The First Repair & Paint Job Of Old Leads From Easter & Concluding Comments On The ACOTS Convention & The Trip Home

 This is really two posts rolled into one, but I wanted some colorful pics of toy soldiers in the post. The other pics are my travel sketches to and from Adelaide.

First up here are the pictures of my repaints of three figures.

The Bugler is put there for size comparison and I might well use him as a scale measurement in future. I have had that figure since childhood and inherited it from some older cousins (along with a handful of other leads). Although he is just a humble line infantryman, musician I always thought of him as an officer. He saw lawn and floor action against Red Indians and WW2 Germans, alongside plastic US cavalry and WW2 Lone Aussie Star infantry. He long ago lost his helmet spike and he has been partially repainted.

As can be seen, the new figures are smaller than classic 54mm. The partially flattened officer, at left, I painted as an early WW1 Belgian chasseur officer. I suppose he is close to 1/35 and perhaps a tad under. He has a piece of un-flattened wire as a sword, quaint so I left it. The other two French I painted as Franco-Prussian war figures. I just learnt that they are Schneider figures.

   They are semi-flat and smaller again. I could have elaborately shadowed and highlighted to compensate for this but decided on a simple toy soldier finish. The figure at left had a new left hand constructed with wire and Green Stuff.

 The faces were given no shading but certainly the rosy cheek treatment, and I always like to add eyes so the poor blighters can find their way around the battlefield (although these blokes will, most likely, remain in a shadow shelf). Moustaches are good ways to define the face, especially when the sculpting is basic.

  Incidentally, my bugler is my favorite toys soldier, probably because I had him so long and also because his arms move.

The finish came out , in places, a tad glossier than I intended but I am going to leave them that way. They were painted with gloss and semi-gloss Humbrol paints.

   IN PRORESS: A half a dozen other acquisitions are under the knife and paint brush; they include WW2, ceremonials and cowboys and Indians. The latter include a semi-flat cowboy with lasso whose horse had broken back legs. (Spoiler -- I have dispensed with the back legs - you will see why and how). I am finding myself increasing drawn to 'under scale' and rough figures that provide a challenge to see if I can transform them into something decent looking or/and useful.

LAST WORDS ON THE 2023 CONVENTION

No ACOTS convention is complete without mention of the quartermaster department. Bob's wife Angie and Steve's wife, Sue provided the troops some amazing smorgasbords. Sue and Steve were also excellent hosts to myself and Chris from Canberra. (Chris wanted those figures I painted but I decided to not sell or swap them).

Alan made his usual witty and clever Saturday night speech with the usual cultural references.

Roger went home with the annual award for getting the most points in the wargame tournament. I defeated him in one battle, but he one big time against Luciana in another game and this amped up his points.

THE JOURNEY HOME
I already described the journey to Adelaide. The journey back went very smoothly - until the very last leg but even that righted itself. 

  The leads I acquired added four kilograms to my backpack and a few more kilograms were, most likely, added from the extra plastics I took home (I'll feature those in a future post). Still, as I travelled light in clothing, the weight was not formidable. I did decide, though, to check in my backpack. Steve drove me to the local bus terminal, and I got to the airport in about forty minutes. In fact, I had two hours to kill before takeoff around midday.

I had bought a copy of the Australian newspaper which I soon finished reading. I had already read the one novel I had brought to Adelaide and I don't have Internet on my phone so I got out my trusty sketchbook.

I already had a sketch in it from the trip too Adelaide and I added a few more. 

BELOW is a sketch of Adelaide airport. If the people in the sketches turn out to look not unflattering I show them to the people. In this case they asked if they could take photos of the picture. I should have said no and made them buy it! The two people in the foreground were travelling from Hungary. (I misplaced their accents as Scandinavian). The girl with her head turned away is from Queensland.

The next picture was made on the train, on the way to Adelaide, prior to reaching Melbourne.

The following drawing was made on the way home, on the same trainline.

The good thing about mobile phones is that people are so buried in their games and Internet that they are oblivious to the fact that I am drawing them. I still aim to be subtle in this. I don't want to be staring so much that I appear to be a stalker! For this reason and also because the passenger is likely to get up and leave the train, I draw quite fast and regularly avert my gaze. Sometimes I have to finish sketches from memory or even combine two people into one. That drawing of the boy, in the background, looking down at his cell phone was done in a couple of minutes as he was about to disembark.

  My main artistic weapons of choice are gel pens and thick colored pencils. I scan my pictures at home, on to my laptop, and add some enhancements of contrast and clarity, and sometimes, tints.

THE FINAL LEG

 There were moments of frustration, and I don't like having to hang around. I am always one of the first off the plane and this time I had to wait half an hour for my baggage to appear on the conveyer belt. Check in baggage can be a right pain. Next, I had to find the bus service to the train station. Then I got the suburban train from Broadmeadows followed by a train from Southern Cross station to Pakenham where I had to wait twenty minutes for the next train to Gippsland.

  The next hurdle is that a connecting train to my town would be another two hours! Now I am not one to be constrained by convention and timetables so I did what I frequently did in my 20s and 30s. I hitched the remaining 60 or so kilometers! Screw you, train timetable.

  I had bought a small vegetarian pizza from Dominoes and, so fortified, I stood in the night with my thumb out. The trick is to be visible but not a traffic obstacle and also to station oneself where there is sufficient lighting and car parking.  I expected to stand there for an hour and then go back to the station but such was not the case. After a mere ten minutes a car stopped. The driver was a twenty-year-old bush fire fighter who lived in the far east of Victoria. If I had needed to, I could have thus travelled to the NSW border. Sam had once hitched from Melbourne to Orbost to get his job so he was sympathetic to my plight.

After swapping travel stories we arrived in my town and Sam drove me to my house! That's service.