Back in the 70's when I were a whipper snapper, I was fascinated with history and anything related to soldiers, strange eh?
I had a massive collection of books that I used to copy and draw soldiers from. I'm not that good at drawing but used to love it. I also, probably like most of you reading this, had a rather large collection of Airfix 1/32 scale WWII figures.
Me and my brother Lee, used to spend hours setting all the soldiers up, behind Lego barricades
and a home made wooden fort our Dad made for us, then we'd take turns to throw marbles at each others troops.
Any you knocked over became casualties of war. We'd always end up with the heavy machine gun figures left. Or the "Laying downers" as we used called them. Trying to turn them over using a marble from 4 feet away is very hard!
My favourite troops were the DAK, or as I used to call them the German Africa Corps
(Corps as in corpes) I was fascinated with them, (still am I suppose) especially the German army uniform, but mainly the German helmet and field cap. They were always my first choice when picking out an army, while my brother loved the British Commandos. I used to own a FOW DAK army, which I very stupidly sold at a show one year, bloody idiot!!
I do still have my collection of old bendy Airfix figures, but decided not to paint them, instead I bought 20 odd figures from ebay for the colossal sum of 99p and chose my
two favourite figures to paint up for this round.
Not sure what I'll do with these?
Maybe paint the rest up?
My favourite ever pic of the DAK.
Drooool!
Hahahaha LOL Ray! Trust Ray to pull off something like this. I have these too and just the same fond memories. Perhaps I should paint some up as well. Nice one!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! I now have an urge to go and get a box of the commandoes, which were my favourite.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the with Airfix figs back in the 1970s, so these really take me back. Well done Ray, top paintwork!
ReplyDeleteAnother Airfix veteran here Ray - only it was the 1/723 Waterloo kits for me. Lovely work and you should paint up the rest of them.
ReplyDeleteI had the same but in HO. My son has them now and all the forts and equipment.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful work, Ray! Get some paint on their comrades and then some adversaries for em! ;)
What a classic! Great memories.
ReplyDeleteYou've done a terrific job on these Ray. I had them as well and remember many great adventures with them in my back yard. The painting is really superb.
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