Postmodern Paintbox

 

Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/thinking-outside-the-postmodern-paintbox/

What links these two pictures? 

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 15 March 2019

 

 

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Fantasy Plastic 54mm Warriors for FEMbruary?

Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog for FEMbruary

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/fantasy-plastic-warriors/

Meanwhile  the 2019  FEMbruary figures painting challenge carries on:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/fembruary-2019-and-new-bad-squiddo-figures-arrive/

Arms Reduction at Pound Land

Once a hundred, now seventy … Previous centurions need not apply. 

Crossposted by Mark Man of TIN from his Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog, 13 February 2019

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/30-percent-less-troops-at-poundland/

Unpacking a happy jumble tin of plastic soldiers

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/whats-in-this-tin-of-plastic-pound-store-warriors/

Crossposted from Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog by Mark, Man of TIN blog, 8 February 2019.

Combat Mission Military Soldier Playsets

Cross posted from my other plastic, budget-conscious gaming blog, Pound Store Plastic Warriors, here is some simple and cheap playset therapy:

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/combat-mission-military-soldier-play-set/

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/combat-mission-soldier-play-set-2/

 Man of TIN salutes the contents of  this Combat Mission Soldier Set – apologies for the slightly fuzzy screenshot of Playset 2. How could so much fun pack into so small a box? (Redcoated  Man of TIN not included).

With the usual budget playset ‘hallmark’ of a  bizarre mix of scales and periods,  there are some useful 45mm to 50mm figures and accessories for gaming. Who could want for more?

Crossposted by Mark, Man of TIN blog, 23 January 2019.

 

The true meaning of toys?

Penguin Books Image The Toy Makers

“A secret has been revealed, and I finally understand the meaning of toys, something my papa learnt long before me. When you are young, what you want out of toys is to feel grown up. You play with toys and cast yourself an adult, and imagine life the way it’s going to be.”

Yet, when you are grown, that changes; now, what you want out of toys is to feel young again. You want to be back there, in a place that did not hurt or harm you, in a pocket of time built out of memory and love. You want things in miniature, where they can be better understood: battles and houses, picnic baskets and sailing boats too.

Boyhood and adulthood – any toy maker worth his craft has to find a place to sit , somewhere between the two. It’s only in these borderlands that the very best toys are made.”

The Toymakers, a novel by Robert Dinsdale (Penguin, 2018), p. 256/7

My current reading  – half way through – is The Toymakers, a fantasy / magic realism book set in a magical winter toy shop in Edwardian London up to and into the First World War.

The book blurb aims for the Harry Potter market – “If There were a toy shop on Diagon Alley it would be the Toymakers” – and I can imagine the film makers who made the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies would enjoy recreating this world in CGI.

Here in the Emporium,  a refugee European Toymaker  Papa Jack and his two sons Emil and Kaspar Godman  compete in both love and Toys, including “The Long War” fought between brothers through their alive (clockwork?) handmade toy soldiers.

The  realism part of the magic realism steps up a pace when the First World War breaks out, Emporium staff join up, white feathers are handed out and at first, toy soldiers became the patriotic gift to give to small boys.

But what would happen as the war ground on? I often  feel this looking at this WW1 era magazine scrap in my eclectic and chaotic collection

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/toys-from-the-scrapheap/

We all know what happened in reality to William Britain’s toy soldiers and their post war shift to more civilian Toys like farms, Wild West, gardens and railway figures.

Set at a time when H.G. Wells was writing Floor Games and Little Wars, those charming touchstones or portkeys to a vanished toy past, I would not be surprised if Mr. H.G. Wells turns up …

Links to  the Penguin books site featuring and extract and an interview with the author on the magic of toys and how the book came to be written.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1113668/the-toymakers/9781785036354.html

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2018/robert-dinsdale-magic-of-toys.html

and some reader reviews.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34846987-the-toymakers

I will post a fuller review when I have finished reading both this and rereading of Pauline Clarke’s 1960s book, the Bronte toy soldier inspired The Return of The Twelves.

And now for some simple wooden Christmas magic …

Boom! Some new battered Toy Soldiers and cannon from my Christmas gifts. Magic!

Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN 6 January 2019.

Little Wars Revisited 16th March 2019 54mm Gaming Day

March 16th 2019 – Little Wars Revisited 54mm Games Day, Woking. 

http://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/thread/172/lwr-forum-2019-games-day?page=1

http://mikelewis.info/littlewars/?p=642

Some good looking games shown on people’s blogs last year – You can see pics of 2018 at Brian Carrick’s blog:

http://toysoldiercollecting.blogspot.com/2018/03/little-wars-revisited-54mm-in-woking.html

and at

https://wargaminggallimaufry.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-little-wars-revisited-54mm-day-in.html

Not sure if I will make it along but Mike Lewis the organiser mentioned promoting the event to 54mm gamers via our blogs. So here goes …

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN on  4 January 2019