eBay Coup - Crescent 5.5 field gun

Dipping my toe in the whole eBay auction shenanigans - and I managed to get what I think is a good deal. I won the following item for just £2 plus postage...

It's a die cast Crescent 5.5 gun (No. 1251), which I believe may be roughly compatible with 1/32 figures (?). While being a modern artillery piece (based on the WW2 British 5.5 inch gun) I have bought it as a bit of a poor man's Britain's 4.7 inch gun. It is designed to fire projectiles and is - according to the eBay description - in working order.

Now Crescent was a British manufacturer that shut shop in 1980, although I can't seem to remember them from when I was a kid (Corgi, Dinky and Britains were the ones I can recall). But they seem to be  fairly well sought after on eBay so I was glad to grab this one at such a reasonable price.

As for use, I intend to 'Victorianize' it by adding a (removable) shield and some period looking wheel covers (like those on the Britain's 4.7). Nothing irreparable, all of which I could remove to get it back to it's original configuration should I want to. Painting is another thing - do I or don't I?

Hopefully it will look OK with my AIP Egyptians.

Link: Crescent die cast guns, tanks & trucks at Planet Die Cast

Featured work - Tim's Retro Toy Soldiers

Tim Gow - from over at the MegaBlitz Blog - has posted up an item that has made me realize that painting military models doesn't have to be all about 'rivet counting' or coming up with an amazing new way to render realsistic looking rust - he has painted some fantastic retro-style Cossack toy soldiers...

If you are my age you may remember with much fondness no doubt the painted soldiers made by the Britains company of the UK, these followed in the fine tradition of hand painted toy soldiers which stemmed from Victorian times. I had a small collection of these myself (British Grenadiers) and always aspired to have a big army, sadly this never happened.

(One of my inspirations was the film 'Young WInston' [1972] in the scene where Churchill as a boy marshalled a large collection of toy British colonial troops in his bedroom.)

Tim's painting style mimics this antique method of painting soldiers down to the gloss finish and look authentically Victorian in their turn out. These figures seem to be for a historical-fantasy game based on a 'Ruratania' type fictional European conflict from the turn of the 20th century (apologies if I have got that wrong Tim), but they look splendidly authentic all the same.

I am very tempted to have a go at this style myself - if I can come up with a suitable theme (I am a Steampunk fan so have a couple of ideas).

Tim Gow's MegaBlitz Blog: Quick Steppe