Confederate Hollow-cast Infantry Nears Completion

My Confederate infantry regiment is nearing completion. It has been a real pleasure to see such old figures 'restored' to fit and fighting form. 

Actually, of course, they are much better detailed now than in their original form.

Eventually this unit will be added to and then broken into two units, one marching and one firing only. The bases will also be uniformly flocked. This is a departure from the original hollow-cast look but so are a lot of things,

Some of the first toy soldier books I read as a teenager, from my school library in the 1970s, featured conversions and repaints of old Britains hollow-cast. The photos fascinated me and they often included old and new paint styles. So they still had the very pronounced rosy cheeks but they also had the whites of the eyes painted as well as some shading and highlighting..

The old toy soldiers have less detail, such as folds in clothing and are more static in pose than the newer plastics but their charm is undeniable. I also like the feel of them as they are not super heavy but have a little more heft than plastics. Also, they will outlive many of their successor 'unbreakable' plastics that have deteriorated with chemical processes. That is not to say metals are immune as can be seen in ones kept in damp situations where corrosion of lead rot sets in. None of these hollow-cast figures show any sign of that.

Keen eyed viewers might have picked out the lone Herald plastic bugler. Since I painted that figure to give the unit a tune I have since found a hollow cast figure of a bugler.