“I live in a madhouse …” Home Casting Humour

As well as EBay there are other maker and vintage listings out there, ranging from

the international Etsy with its often expensive ‘vintage’ toy soldier offerings and unusual international toy soldier offerings (great for window shopping)

to the more British based crafting site Folksy.

Here I spotted and bought this rather apt fridge magnet that home casters might enjoy.

https://folksy.com/items/7160996-I-Live-In-A-Madhouse-Magnet

Luckily I tore off the Folksy maker’s name from the invoice and stuck it roughly in the back, so I could find them again.

I thought it goes well with the contents of a recent mostly Schneider vintage metal mould casting session and some very cheap Pound Store conversion plastic soldier Boy Scouts.

Eagle eyed readers may spot two ‘half casts’ who were missing heads, so these colonial flats got a plastic flat head modern Fritz helmet from the Specia forces figures.

(Small) World Domination plans

It reminds me of a rough sketch outline I did for a finished postcard in a local art event in the anonymous Post Secret / Secret Squirrel confessions postcards project:

Rough sketch by Mark Man of TIN – based in Prince August 54mm toy soldier moulds

This postcard blog post from my first month of blogging here in 2016 with some thoughts on homecasting https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/

Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN on 8 May 2021.

Small World Domination

Inspired by a gift a few years ago of some Prince August moulds:

“Today the playroom … Tomorrow the (small) world”

This is a quick sketch for an anonymous “secret squirrel” type postcard competition / exhibition run through an art gallery a few years ago,inspired by the website http://www.postsecret.com

Oh well, the secret’s out. Plans for (small) world domination unmasked.

Quick, time to keep building and casting as fast as I can!

Home Casting 

If you want to take part in this arms (legs head and body) race, head to the traditional 54mm toy soldier multipart  moulds at http://shop.princeaugust.ie/54mm-traditional-toy-soldiers-moulds/

The great joy of these home casting ‘mix and match’ is the creation of figures – soldiers and civilians of all nations – in box sets and parades that never existed in the heyday of lead figures, before they vanished in favour of safer, unbreakable (and often now crumbling) plastic from the 1960s onwards.

Of these, in future blogposts, I’ll feature some of the stranger ones from the bands, parades, civilians and soldiers of all my ‘imagi-nations’.

The other creative way to acquire the figures of your wilder “Imagi-nations” was through conversion (plenty of collecting toy figures books in the library or out of print online for this topic) or repaint.

The toy soldier version of a car respray, some of the odd figures found online or in junkshops in my collection are childish repaints or very slop happy repaint jobs in whatever colours were available for whatever figures were required for play or parades. Again a future subject for blogposts …

My Man of TIN Gravatar, blog icon, a Guardsman saluting, made years ago as a brooch gift from Prince August 54mm multi part traditional toy soldier mould. (Photo / figure: Man of TIN)