This will always be a 'work in progress' as photographs are added or
upgraded and missing bits are slotted in. Aiming to be no more than a guide to the figural production of Airfix Products.
Wherever
possible it will quash urban myths or commonly held beliefs which are
incorrect, most of which have grown-up during the 'Internet Years'.
As
many search terms as possible will be used in order that anyone
visiting whether familiar with Airfix or a new collector/casual browser
will be able to find what they want, either singly or in groups of
similar size, period or subject matter using the 'Click-on Index' to
the right. Likewise the title-blocks will be as comprehensive as
possible so they can be discerned in the 'Blog Archive' feature on the
left of the page.
As this is designed to be a sort of
second page for the Small Scale World blog, there was going to be no
'comments' feature, but I've enabled it, still, anyone with an issue
concerning the factual accuracy of any entry can eMail me with
supporting evidence and will be fully acknowledged for any resulting
change or update.
I will also not use the Pink/Khaki
thing here as I have on the general Blog, I want it to be cleaner and
more streamlined, so people can find what they're looking for with ease,
although I will date additions if I think it's relevant.
Eventually,
every post/page will have the figure set complete, a one-of-each-pose
numbered line-up for ready reckoning, a set on the runners ('sprues') -
if applicable - box types/artwork, inserts, copies/piracies, comparisons
with other versions and other makes, moulding variations, conversions,
painted figures both my own (when I get round to them!) and tatty old
OBE's (Other Bugger's Efforts) from way back when, close-ups of the
vignettes and anything else pertaining to each set I (or you -
contributions welcome) feel is relevant, interesting, funny or weird!
About Me

- Hugh Walter
- No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
- I’m a 51-year-old Aspergic CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds' to remind it why it feeds.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019
[WWII / Brush Fire Wars] Australian Infantry, 51458-3 / 1809 / 51558-2 - 1:32 scale (54mm)
At the time of writing (October 2019) I am
still way behind with the 54mm entries (I think this will be six of 33?), while
lots of the HO-OO stuff still needs text-blurb doing, but I'll keep plugging
away and one day it will all be here!
Today it's the Australian Infantry,
although they can just as easily be British, New Zealand or any of a number of
troops in the Indian- or 14th Army's from about '42 through to 1945, and the
main clothing and equipment carried-on into many of the end-of-Empire 'brush
fire' wars.
The basic seven, like most of the early
sets, all technically World War Two, and while some people credit Cameron with
the sculpting I suspect someone else (Stadden?) may have been responsible for
the first few 'sevens', Cameron doing the higher pose-count, later sets, and
the additional poses for the [Stadden] sets which were reduced to HO-OO in the
mid-1970's?
All the 1:32nd scale posts will get one of
these (where applicable; not all the sets have obvious cavity indicators) from
the never taken to fruition book project, and if you are bidding on an unsealed
'Mint'-described set, it needs to contain one each of the above, colour-matched
to within an hair's-breadth of a gnat's-crotch!
While all sets will get one of these! This
is the standard contents of a large or 29-figure box.
Compared with JIM's figures; being a French toy maker they are probably representing
the troops who lost Indochina in the early 1950's, relying on a string of forts
(like, err . . . the Maginot Line!) which the CT annoyingly went round! The
chap in shorts could also suit the Algerian campaign . . . which went so much
better!
Lone
Star back here in the UK were producing a set nearly-all
in shorts, which came as Aussies or African Rifles (darker skin tones), but
contains mostly the short-wearers who would be unlikely to be found in the
Jungle.
Shorts may have been OK back in India, but
in the bush you need constant protection from leeches, ticks/kegs (keds),
poisonous insects and spiders, ants, snakes etc . . . etc . . . etc . . . so
long trousers, puttees, leggings or gaiters were an absolute.
The unpainted one is a Woolworth's sale and the white ones are recent re-issues, they are
a tad heavier in the body as well, so while the marching chap (putting real
effort into moving his tired bones) is a useful addition, the rest can be left
in the Western Desert!
Also a bit well-fed, the Trojan figures do at least have the
right apparel, if being a little dark in the material for the OG's (Olive
Greens) issued, however the customary looseness of the garments is as well
carried-off by Trojan's sculptor as
it was by Airfix's.
Almost a better colour, these are believed
to have been meant to represent the North African ANZAC forces. All the
trojan's are nice sculpts but they lack the finesse of Airfix's figures, and
this guy's damaged weapon-tip would make it longer than the Airfix SMLE.
Box art courtesy of Kostas; a solid and
determined crew doing a serious job, but the burning hut in the background is
rather reminiscent of the German push across the steps of Russia in '41, as
covered by Signal magazine!
Timpo, we loved them at the time, but to be
honest, they reveal their juvenile credentials when compared to just about any
other figures (bar the Cherilea UN troops!) out there; also the fact that they
are equipped with things vaguely resembling an FN and some experimental Italian
SMG doesn't help! But the officer and the Bren-gunner can thicken the Antipodean
ranks, while the rifleman (far-left) can go a bit 'Audie Murphy'
with a Bren-LMG wedged in his mitts instead of his rifle.
With eternal thanks to Glenn Sibald we get
to compare them to the New Zealand
National Army Museum's fund-raising competition figures, neither of which
are close, being a turn-of-the-19th/20th-century's colonial militiaman and a
desert soldier, also they are a bit smaller, but they are out there.
The Airfix
Ghurkha's probably are all Cameron's work, you can see some of the less
comfortable poses he tended to include once the 'standards' had been
ticked-off, particularly the Kukri 'challenger' and the chap on the far right,
this set has more than seven poses but they will get their own page.
A bit of a problem with these; all of it
stemming from Paul Stadinger's Blog and it's de' facto No2,
one Erwin Sell, who though to tell everyone the Ri-Toys (Rado Industries)
figures (insipid greens, lumpy sculpting and duplicated posing) were Blue Box, and that the Blue Box conversely, were Rado! Not content to state this as fact
once, he managed to repeat it twice more in two different places, ensuring as
many people as possible might believe the idiocy.
I can assure you the Blue Box are the better figures in a sandy-tan with the
factory-paint typical of the rest of the line, and the smaller,
pantograph-reduced lumps are a second generation copy with nothing-more than
box-ticking to recommend them.
As they are mostly wearing shorts, it's off
to Monty for some of 'em anyway! But note how the Ri-Toys officer is a cut'n'shut of the Blue Box grenade thrower and the Airfix officer (Erwin further claimed it was 'unique Blue Box'),
while the marching guy, signaller and MMG-operator can be used with the Airfix and make useful additions,
despite being slightly smaller, they fit in quite well, and would - more-so - if
all were painted to match.
Although 'small-scale' the two main types
of Hong Kong diminutives, were taken from the 1:32nd Scale set, long before Airfix reduced them to HO-OO and added
the extra (Cameron) poses, so technically they belong here, being taken only
from the original 7 poses, although the figure comparisons will probably go in
the HO-set's entry. These are various brandings of the larger of the two types
at around 1:72nd scale.
Hans
Postler was a German importer (jobber) shipping
stuff into France, Germany and the low-countries, from the early (?) 1970's,
although enough of their sets appeared over here (before the onset of the Internet)
to reason on either a deal with a UK importer, or stock-clearance? And this set
is in their later 1980/90's graphics.
Aglow were a late (2000's) French imprint, while I was buying the Toy Galaxy stuff around 1993/4 at a shop
in Clapham Junction which is sadly no longer there.
This set dates from the 1980's and was the
earlier, smaller (approximately 1:76th scale) set, although the quality is so
poor they look like 2nd-generation copies of the larger figures above, they were
probably independently pirated. Hong Kong
Toy Exporters had offices in Central District, HK, and - as their name
suggests - were probably middle-men/agents or shippers.
There are not as many copies in the larger
scales as there are of other sets, but with colour variations and the 45mm lot
(who can stiffen the backbone of the Rado
dwarves!), there's a few to track-down.
I don't have branding for these yet, but
they are part of a wider line which includes equal quality/finish Afrika Korps,
Japanese and German Infantry also taken from Airfix and they may turn out to be from the Wing Wah Plastic Factory (The inset logo)? I have even less idea on
the two smaller ones, but it'll all come out of the wash one day!
Bird-eye view of the seven figures to
finish-off for now.
Thanks' go to Andreas Dittmann for the Aglow set, Glenn Sibald for the NZNAM figures, Kostas for the box-scan,
and Bill B, Brian Berke & Peter Evans for info.
Labels:
1:32,
1809,
51458-3,
51558-2,
Aglow,
ANZAC,
Australian Infantry,
Blue Box,
Gurkhas,
Hans Postler,
HK Toy Exp.,
JIM,
Lone Star,
NZ NAM,
Rado - Ri-Toys,
Timpo,
Toy Galaxy,
Trojan,
Wing Wah,
WWII
Reactions: |
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
1981 [Sci-Fi] Space Warriors, 51577-3 / 9 51577 / 5170NB - 1:32nd Scale (54mm)
Coming shortly after the medievals (in my
memory) just as childhood gave way to teenage pursuits, we never had these as
kids, although we did have two sets of the medievals and made-up some rules for
them which we . . . I'll tell this one on their page! It's immaterial anyway as
by 1980, my brother had taken command of all large scale and I had the small
scale stash!
I did manage to pick-up a set in a car-boot
lot in the late-1990's and while later passing-on the rest of the bag, had
already painted these up and stuck them in (on) the 'cabinet of curiosities'
where we looked at them briefly (and fuzzily) about ten years ago; we'll be
looking at them again, in a minute, below.
I should have an undecorated human male,
but can't find him so for now it'll have to be Ensign Jeffrey standing in.
Seven poses, and they were an odd selection, seeming a bit dated, yet actually
referencing various tropes (or troops!) that were in the public or cultural
conscience in the late 1970's or early 1980's.
This is the numbered contents of a set, and
numbering is pretty clear on all sculpts on the upper side of the bases, so
anyone buying a boxed-set described as 'mint' or complete, but lacking the
sealed, poly-foil outer wrapping needs to have one each of all the above;
numbered as above.
Examples of base numbering on figures 5, 7
and 13, you can see how clear they are and all 14 will be needed to 'make' a
set. Equally a set needs to be either grey (early, getting scarcer), and
matched-grey at that, or silver (later, commoner), not mixed together!
The pose quantities were also a bit odd, as
it's no lie to state the two worst poses are the 3x's (padded cricket/baseball
body-armour and 'Frisbee' man) while the two single issues (Romanesque humans) are
among the best sculpts, with a fourteen-count, two of each would have been the
best way to go, indeed - the obvious way to go!
Playing with a mirror, not as easy as it
looks, you have to hold the 'background' (which is actually between you and the
camera) in one hand, aim and fire the camera with the other hand and ensure the
flash-reflection doesn't show; you can see it slightly in the top left corner
of a couple of the shots!
You also have to keep one eye on the
camera's screen which is away from you and held at an odd angle, to ensure the
'background sheet' covers the whole of the figure/likely crop-area. Weirdly;
the mirror steals some of the light, so the reflections are a bit darker, and
not because it's the back-side, the bases are darker too?
We'll start a look at each pose, starting with
the 'Disney' characters!
Ensign Jeffrey
He's adequate enough if you're looking for
an over-enthusiastic junior officer to blame in a crisis, but you don't want to
be relying on him in an emergency; what he carries in geldt he pays for in missing
'grey-matter' if you know what I mean.
He's a bit of a clicktivist, more
interested in his comm's gadgets than his guns; his father was Lord Hetherington
Fothergill Cholmondeley-Fahqquar-Popinjay (two 'Q's, no e, hyphens added to
inherit), the third Earth Emissary to Alpha Centuri, which explains everything!
[Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Lando
Calrisian (was later?), Blake's Seven?]
Grace
Sexy, spunky, space-babe, what's not to
like? And she's a better shot that Jeffrey!!
[Wilma Deering, Princess Leia, Blake's
Seven, Logans Run?]
Busso Bad Bot
That's all you need to know, isn't it? He's
not called Busso Bad Bot for nothing! He's as mean as his sheen and can use
that Mk.4 sonic-katana to carve an ice-swan or a butterfly from a watermelon in
2.6 seconds, but he'd rather carve something out of your head.
He's wanted on seventeen alien worlds,
forty-seven Terran-fed worlds, and sixty-two independent or non-aligned human
worlds, he's also being hunted by five of the six largest crime syndicates. His
rap-sheet has no empty tick-boxes and his last (empty when found) hideaway was
located in the outer mantle of a large star.
[Features of any number of bots, Shogun?]
Darth Gaylord Condominit
His suit of the finest pharmaceutical grade
Dildastatesman silicon, his hood
manufactured from hypo-allergenic synthetic latex with built-in gimp-mask, he's
armed with the very latest vaginator upgrade for his Penetrator Parabellum, which
is tooled in Venusian jade-crystal, he fights for Luurve against the haters of
Hate, the Walrus of War cums to save us from ourselves!
[Darth Vader, Blake's Seven?]
Grod from Krud
Unspeakably awful, but a very useful mercenary,
his diet is basically carrion, but he will fall back on other animal's
droppings if he gets really hungry and he's not fussy as to species,
consequently feeding an army of them is not much of a problem, cost wise,
indeed the more fighting's involved, the lower the messing-bill!
Which brings me to their motto; "Kill them all!" you won't be surprised
to hear this means they are quite easy to hire, at the lower end of the
budgetary-constraint scale, for jobs that are likely to include a lot of
killing, but they aren't the brightest buttons in the box, so no complicated
missions - they are best employed on slash & burn or full planetary-invasions.
However they do need to be barracked a long way from other buildings, preferably
- off-world . . . the smell, you see.
['V', Dr Who?]
Clonecorpsman
The galaxy's sonic-cannon fodder,
genetically engineered to do what they are told, you can send them as fast as
you can grow them until the job's done or you find something more interesting
to do elsewhere! Basic sonic-lance, basic body-armour with basic HUD, basic
breather-kit . . . very expendable - but they just don't mind!
[Dr Who?]
Chinpol Interplanetary Investigator
Once Trump had taken the US off the world
stage, and following the Sino-Russia war of '37, China became first the world's
policemen and then the Galaxy's main police force. These interplanetary
officers are fully trained (brain-jack immersion-learning) in sixteen martial
arts and are to be found throughout Terra's spiral arm, operating in the Galactic
core, providing support on most transit routes and the intermediaries or hubs,
as well as operating in small teams out on the rim, hunting down the Galaxy's
most wanted.
[THX1138, Dr Who?]
Scale comparator with the contemporary Britains-killer; they all match-up, if
the Airfix are all given the same
idiot-base the Britains figures have.
You can also - of course - take the idiot-bases off the Britains figures, but then they are left with very silly shoes! The
idea that the range may have contributed to the demise of Britains is no surprise really, when you think about it!
I will get a load more comparisons done in
the fullness of time; the beauty of sci-fi/fantasy is that anything can
technically go with anything else. While, less wacky or outrageous pairings can
be achieved between most other sets and - at least one of - the Airfix sculpts, given the spread of
subjects/genres covered by the seven sculpts.
Some old evilBay sales images of mine from
the Berkshire days I found and used for playing with the heat-map tool in
Picasa - 1970's psychedelia - groovy man!
Single-figure comparison between a late,
probably Poplar Plastic Products
polyethylene figure (ex-Thomas Toys
tooling) and the Airfix reveals a
slight smallness on the part of the later figures.
The Terran Federation's Security Service
worked closely with other agencies to keep the developed universe as safe as
possible (when organised crime could base itself on uncharted planets) and here
we see two agents on exchange/secondment going through one-to-one mentored refresher
training in urban CQB, at Spectrum's HQ
in leafy Surrey!
While a lot of sci-fi styling is 'of its
time' and can become quite dated, the Captain
Scarlet uniforms still manage a futuristic look - here from Timpo - years after they left the popular
stage, to join the nostalgia club! The gull-winged jerkin with side zip and
bi-coloured lumber-jack cap being still quite distinctive; not so sure about
the Mary Quant booties though!
Lik
Be (LB,
formally 'LP')'s spacemen/astronauts look a bit out of place next to the Airfix
figures, taller, less animated and slightly underfed, they are doing a good
impression of gawky kids on the dance-floor where the guys from Haldane Place
have popped an E, downed a few shots and let go! Wer-wer-wer-whyyyype'ouut!
Robo-friends and fem-bots; The
[possibly/probably] Hing Fat figures
of 'BraveStarr' robot 'Cowboys & Sheriffs'
(link to my post)
are a little small, but being robotic can be any size, a minor stretch of the
imagination and they can be quite-compatible!
Definitely Hing Fat on the right, generics on the left and surprisingly not as
small as I thought they'd be, nor that incompatible animation-wise (as I was
also expecting) when placed side-by-side with the Airfix, so really only
styling which keeps them in separate universes!
Torgano's figures are huge, but style-wise fit in quite well, albeit with a
slight two-dimensionality. These are I believe - the third version of this
Italian maker's figures which began with a polystyrene iteration glued to
separate bases, then an integrated base design (which may be someone-else's copies)
and finally; these heavier, softer polyethylene sculpts.
Also from Italy and produced around, what;
thirty years earlier (?) than the Airfix
release; Chromoplast's synthetic
PVC-rubber figures are quite similar (ignoring the leery paint-job)
fashion/style-wise, but thinner, taller and a bit two-dimensional.
I've posed two
pairs with similar features, 'hood, gloves & cloak' on the right, with - on
the left - several similarities from the Roman Gladiatorial'esque 'Thracian
helmet' and heavy collar, through to the bulgy-weapon with weird disc feature,
via the padded-underpants/leotard.
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