Whilst these plastic and metal original figures from the 1950s and 1960s may be hard to find, fragile and / or expensive, especially in the UK, they give a style guide or mood board inspiration for cheapo pound store figure conversions.
Watch this Space 🙂
Again thanks to Alan Tradgardland Gruber for this possible theme for our next Little Wars Revisited game at Woking or Stockport …
Blog posted by Mark (Star) Man Of TIN, 12 April 2023
This past week four years ago I branched out from my regular main Man of TIN blog to start my occasional Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog, covering the joyously budget plastic figure gaming end of my toy soldier hobby.
Rainbow warriors – 5 different plastic colours per £1 bag
This week I shall be working on these baker’s dozen figures as space pilots, having rewatched Star Wars Rogue One on DVD and still working my way through four series of grungy Battlestar Galactica (2004 version) available free in the U.K. on BBC I-Player.
Four years on from starting the blog, a bag of cheap plastic tat with conversion potential still gives me as much joy as new metal or more expensive plastic gaming figures. I enjoy the wonky out of scale playsets and accessories as well as the sometimes oddly worded packaging.
Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog – It all keeps me happily in touch with my inner seven year old with never quite enough pocket money!
More about these c. 40mm plastic semi-flat figures previously on Pound Store Plastic Warriors:
Readers of the Pound Store Plastic Warrior might recognise the penny or tuppenny dreadful plastic tat from pound stores and seaside shops that make up our blog header.
Looking at a group of these 45 – 50 mm figures, I picked out the figure pose carrying a rifle (second from right) as a possible space figure.
32 mm pound store “1930s futuristic” space marines and orange suited enemies
I thought some bright Flash Gordon or Dan Dare type spacemen in 1950s cowboy type colours and toy soldier style would be the thing.
Which is of course why they ended up as steampunked French tank crew in leather jackets.
In the usual way, this vague plan of colourful space figures went awry as I searched through Pinterest for Steampunk and VSF (Victorian Science Fiction).
Researching images on Pinterest – French WW2 tank crew, re-enactors and steampunk cosplay
Highly influential in my eventual ImagiNations colour scheme were the stylish uniforms of French tank crew and despatch riders.
Source unknown: French tank crew with the very futuristic rear end of a WW2 French tank
There are some very nice 1/35 Alpine Miniature figures tank Crew in their Brown leather jackets, tan trousers and Flying style helmets c. 1939/40.
This gave me the base colours – they were going to be painted in gloss toy soldier style using a mix of available Revell Acrylic Aquacolor gloss and matt, finished off with gloss spray varnish.
The figures after gloss Varnish but before the Steampunk copper highlights were added.
At this stage before Steampunk copper highlights were added, some of them could pass vaguely as WW2 or modern figures.
I wanted them to keep that 1930s to 1950s shiny gloss hollowcast look including the pink cheek dot traditional toy soldier face, as if they had just been taken out of their red box.
Once the copper or brass highlights were added, picking up cloned and distorted webbing details, this looked more like power cables for their brass steam or laser weaponry, breathing gear or comms equipment. Nothing too specific …
Grey basing rather than green was chosen for the plain toy soldier style tuppenny base, reflective more of an urban setting or even steel plate metal, maybe even the decking of airships and space craft.
An Officer and An NCO figure (with dark blue tanker beret) can be seen amongst them
I was surprised at how practically well these two tone figures fitted into the landscape, despite the shiny Steampunk bits and gloss Varnish.
Add in some suitably weird Pound Store / playset type Chinese made plastic tat Steampunk Artillery
The closest I could do to the French tankers and the futuristic back of their tank photo here …
“Quel petrolier!” or A rough French translation for Lardy tank rules fans of their mischievously named ruleset “What a Tanker!”
… was a rough reconstruction of this historic photograph using the backside view of my lovely cap firing action friction based US tinplate tank (Thunderbolt USA 4U, unknown maker)
So there you go, you start off intending to make Flash Gordon space marines and end up with French tanker inspired Steampunk activity.
Proof that all you need is some time, paint, distraction, a few tangents and you can make something smart out of these unloved overlooked cloned and distorted Pound Store type figures.
For my simple 54mm Donald Featherstone inspired sci-fi rules Close Little Space Wars
I also tried it out with one of my 50mm Tim Mee Galaxy Laser Team Space Men. At this size, this would be more of a personal space craft than a space troop or squad transport.
Le Toy Van do the three styles of rocket seen on the label. You can also see the porthole astronaut sticker that I removed to make it more versatile.
An X Wing of sorts – cleverly converted jet model on an old fire station toy turnstile.
I wish Tim Mee toys (“Made in the USA”) were more widely and cheaply available in the UK. Whilst they can be tracked down online, the extra shipping to the UK makes them pricey.
Captain Zap: Hands Up! The Turpentile: Don’t Shoot, I’m an unarmed Armoured Space Turtle
Very kindly the Grand Duke of Tradgardland, the Tradgardmastre himself sent (via the D of T P.O.) these spare Tim Mee space figure poses for my collection and for Close Little Star Wars 54mm future adventures on the Back Yarden Planet.
Well it is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landings …
Definitely not Chewbacca or the Dredd Darth, sorry, Dark Lord.
In space there are checkout jobs – or is this now a self scan universe? Complete with unexpected RU1-2 droid in the bagging area.
Nicely detailed front and back – I think Captain Zap with his laser pistol is channeling Flash Gordon and Dan Dare as much as Star Wars.
Clever 2017 Tim Mee stickers for different teams or space jets? Star Patrol vs Galaxy Laser Team.
One of each pose is enough for me as they should provide some good character figures to be supported and bulked out by Pound Store ‘space marine’ conversions and the lovely Airfix Star Warriors, Star Wars 54mm plastics and old Britain’s StarGards in my collection https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/25/in-a-garden-far-far-away/
Thanks to the Duke and Duchy of Tradgardland for this kind gift – a suitably magical response is on its way. https://tradgardland.blogspot.com
These attractive figures wait on the painting table for suitable colour scheme inspiration to strike. Hopefully sometime by International Star Wars Day on May 4th? Or the July moon landing anniversary?
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN on Pound Store Plastic Warriors 23 March 2019
Not exactly Pound Store Plastic Fantasy Warriors but a job lot picked up cheaply on EBay.
These figures are not to my knowledge usually sold in the UK so often have hefty shipping. There are multiple copies of each figure, which will allow flexible painting.
There are several female or androgynous figures in this set that might or might not qualify as Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog contribution for #FEMbruary.
#FEMbruary is the online painting challenge to find (and eventually paint) believable female gaming figures; some of these figures are almost heading down the “chain mail bikini fantasy” road, depending how much bare flesh you choose to paint. https://leadballoony.com/2019/01/31/more-scumbos-and-the-fembruary-challenge/
Size: average 50-54mm except the dwarf / troll mid 40mms
I wanted to create a race of opponents for the Space Marines that I had previously made. I also wanted to capture that highly colourful 1950s Space look of Dan Dare or the 1930s Flash Gordon serials that survived into the 1980 Flash Gordon movie. To make these figures different from my blue and silver Space Marines I have painted them orange and gold, the joy of gloss Revell acrylics.
I also added a golden mantle or shoulder armour section using simple card label or hole reinforcers glued on and held in place with clothes pegs whilst they dried. When these ran out, I cut out the patterns in stiff drawing paper.
You can see their opponents the blue Space Marines here
This is an attractive original figure, one of the ones that first attracted me to these penny figures in their £1 Poundland tubs.
The Space Commander figure is one of the most badly moulded and distorted of all the 12 pound store plastic warriors in the Poundland tubs. They make a possible space officer figure with a machine or Space pistol, along with a possible Desert Warrior with robes, shield and sword scabbard.
I look forward to getting these into action soon, using scaled down hex gameboard versions of my Close Little Star Wars rules.
The last week has been spent working on a variety of Pound Store Plastic Warrior paint projects including my Poundland Space Marines, adding another twenty Space Marine figures and a Command and Comms team.
Apart from the varnish and a mild black wash over the darker faced Space Marines, they are pretty much done and ready for action. All I need to do is create some opposition troopers.
Pound Store Command and Comms Team for my Poundland Space Marines.
The Command and Comms Radio team came from a batch of a dozen bags of party bag filler Soldier copies of Matchbox figures that I bought last year or came free with some garage forecourt shop cheap vehicle kits.
The least impressive of the figures is the Poundland penny dreadful figure with the machine pistol / space blaster. I have some ideas on adding a shiny drawing pin riot or deflector shields to space-ify these up a bit.
Work in Progress on a Flash Gordon style Roman Gold and Orange Space Troopers to fight (alongside?) the finished light blue Space Marines.
As possible allies or opposition, I have started work on some Flash Gordon / Star Wars rebel inspired bronze, gold and orange figures. Some Rebellious type troopers and Imperious SturmandDrangTroopers (in black and white) might also follow.
I like the bronze gold steampunk of the laser rifle and space blaster.
For space rules, I can downsize the Close Little Star Wars rules from last year’s Planet Yarden garden game.
Pound Store Plastic Space Marines Away Team on a surreal planet
Away from home visiting the seaside for a few days over the rainy Bank Holiday weekend, I took a couple of items to improvise a quick away game, should I need one.
My portable board game hex board with a 2D feel with the map symbols but 3D figures and stone lumps. Halfway to 3D or is that 2.5D?
I packed a small A5 tackle box of pound store plastic figures (£1 for 100 30-40mm figs), dice and stuff and the portable hex board cartridge paper game board from my 2016 Easter away trips.
Pound store figures are good to take as if you lose or leave anything behind on your travel battles, it’s not the end of the world at a penny a figure.
This is my pound store DIY version of the portable war game or Perry Twins’ popular new Travel Battle game.
Semi-Random Terrain Distribution By Featherstone Air Drop
Tucked inside the box lid are some passable or impassable map symbol type hex squares (marsh, river, impassable forest). Once the first river pieces were laid on fairly at random, the other hexes were dropped from on high to randomise their placing.
This is something I remember as a technique using paper circles scattered from a converted Airfix plastic Dakota kit for scattering paratroops, the Dakota held at a suitable height over the calculated or miscalculated drop zone.
I first saw this in a childhood borrowed library copy of Donald Featherstone’s Wargaming Airborne Operations (recently reprinted by John Curry). Airfix paratroop figures then replaced the paper parachute circles wherever they landed, sometimes fatally in water, on rooftops or behind enemy lines.
I would love to try this outside in a back garden / Yarden game. It would even work for beaming or teleporting down to another planet scenario. Beam ’em down!
The Featherstone Airdrop – Brilliantly odd game mechanic!
These map symbol coloured hexes were improvised from thin white packaging card on my Easter 2016 holiday trip and can be lightly tacked down (like the game board) with a smidgin of magic or Scotch tape.
Pretty it isn’t but practical and portable it is.
In my holiday ‘rainy day’ box I usually pack tape, scissors, a few fine liner pens or Sharpie pens and raid whatever watercolours, paints, cardboard or paper I can find to make game bits. Coffee stirrers are really handy and easy to come by, as are bits of stone etc.
Ignore the Artemis blurb … look at the picture. No artist credited. Invest in tiny tin men instead!
For the back drop, I found somebody’s leftover Saturday’s newspaper had an intriguing surrealist landscape advert. With a bit of camouflage (space palm tree cocktail stick stirrers from Tiger.com taped for weight to a spare dice behind gravel stones) to hide the outsize hunter figure, this folded over to form a surreal space backdrop for my improvised Away Team solo game.
For the melee sections I used the fast play Kaptain Kobold’s reduced dice version of Gerald De Gre’s duelling rules taken from Donald Featherstone’s Solo Wargaming.
I roll a dice to see which side – silver space marines versus red planet natives – are the Attackers, which the Defenders for the purposes of any Melee dice throws etc. if I ever forget. I use coloured dice for game counters for keeping track of hits (for speed each figure started a melee phase / round of only two combat or life points).
A pink flamingo cocktail stick marker marked out which side were the Attackers, another nod to a different famous Don Featherstone, inventor of the pink lawn flamingo. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Featherstone_(artist) Another d6 dice was rolled to see what the melee result was on the Kaptain Kobold d6 Dice Table dice table. The other spare dice was busy propping up the space palm trees.
Silver Space Marine Away Team versus the dancing Red Planet Native Defenders!
Who won, who lost? The Away Team Silver Space Marines or the Red Planet Native Defenders?
The result is future history …
I will finish on a close-up of the ‘profit hunter’ from the nonsensical Artemis advert, looking very much like the cavalry or cowboy ‘Rough Riders on Mars’ blog site. I should be able to mock this hunter figure up pretty easily in several scales using Prince August 40mm Holger Erickson cowboy Homecasts, Airfix or various 54mm and OO/HO cowboys.
This advert has great fun ‘alien desert’ terrain, easy to create from some of the more lurid plastic aquarium plants and terrain.
What a great hobby. How very Dr. Who! Which planet or time period next? Where to next?
A bit of light holiday paperback reading that I took along for rainy day reading, all Imagi-Nation gaming related, except for The Bronte Project book. This Bronte related quick read by Jennifer Vandever (‘romantic fiction’?) was one I picked out and read from amongst the ‘left behind’ selection of holiday books and magazines where I was staying.
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, on my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog, 1 June 2017.
Pound Store Plastic Warriors 