"Helen of Toy Diorama" Topic

Hey Friends
I have had an urge to paint up a diorama of the Helen of Toy, American Revolution set. I am thinking 25/28mm scale but for the life of me, I cannot seem to find any kneeling, firing, regulars. Does anybody have any suggestions?
Thanks
Chris

Wargames Foundry makes a nice set for the British. Could also be painted as Continentals.

link

1/72 scale plastics have those poses.

Good luck with your project, but I would not use the box as a uniform guide.

Have you tried eBay to see if that set is out there?
"Gasp! It's a COLLECTIBLE!"
Never mind.

John

I have a full set of the plastics but they are purely for nastalgic reasons, I don't want to use them. I think many pre-wargamers were mesmerized by this advertisment picture, I was. So I want to duplicate it as closely as I can.

I will check out the plastics. I wish i was doing a few years ago when I was selling the Trident 40's. Oh well.

Chris

Old Glory has an entire pack of standing and kneeling firing.
Made right in this country.

I used to have that set! I was in kindergarten at the time. They were almost flats and hard plastic. You definitely had to set them up on a sturdy, perfectly flat table to enable them to stand up. I remember trying to set them up on a TV tray and did not have a lot of luck. $1.98 USD was probably overpriced. I wonder what I did with them? Wow! Thanks for the post. I am way too old!

OLD GLORY

Can you post the pack number for me? I did go there right off but couldn't find a pack I liked and of course there are not a lot of pictures.

TY

Greenknight, AWI 14.
Send me your address and I will send you a pack.
I remember getting that exact comic book set as a kid.
I was just crushed with disappointment as I waited weeks for their arrival thinking they would match the quality of my Marx men and that the add was a true representation of what I would receive. LOL.

Russ Dunaway

As a young man in England l used to drool over these and the other Helen of Toy stuff in various US comics, l am so glad l wasn't able to order any, l am sure the disappointment would have put me off playing with toy soldiers forever!

I loved those ads as a kid but never saw the actual toy soldiers. How was the quality?

As mentioned above, I was 5 years old when I owned them. As I remember, they were very brittle hard plastic, still poses, almost flats that they did not stand up easily. I had to use great care (at 5 years of age) to get them to stand up in a line and avoid knocking them over like dominoes as I added each soldier to the line. I think the detail was pretty crisp. You have to remember this was the beginning of the age of mass-produced plastics hard or soft. The green army men I had about the same time of my life were better. I really liked the "rubber-plastic" Pershing tanks I had the best. They were not from a comic book ad.

Berzerker73, the quality was about the same as Spencer-Smith plastics (These are the later, 3D figures. They were originally hard plastic flats.)

link

Thank you, gisbygeo, for the link to the other ads. I never saw the ad showing the actual figures. Now the Fighting Ships and the Task Force ships I also had. They were pretty nice waterline ship figures. The only thing on the Fighting Ships that I did not like was that the aircraft figure was way too big to scale to the rest of the ships. It was a cold-war era angled deck carrier and was twice or more the size of the battleship. The Task Force carriers were WWII era ships the same size as the battleships which I felt was a little small but not bad. I held onto those ships well into adulthood. I wish I had kept them all. I have searched for ships like them from time to time, but never found any other than metal and I did not want to paint a fleet.
Thanks again for the link!

Wow! Not too long ago I learned where to find pictures of the Sears catalogue with the Marx Civil War set that I got for Christmas when I was 12 and now I get to see the comic book ads for the toy soldiers I had when I was 5. The nostalgia I am enjoying lately! Thank you to all!

Is this what you mean by TV tray?

link

It's to put things on while you watch TV and not to put the TV on?

It's a nifty idea.

Russ Dunaway

Thank you for your offer. I sent you a message through your Facebook page with info. Thank you, very kind gesture and I know I will be buying more.

I do have alot of your troops now along with Chris' 40mm goodies.

Chris

Au pas de Charge, the tray I was referring to looked more like the one in the link below:
link
the one that is an advertisement of the King Sized tray. Ours was not king sized but the same shape and we used it for eating a meal in front of TV occasionally or playing with a toy, etc. They folded up for easy storage and we had a set of 4, as I recall (Mom, Dad, my brother and myself).

Didn't have those, but had Marx from Sears and Roebucks, still have them, even painted some up for a diorama of the Concord North Bridge. I get those out of my parent's garage, afraid to find out what condition it is, suspect it needs to be redone, and the painting could likely be better at a minimum. Wow, doing up 54mm would be quite the hoot. Need to get back to my 40mm!

The Marx were masterpieces. These were not lol

I played with my set in the dirt in the backyard when I was 5. I have a handful around although those were acquired many years later.

I played with them for quite a few years too. I recall using rubber band guns and my Johnn7 on them as well. For a 6 year old they were great.

like I said earlier in this post. I awaited with bated breath for these to arrive laboring under the misunderstanding that they would match my various and many Marx soldiers. I had 9 brothers and every Christmas and some birthdays we each got a Marx set ---so they were indeed plentiful and many repeats.
One of my favorites was the AWI so I was believing these would bring in more pose varieties-- even as a child I was pose variant driven.
I don't think I ever used mine.
I would just stare at the add though.

Russ Dunaway

Russ

You nailed it. It was all about the add :)

Dirt bombs. That's the real tactical skill.

John

Dirt bobs were great but I found I lost a lot of guys buried for ever :(

Something to puzzle archaeologists in 2000 years.
Religious cult objects? Grave goods?
Toys? Naaah.

I used my BB gun and many soldiers were beheaded and limbs were lost, oh the toymanity.

Somebody posted a parody ad of NYC street gangs several years ago on the Utter Drivel board. It even had a kneeling firing guy from the above ad in it… ;-)

I could use some help figuring out the Brits. They appear to be Hessian. Since I want to try to make this true to the add not to history I probably should use fusilier helmuts. Any thoughts.

oh also a single train cannon true?

Chris;
I would say use an ACW 6pdr with the single trail. Maybe a British 9pdr from the Napoleonic line…

And I'd look at using FIW British with mitres. Or you could just paint Hessians in red…

I mean… it's an advert for Helen of Toy. And I think it's a lovely idea.

Eric

Ok I am just blown away by this hobby and the generosity of its members.

Russ from Old Glory just sent me enough minis to do the entire comic page exc. the British grenadiers.

He sent me standing and kneeling soldiers, command both foot and mounted and a full gun and crew.

And these weren't packs like you would get if you placed an order but in plastic bags, showing they were hand picked.

WOWZA

I have always enjoyed their product but this – well it is just amazing. I hope to meet him some day.

Thank you, now where are my paints :)

Russ is one of the Good Guys.

I just couldn't resist.

Here are the "mericans" as Wally Simon used to call them. Pardon the coctail glass but…

Last post sorry

I am going with the split trail gun in honor of Old Glory.

As I recall, the cannons in the HoT set had the split trail, so only the ad picture is inaccurate… ;-)

Those 'mericans might be in trouble with those 5 Brit cannons up on the hill in the background. ; )

ouch yup

And I just noticed their are some Native Americans helping the Brits.

#GamesPoet

I did too, I will deal with those later though if anybody has 3 lying around?

Here is a quick pick of the "merican" side ready for priming.

I quick update after three hours of paining.

Basic colors are all blocked in on a white primer.

I have set up a blog post on my page for a good recap with all the pictures from start to finish.

Chris

link

I got their WWII set eons ago. They were flat plastic on a small base as part of the molding. Even as an eight year old I was disappointed with them.

Good job, Russ and Connie! You folks have been leaders in our hobby world for a long time.

#Normal Guy

You got that right

Friends

A quick update number two.

"merricans" are nearly done. I posted two pictures and some more updates on my blog.

By the way, i need three Indian figures with muskets if anybody has some kicking around :) if so drop me a PM here.

Thanks

Chris

link

My only Indians are in 40mm. ; )