Saturday 24 July 2010

The Beginning

I blame Airfix! Not only are they responsible for developing my love of aircraft, but also exposing me to the frustration and pleasure of construction kits, paint and glue. Even my continued passion for figure modelling was down to Airfix, with the soft styrene 1/72 and 1/32 figures along with the 54mm hard plastic construction kits. I believe it has green credentials too, as I suspect it has become the most common form of loft insulation of the 40 something’s today!

Airfix loft insulation

It wasn’t until the early 70’s I discovered the fascinating yet older concept of miniatures in metal. Buying Minifigs was akin to a modern day pick ‘n’ mix sweet shop, walking away with a pocket money load in the little card boxes , and if the ranks of Minifigs where too neat and tidy there was always Hinchliffe to provide a more varied approach in figure design and style.

Minifigs


Hinchliffe


It was on one of these not so local trips to buy Minifigs that I first encountered even larger scale (54mm) Lead miniatures. I remember a range of Lasset Miniatures (by the prolific John Tassel) lined up on a shelf looking elegant and statuesque with their neat pre applied undercoat and smart blue boxes, but alas unfortunately out of my price range at the time.

Lasset


And so it all began !

2 comments:

  1. Airfix is where a lot of us began way way back then (I´m not saying when for me :-D )
    Cheers
    Paul

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes! and I still can't stop buying them! :-D

    ReplyDelete