More Crap from China
No I'm not talking about China's aggressive treatment of its neighbours maritime territorial boundaries, its crushing of the Tibetans, its harvesting of human organs from prisoners, its intolerance of dissent, its lack of respect for individual rights and religious freedom, its computer hacking or its long standing propping up of the lunatic, Orwellian North Korean regime. I wouldn't want to do that; after all Australia has a huge economic link through our trade and such indelicate intimations would be ill-advised. So I won't, for example, say anything good about the Dali Lama, even though he is a man of great humour, intelligence and amazing patience with a certain totalitarian country which has crushed his own.
No, I'm talking about new toy soldiers from China. Now, I have to admit that a lot of great figures have come out of China, including those made for American and British companies and also some original stuff. I actually enjoy perusing the latest cheapo bags of figures from China, even though some of it is seriously weird - plains Indians with swords and a cows with a penis or was it a bull with an udder come to mind? But the tradition of copying figures and then copying the copies of the copies of the copies until the figures risk becoming just lumps of plastic seems ultimately self destructive. I remember, fondly, made in Hong Kong cowboys and Indians from the 60s. They were usually very good copies of English makes like Cresent, Lone Star, Britains etc and were done in a lovely brown with some rudimentary paint work. The colour of the plastic was more natural looking than the bright reds, yellows etc. that are now the norm. And the plastic actually has lasted better than the original British figures. These days the plastic tends to be already very brittle and liable to breakage even before purchase.
Anyway, to get to the original purpose of my blog entry, before I began rambling, I recently bought some 'Warrior' sets from China. It wasn't for the army figures, which are great examples of my comments of copies of copies etc. These army men are copies of Airfix and Matchbox or copies of what might have originally been original to China modern infantry. They are skinny, undersized and with blobby faces. Two of them even came without heads. I bought the packets for the ALIENS. The aliens are marginally better than the soldiers but they are worth getting because they are something new. I don't know if they are original. They remind me a little of the aliens in that South African SF movie from not long ago. One figure has a two handed axe - no wonder the aliens always lose. Two others have more modern weaponry, fire arms of some sort, a long arm and a side arm. Another figure has what resembles a flashlight, another a pineapple grenade and another is empty handed. All have moulded cut marks, I guess so that when the lawn mower runs over the little devils the kids won't know the difference.
You need to buy a few packets to get all the figures and in one of mine an alien was missing parts of its limbs. Granted at $2 for a bag of thirty = less than seven cents a figure- one can't complain too much but I hope the child who is the recipient won't think that this standard of moulding is the high point of toy soldiers!
I am going to use the aliens by enlisting the axe bearers in my Medieval Chaos 54mm fantasy army and the others will go in my SF units. If cracker purchases were still allowed here I would have some fun with the soldiers but I'll pass them on to the Salvation Army store for some poor toy soldier starved boy to receive.
No, I'm talking about new toy soldiers from China. Now, I have to admit that a lot of great figures have come out of China, including those made for American and British companies and also some original stuff. I actually enjoy perusing the latest cheapo bags of figures from China, even though some of it is seriously weird - plains Indians with swords and a cows with a penis or was it a bull with an udder come to mind? But the tradition of copying figures and then copying the copies of the copies of the copies until the figures risk becoming just lumps of plastic seems ultimately self destructive. I remember, fondly, made in Hong Kong cowboys and Indians from the 60s. They were usually very good copies of English makes like Cresent, Lone Star, Britains etc and were done in a lovely brown with some rudimentary paint work. The colour of the plastic was more natural looking than the bright reds, yellows etc. that are now the norm. And the plastic actually has lasted better than the original British figures. These days the plastic tends to be already very brittle and liable to breakage even before purchase.
Anyway, to get to the original purpose of my blog entry, before I began rambling, I recently bought some 'Warrior' sets from China. It wasn't for the army figures, which are great examples of my comments of copies of copies etc. These army men are copies of Airfix and Matchbox or copies of what might have originally been original to China modern infantry. They are skinny, undersized and with blobby faces. Two of them even came without heads. I bought the packets for the ALIENS. The aliens are marginally better than the soldiers but they are worth getting because they are something new. I don't know if they are original. They remind me a little of the aliens in that South African SF movie from not long ago. One figure has a two handed axe - no wonder the aliens always lose. Two others have more modern weaponry, fire arms of some sort, a long arm and a side arm. Another figure has what resembles a flashlight, another a pineapple grenade and another is empty handed. All have moulded cut marks, I guess so that when the lawn mower runs over the little devils the kids won't know the difference.
You need to buy a few packets to get all the figures and in one of mine an alien was missing parts of its limbs. Granted at $2 for a bag of thirty = less than seven cents a figure- one can't complain too much but I hope the child who is the recipient won't think that this standard of moulding is the high point of toy soldiers!
I am going to use the aliens by enlisting the axe bearers in my Medieval Chaos 54mm fantasy army and the others will go in my SF units. If cracker purchases were still allowed here I would have some fun with the soldiers but I'll pass them on to the Salvation Army store for some poor toy soldier starved boy to receive.
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