Mixed Marriages....

By Gum!! Two posts in One day. well sort of. I've been trying to find the time to do a "proper" post for the last week or so but what with work and the rugger and one or two other things it just never happened.. Noiw some of you dear gentle readers , will be aware of my views on the" figure fascists" , those narrow worthies who have all their little men fr in one style from one maker and who opine loudly that all others are beneath contemp- usually if they haven't been sculpted by the 3 armed hydra. Now this is not about figure quality- well not really- but more in a way about the dead hand of conformity laying its cold and clammy fingers upon us however lightly. Why I ask myself in an age where there are more makers than ever are many armies less and less characterful . The same overpainted blandness trotted out over and over ? There may be more figures but there is a dammned sight less art. What I hear your cry Art?. Well yes in a very small way you understand. I'm not claiming I and my Ilk are akin to Michelangelo or Caravaggio- except(in younger days) for bar fights perhaps but good painting and modelling in our hobby is an art form albeit a very minor one. ( and you thought an Ilk was a funny animal that wanders aimlessly about the tundra.... well you may be right..) No what the dead hand of the FFs do is make it harder to do anything different

and no I'm not talking about warrior teddy bears or similar amusing silliness but about an attitude. An example , in the past Old Glory have been criticised- often quite brusquesly for using "different designers" well of course we did halfwits there was too much stuff for one bloke- unless he cloned himself and thats only been done once in this line of work-so we used different blokes for different jobs. We must have used 7 or 8 designers to date and I still use 4 - including David for Jacdaw. What that did was give us different styles for different tastes - how can that be wrong? However it was- apparently becasue it wasn't the same as the "designer minifigs" style prevelent both then and now(and no I'm not having a go at Minifigs they are fine for certain jobs). Now You also get all this sizist crap about "are yours 25mm or 28mm ". I covered this little gem in an article on the OGUK website so won't bore you with it again but its about presentation here. How you finish and present yoyr toys that is far more important than mere millimetres. So to somewaht "prove" my point- at least to myself here are a trio of pictures where mixed makers are used together. The ECW curassier unit are Old Glory figures on Jacdaw horsesand represent Colonel Balfours troop at Edgehill - one of 3 such troops in the Parliamentry army. The 18th cetury group is largely Old Glory but Soubise in the centre is a Willie figure on a Stadden Horse while the lady a la Hussard is a willie figure on an Old Glory Horse. To my mind all have more movement and style that repeated perryclones