmas, and it's them we're looking at here! Fully round, they did get flat tee-pee/tipis, and I have the double one somewhere (on the Blog under the PZG label), but as a flat and before I knew anything about PZG, or collected the larger scales it went in the small-scale, flat, Wild West zone!

Hollowed-out bases, the one in the middle could use a re-paint, but that's not my schtick, and I love the guy on the right, it's a fact that some European makers were far more inventive in their sculpting than the 'Mid-West/Plains' types (with northern Totem Poles!) of most British and American makers, although MPC's witchdoctor is a favourite of mine.

Again the middle one is the poorest, his shotgun has been sawed-off for a blag! the chief also has lost the pointed tip of his lance while the other guy (copy of something East German?) is a tad bigger.

Accessories; the stunted tree is a Britains copy, while I love the fire with a small calf BBQ'ing for the returning war-party. These are basically my first PZG Indians, I have the blow-pipe figure somewhere and the flat, but I think that's it, so to mix metaphors; it's nice to get this duck off the ground and running.

Previously seen elsewhere; a reminder of them as a group shot, with the reverse shots and various base-styles employed by PZG, side-by-side.

B is for Bunnies - 1 - Scully & Scully Flats

So I got these emails from Brian Berke (our roving reporter in New York) last night, which changed today's plan slightly and to which were attached this years Scully and Scully widow displays.

For readers new to Small Scale World, these are a delightful happening which in a good year arrive in my inbox three times; Christmas, Easter and Halloween, but some years they do something else, while this year Brian reports that the windows weren't good for photography, until - I guess - yesterday.

Scully & Scully are best described as an up-market bijou interiors, import and gift shop I think, and if you are new to the blog, best thing is click on Scully & Scully at the end of this post, or in the tag-list down the right-hand side, to find many similar delights, as there won't be much more blurb!

Following plastic, painted, Polish flats; whitemetal, painted German flats . . .

A really lovely lot this year, as always, and I thank Brian again for sending them here to share.

P is for Polish Roundup - 1 - Flats, Semi-Flats & Historical Solids

So the plan was always to have three posts here today catching-up on incoming polish figures over the last 14-months, and as a foil to yesterdays space-horror, which only got Easter Sunday because I thought, well, the eggs! And I didn't have anything more festive.

That changed yesterday evening, with the recipt of a couple of eMails and a quick search of Picasa; so we're going to try six posts (I won't make a habit of it, except on ITLAPD!) before the clock register's Tuesday. How we do will depend on a number of factors, not least the weather - I must mow the lawn - second cut!

This post is the oddments, and we're starting with a small mixed lot I bought a few months ago, mostly flats, but not the hard 'styrene flats I got from Grzegorz Maciak, these are more like PZG (recycled Nylon-66), slightly softer, and painted after PZG too.

Indeed, most are credited to PZG on that site we've visited before, these being found under the last button (Inni) which I think is the equivalent of 'other' or miscellaneous? Clearly a Polish winged-hussar and two Cossack types, although (as some of you will know from your studies and others from recent current affairs programmes) at the time both were part of the Empire of Poland-Lithuania or The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but they posed better attacking each other!

Note to Putler - don't attack the land of the Cossack's with a bunch of Siberian conscripts, you'll get your nose burnt, along with most of your tank-crews . . . and your best boat!

A little light reading I've inherited! I've actually had to pack it for now, but I will read it soon, in the meantime, it seemed to be the perfect backdrop to the two figures.

Another unlikely pairing, a contemporary levy (?) to the previous mounted figures faces off against a Highlander? In a sky-blue kilt with his tartan lines at a rakish angle! he looks like he might be another plastic figure taken from old Schneider's home-casting moulds, but I think the Eastern sculpts here are all originals?

The guy on the right is also credited to PZG, but the other two remain question-marks, and he's a swordsman not an artilleryman, but again for the sake of a photogenic vignette; it'll do. They are also from very different eras!

This chap is apparently Urlich von Jungingen from a set of Grunwald 1410 figures, and note he's posed on two different horses, as that was what came in the lot! More a fully round, he's some semi-flatness to him and his horse, and both have the look of what we or the French might call 'from Hollow-Cast', but I don't know if there was a lead progenerator?

This was a shot I took a while back (two years ago) of my small sample of what I thought were all Napoleonic troops, but actually there are troops of several nations and several conflicts many years apart, so it became my even smaller 'samples'! But it makes a colorful group of what PZG (and another maker I think; I've lost the note!) were capable of.

Seen before but this is the 'appeared elsewhere' image! Bought at the pre-Christmas London Show in December, and note the chap in the middle is the same as my existing one, but a deliberately different shade of blue. There is a fifth somewhere I think, so that's a better sample than some of my PZG sets! But they're all growing.

L is for Louche & Lanky!

The only thing worse than a blind bag, is a blind box! With a blind bag, you can squeeze it to find the pose you're looking for, or discard the one's you've already got, or, you can learn/look-out for the pack code-numbers after Small Scale World gives them to you, as was the case with Horrible Histories . . . sadly no one did it for the second wave!

But with a blind box, you haven't the faintest what you getting, and while the blurb says "...from 4 to 8 figures" I've only seen the same three or four-figure sets (unless they're counting eggs and 'Norwegian' containers, which would be double the swizz! But anyway the above is what you were looking out for to 'army build' your big-box playset; a rather naff card thing with plastic decks/edges.

I seem to have deleted the original image, so I'm reusing one I've used elsewhere a bit sooner than I might usually, but se la vie as the French say and they know what they're talking about, they all speak French!

How they come, I don't see up to eight figures in either of these, it's a four-count every time!

I think I'm missing two Colonial Marine poses, another with the thermal lance and a trooper, but I think I have all the characters? However, as you can see, and apropos the title of this post, while beautifully sculpted as far as detail/etching goes, they are all too long and thin in the vertical!

And it's not even an anatomical thing particularly, just that they seem to have been designed by one of the not-so-good stand-in Judge Dredd artists! They're all about seven-foot-six and streaks of piss!

I'm also missing one of these Xenomorphs I think, running/lunging forward with the tail out back, but I won't be buying one soon as they will turn-up loose in a year or so, they must have sold quite well, as there's always plenty of these on eBay (which may - of course - just mean they didn't sell first time round!), but to get the three I need (there may be a Facehugger too?) I would have to end-up with twice as many duplicates however I worked it, so I'll wait.

They're usually around the $£€-25/30-mark (always look for those around 12/15, they're there), with the odd idiot wanting 70 for his 'really rare' set! And buy the opened ones, so you know what you're getting!

These are also a bit lanky, but it works quite well with them, and possibly the best way to game the franchise would be with these Aliens, the Walmart egg-aliens (suitably painted) as juveniles and the Lanard Corps Elite 'Space Marines'?

I think I bought five sets to build my sample, in total, and this one may be the mythical '8 figures' one! Two Xenomorphs, four eggs (the missing ones brought the price down and how many do you need? . . . Oh, a cavern full!) and three containers which could be food, ammo, medical supplies or science'y-stuff, but they remind me of Norwegian containers used in the modern military to keep foot hot or cold.

There's also four window-box sets which consist of one-each transparent blue Xenonorphs (or one has four transparent blue eggs) and US Colonial Marine named-characters in grey plastic, which - as of two minutes ago - I've two in the post, so a follow-up, soonish? Now to be found here!

That's it, an uncommonly eggy Easter, just not the sort of eggs you want to find on a hunt round the garden. Palisade/THK Aliens - This time it's . . . err . . . skinny war!

H is for Happy Easter Bunny . . . Not!

 

Stolen from Todd Killinger on the Pod Stallions Faceplant group

 

N is for Nanoforce

Mentioned in the previous post; they aren't 'nano', nor even micro, or mini, but Britains 'standard' 54mm'ish!

A funny one this, coming after a discussion the other day on Brian Heiler's Faceplant Group page and Shawn's Fantasy Blog just posting the Star Trek figures (I have one; The Next Generation, but Original Series aren’t on UK Amazon yet) leading me to feel a look at EMCE, the common thread in a number of nice figure sets is in order.

The set here is designed by EMCE under a Nanoforce^TM brand-mark, and sold by Diamond Select Toys (operation behind the 888-comic-book shop locator portal, President & CEO; Steve Geppi) under a PX / Previews Exclusive brand mark, all four brands are on the header card! EMCE were/are a design team, originally set up by Paul “Dr Mego” Clarke (licensee, marketer?) with Joe Sena (sculptor) on board.

Joe Sena was already President of Spherewerx, another brand, and the EMCE connection was a partnership which has (temporarily?) ended, although it appears Joe now controls (or can still use) the EMCE branding. Now, for those who need to know more, there is tons out there, especially on Youtube, as the bigger story involves Mattel, Mego and huge licences for action-figures, about which I have little interest.

But they have produced quite a few "2-inch figures" (their words), or 51mm, under the umbrella brand Nanoforce, of which we have seen the WWII Zombies here already, are - here - looking at the Aliens figures, and have Fallout, Gears of War and the aforementioned Star Trek in the long queue!

Some of the newer stuff (Gears' and Fallout) is actually closer to the full 54/56mm (with their thicker bases), but 'Trek, Aliens (here) and the Zombies at War are closer to 50mm, this is as complete a list as I can muster, alphabetically;

• Aliens -vs- Colonial Marines (35 figures, out of production, but findable, getting a bit pricey - Diamond Select Toys / PX Previews Exclusive  / designed by Nanoforce by EMCE Toys) Licensor - 20th Century Fox.
• Fallout 76 (12 figures per bag, 3 sets, 4 boxed sets include a 4" figure and extra [blind pack] poses, still around, affordable - Bethesda / Toynk / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Forth castle) Licensors - Bethesda Softworks a Zenimax Media Co.
• Gears 5 (Gears of War), (5-figures + droid, bag, glow in the dark variation, still around, affordable - Nanoforce by EMCE Toys (a brand of) Forth Castle Macromedia) Licensors - The Coalition / XBox Games / Microsoft, UK retailer Toynk (?)
•  John Carpenter's Halloween (12 figures + 1 4" figure, very rare, limited edition of 2500 units, very expensive when found - Fright Rags / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys) Licensor - Compass International Pictures
• Night of the Living Dead (12 figures + 1 4" figure, very rare, limited edition, very expensive when found - Fright Rags / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Image Ten)
• Star Trek (12 figures + micro-ship model, 2 boxed-sets so far, newest, affordable - PX Previews Exclusive / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Fanwares a division of Fanwraps) Licensor - CBS Studios
• Universal Monsters (planned/cancelled? EMCE / Mego?)
• You Will Emerge (24 figure bag, Fallout expansion, still around, affordable - Bethesda / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Forth castle, no Toynk) Licensors - Bethesda Softworks a Zenimax Media Co.
• Zombies at War (35 figures, out of production, but findable, getting a bit pricey - PX Previews Exclusive / Brilliant Novelty Co. / Diamond Comic Distributors / EMCE Toys (a brand of) Forth Castle Macromedia, no 'Nanoforce')
•  Zombies -vs- Zombie Hunters (35 figures, out of production, but findable, getting a bit pricey - PX Previews Exclusive / Brilliant Novelty Co. / Diamond Comic Distributors / EMCE Toys (a brand of) Forth Castle Macromedia, no 'Nanoforce')

Glow in the dark versions of both the Aliens (not Colonial Marines) and Zombies (not Hunters) were available in glowing slime as blind-capsule purchases from shop-counter boxes, five sculpts each.

The figures are OK, but a bit clumpy, like the Zombies at War, not as polished as the current Gears'/Fallout/'Trek set's figures. You get 35 figures in total, with 5 sculpts for each 'side' and you are pretty much guaranteed to get at least three-each of all ten poses in a set.

L is for The Loyal Subjects

Odd name, crazy product, and it was actually a Walmart exclusive for Easter last year, marketed by Wave 2 LLC as The Loyal Subjects, but  not really available to me at the time, in fact I only re-discovered them by accident the other day! And it's been a bit of a merry-go-round getting them here in time, but we managed by the skin of the hairs on our chinny-chin-chins!

Not knowing how things were going to pan-out I helped myself to all last years promotional images, which as they differ from those on the packaging must be from Walmart's own PR department, a campaign which must have been successful, because dozens of blogs, websites, 'zines and so on, covered them in full, at the time!

I actually managed to locate some reasonably-priced mint ones; there are a fair few sellers around and about, but one is considerably cheaper than the others, so I grabbed two sets in the hope of finding a few glow-in-the-dark or rarer ones, but that's now for another day.

The Loyal Subjects' packaging artwork, There are ten basic sculpts with the glowing variants, and metallic rarities to find . . . there's a silver one on evilBay at the moment for silly money, but they will have sold in vast numbers a year ago (why there are still so many on feebleBay) and even the rare ones will still be turning-up, in mixed junk lots, years from now!

Pleased to see that Walmart put three aliens in their egg (you should get two and one 'other stage'), as I had done the same thing while I still had only a few! I refound them by accident, when some chap was selling a few of the same colour (with Lanard space marines as enemy!), and as soon as the first lot arrived, he listed another lot in a different colour, so I bought those, only for the cycle to repeat a third time!

The cavern! And my three tumbling out of their egg - after careful posing! I've missed out on one variant of blue wrap, and there may be a second green design, but it's not clear from the promotional shots. But all packs have two yellow eggs, so they are commoner than the blue or green.

Not knowing if the eggs would have the right mix, I then found a seller who was offering a set of all ten for a decent price, but when they arrived there was two blue and no purple! So I shot them against the hope a rabbit would be pulled from a hat . . . it was!

It was an honest mistake; he's obviously opened loads to make up the sets, and with four of the poses being very similar (red, green, blue and purple), had accidently sent me two alike, however he then fired-off the purple one in the mail (with a spare egg!) and it arrived earlier in the week, so I could get them finished in time for today! Happy Xenomorphic Easter!

[I'm sending him a UK food parcel (Marmite, Gold Bars, Tunnock's and Jaffa cakes) by way of a 'thank-you'!]

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And this bears a digression - The originals, like most evilBay stuff these days (which really should be called EVILbay) were sent via the 'Global Shipping Program', which 1) isn't global, there's only a few countries signed up to it. 2) Makes everything 8-14 days slower than if they are sent through the normal mail channels, and 3) seems to be a revenue generating scam for eBay, Pitney Bowes and Hermes (UK) while 4) possibly defrauding HMRC (?) as well as hideously overcharging the buyer (and short-changing the seller?), so all three 'agencies' can have a slice of purely invented pie!

Literally everything through the program is taking 10-14 days or longer, with an endless wait at "Global Shipping Center, Erlanger, Kentucky", while everything sent through normal, national, mail systems takes about 5 or 6 days. And while they sit in Erlanger, spurious and nonsensical 'tracking' notes are added every other day or so, dated to a day or two earlier; when there was no note on that date!

Now - I have been told that there's a way of opting out of the Global Shipping Program, but I can't find the button, so any help/thoughts on the subject would be appreciated by me and probably a lot of other readers?

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Facehuggers and Chest Bursters! There are two of each, so a decent set of four eggs should, could, might contain all four! Like the adult Aliens, both Facehuggers are similar, it's really only the tails that differ, These are not in scale with the fully-grown Xenomorphs, but - following the [fictional] 'science' - if the donor/infected . . . inseminated is an elephant or a rhino . . . !

I can't ever get the Spaceballs tap-dancing Burster out of my mind, despite having seen the Alien one may more times! The fact that John Hurt reprises his role "OH no, not again" might have something to do with it!

I was hoping to use the eggs to do an 'opening' video, and might have if the glitch with the purple one hadn't been sorted out, but it was, and I really am pushed for time at the moment (real life stuff), so I'll hold them sealed for now and get it sorted in a year or two, probably for Easter Day again. But; here's promo' shots with both the glowers and a silver Alien.

As I mentioned, the initial seller was including random Lanard troops (also a Walmart exclusive - in the 'States!) and they do make for the best enemy, although Previews Exclusive (PX) / DST (Diamond Select Toys) carried similar sized Colonial Marine troopers from EMCE's 'Nanotoys' design range. For the Facehuggers you'll need an Action Man/G.I.Joe!

Initial shot up at the gravel works a few weeks ago, and a full Xenomorph line-up, taken in the garden this week! The yellow one is a nice sculpt, but hard to get to stand up, while the Orange one is the most menacing, the others all look more curious, or surprised!

Oh! That's me on the radar, I'd better scoot . . . now where's the damn cat gone?!!

C is for Coronations . . . Don'cha Just Lov'em!

We're about to have another one you know! Hopefully the last, and yes, I know I did a couple of Royalist posts ten or twelve years ago, but I know now, what I didn't know then, or didn't fully understand!

Found in the garage yesterday and taken straight to storage, but I fired off a quick shot. Somehow I doubt there will be the same plethora of die-casts issued this time, and most of the issuers (some of whom reused tools from previous coronations - we had four or five (going on the stamp-faces) in less than fifty years!) have long gone, along with their tool-banks.

I think there are elements of Hill, Benbros, Britains and Lesney here? I'm tagging them all anyway! It's a whole box of metal, from the small-scale only collector-days!