"800 painted Hinchliffe ECW figures ." Topic

This is the result of a pretty intensive 8 months collecting and painting Hinchliffe English Civil War figures. The video is a bit shaky in places as I move the camera around and refocus, but please bear with it for the close ups. I doubt that I will add any more figures now so it seemed a good time to lay everything out together and to record them before re-boxing them up.

Started in May 2017 the project was intended to replace the collection I sold off in 1979/80 as a young printing apprentice living in a Blackheath bedsit and finding myself short on the rent. Those went to John Tunstill at his shop 'Soldiers' in Lambeth SE London a generous offer from the tall, well spoken proprietor whom I have described as having something of the Edward Fox abut him. It was ironically my first visit to John's shop whilst still at school and on a trip to the Imperial War Museum that I first encountered the wonderful world of model soldiers that has continued to fascinate me to this day, so I dedicate this collection to him.

Lee.

YouTube video.

YouTube link

Well, I wouldn't worry too much about the odd shaky bit – very impressive!

I doff my plumed hat to you

Very nice indeed! I like the big foot bases, I do something similar myself. Splendid to recreate your old collection.

Well done, sir! Well done. Very inspiring and your story made me remember my visit to Soldiers as well. I am slowly going through my first painted units and wincing at the skill level or lack there of and repainting and touching up but I count myself lucky I still have them. You recreating your collection is inspiring!

Thanks for sharing!

Beautifully done, especially when considering you painted an average of 100 figures per month.

Beautiful and a great dedication as well.

Holy cow! Talk about a production schedule.

Splendid! I owned Hinchcliffe ECW myself, decades ago. Now I see what can be done with them by an expert.

Many thanks for all the comments, much appreciated as the collection is my pride and joy.

BigRedBat, I follow the progress of your own ECW project on your excellent blog, it is very inspiring with some fine painting and unique basing.

I have mentioned this before, but most of the horse units I bought ready painted via Ian Hinds of Hinds Figures Ltd, being less fashionable Hinchliffes I paid on average the princly sum of about £3.00 GBP each cavalry figure. All arrived incredible dirty, but a good clean up with a brush and water bought out some amazingly bright detail and skilled painting so I kept on buying as many as I could afford, the results you see below :)

This is an early photo comparing figures as they arrived and after a good clean up, the colours are so much more vibrant and the level of detail improved dramatically. I suspect I would have had to pay considerably more per figure had Ian known how well they would clean up! I would estimate I bought about 200 of these horse, all in the same dirty state. I stripped them off the bases, matched them into units, repainted where required then satin varnished and re based them.

And some stills of the collection yesterday:

Excellent! Is that based using Coat d'arms Brushcape Grass Green?

Mollinary

Hello Andrew, I'm sure you know it's Lee here who painted many 6mm ancients for you a few years back? Love your 10mm ECW project, nothing like big units of pike and shot!

I wanted to go with a retro 'filler' basing style so it's good old Polyfiller with added PVA gule and vallejo medium Olive plus fine grit. Once dry its drybrushed with vallejo Lemon Yellow. First time I have reverted to the old school basing in 30 odd years, bit of a pain to do but fits the retro them I hope.

All the best,

Lee.

Hi Lee,

Yes, of course I recognised you. I still rate you the best 6mm painter In the business! That basing looks so much like my 10mm I was instantly attracted to it. I will need to look out Vallejo Medium Olive, it looks a very close match. I am currently busy resurrecting my 1990s 15mm 7YW armies, rebasing them using the Baccus basing system. A lot of fun!

I must also say I applaud the neatness and symmetry of the project. :-)

What a lovely retro project. Very impressive.

A superb collection. Shows how far ahead Hinchcliffe were at the time. Peter Gilder was a fine sculptor, probably responsible for a lot of these figures. I had around 600 Napoleonic figures, which I foolishly sold in the 1980s. I did start to rebuild the force a few years ago, but lack your dedication and have now abandoned it in favour of 15mm and 10mm.

glorious!

thank you for sharing.

it's quite inspirational.

Interesting to see how many of us have sold off collections that we regret.

glad to see you could do this.

I sold off a Byzantine army to a gent who already had a Hun army. I regret it to this day. Love the ECW army!

For me it simply oozes nostalgia. I too had a Hinchliffe ECW Royalist army which I sold at Vapnartak a few years ago. I hope it is still giving someone a lot of pleasure, as much as looking at these splendid figures gives me now.

Thanks again for all of the supportive comments above, and I'm glad the vintage nature of the figures is appreciated. English Civil War research has moved on considerably since Peter Gilder designed this range in the late Seventies, but I still love 'em! I should add that the inspiration for this collection came from being able to watch for the first time the old Tyne Tees TV series 'Battleground' and especially the Edgehill episode.I thought the Hinchliffes were beautiful.I had been searching for this series for over 30 years before Doug C uploaded it to youtube.

YouTube link

Oh my those are absolutely beautiful……..

Awesome inspired work. Feast for the eye.