After a hiatus, I decided to start painting a new unit for the
Imaginations in 42mm project.
Over the years, I have bought up quite a lot of old toy soldiers through 2nd hand sites. Sometimes this is a ragtag collection of all sorts of strange figures, sometimes they fit together with figures from another lot, etc. Since my units are only 4 strong for cavalry, and 8 for infantry, it is not too difficult to compose coherent units.
One unit on the painting table now is this group of 4 flat cavalry figures. I prefer not to clean them up too throughly, since I want some of the characteristics of the old figure - including imperfections and the original colour scheme - to show through. I already painted the helmets in a new bronze, and their tunics in blue (they were blue, only a shiny blue with a white sash), when I realized I had to take a picture of their original condition. So here they are, although already handled a bit ;-) I also prefer to keep the original colour scheme as much as possible, since I feel you have to "respect" the toy soldier, and leave him in his intended state as much as possible. But that doesn't mean they will not get repainted completely, it simply means I respect the original colours as much as possible.
I have no idea of the original manufacturer, but I suspect they are not too old. They might even have been promotional figures. Judging by the glossy paints, they were probably repainted at some time during the last decades, but I am not entirely sure.
