Military Modeling Memories

[Carlos Figure Art]

Great thread Brian! You brought a name back that I haven't seen or heard of in many years, I was a Junior back then when I first saw the work of John Hunter, it blew me away, his armour and the scenery, best of all his figures and painted in oil paint! I use to take pictures of his work at shows with a holiday snap camera (nothing's changed : ) ) half of them were always missing when my parents use to collect the prints for me, or blurred (nothing's changed : ) ) his work was a massive inspiration to me, u wonder what happened to him, he just seamed to disappear?!

 

[Mirofsoft]

That's interesting. I have just gone through all my old MM's, some dating from 1974, prior to giving them away to a fellow modeller I pulled a few out to keep for Sudan articles, useful painting tips, and some nostalgia (e.g. My first ish, some bought at now defunct shops on my trips to London etc.). I mainly bought it for the show reports as prior to last year I never got to any. Now we have the net for that.

I enjoyed seeing the old ads for now passed on companies and shops. I also got the impression that the centre of the hobby was the US and UK. That changed in the 80's as France picked up and in the 90's as Italy and Spain grabbed the reins. After watching evolution of the mag, and factoring in other intel like this site, I now get the impression that the hobby in North America and the UK is on life support, which explains why MM redirected to armour (with its comparative suckiness for figure modellers). I too gave abstained since about 2010.

I already ditched my Wargames Monthly and Miniature Wargames mags. Now I have to go through all my old Campaigns, HMF, Tradition, Napoleon, EEL, Strategy & Tactics, Figurines etc. to see what is worth keeping. I have decided that After the Battle, Historex catalogues and Blue and Gray get kept. Not sure about The Civil War. Crap I have a lot of mags. Books and DVDs need scouring too.

Moving truly sucks but it does force one to some brutal home truths about squandering money on media with a limited shelf life from an interest perspective.

Colin

Hello Colin

In case you part with old catalogs ( out of production copanies ) I would be happy to scan them and put them on line for all to enjoy

 

[Colin_Fraser]

Hello Colin

In case you part with old catalogs ( out of production copanies ) I would be happy to scan them and put them on line for all to enjoy

No catalogues - sorry.

Colin

 

[badger]

I have been getting military modelling since 1973,i have the power cut issue which heralded the birth of my daughter melanie, and various others which relate to past events. but what I greatly miss is brian sherriff. closing down in Dundee,this was a goldmine of a shop which I went in every Saturday to see what I could and couldn't afford. and although its easy to buy on the internet,it will never replace going into a model shop and handling and buying your model.

 

[smudger1960]

Hi Carlos

John Hunter sadly passed away a couple of years ago,I met him a few times as he was a member of the Northants BMSS

 

[Tubby-Nuts2]

You've just made me realise how old i'm getting Brian.
Brian

Brian, this aspect surprises most of us!

In jest,

Mark

 

[Babelfish]

I was recently having a tidy up in my model room and was looking through some of my old Military Modeling Magazines which I collected for over 25 years from 1985 onwards,i have attached some photo's of one of the magazines dated December 1986,i chose this one because it has a 4 page report on the first Euro Militaire from that year,oh how the show has moved on since those days.

The whole hobby has moved on Brian! So many changes (mostly for the better). Not least the standard of the both painting and sculpting. The talent out there now is just phenomenal. Stuff that was getting Silver, Gold and even BoS 20 or 30 years ago might pick up a Commended now.

Another memorable thing for me was seeing all the old model and figure companies adverstisments,they really brought back some happy memories for me.

And not an e-mail address, web site or mobile number anywhere to be seen. How did we ever manage?!

Here we see the great Max Longhurst doing a painting demonstration,his historex conversion works were a big inspiration for me in the mid 1980s

Still a regular at Euro.

Sadly I ceased buying the magazine in 2010,it just didn't offer me anything interesting,it slowly began having less figure articles and more AFVs,no interesting articles or contributions by great modelers and when I see it in the shops now IMO it dosent hold up against the old ones.

It's rubbish now Brian. Certainly compared to what it used to be. I pick one up occasionally because I model AFVs as well, but it has definitely gone downhill in recent years. It even feels cheap when you hold it. I just keep the articles that interest me (systematically filed away in A4 display wallets in a very anally retentive manner!) and bin the rest.

I hope this brings back some happy memories,it certainly brought back some very happy memories for me.

I was away from the hobby for most of the '80s, in fact didn't really start dipping my toes again until the late '90s after attending my first Euro in 1998. But I like to look back over the history of the hobby and these are always fascinating to see both for nostalgia and to make comparisons. Thanks for the share, mate!

- Steve

 

[MCPWilk]

I wonder what happened to the moulds from some of those old figures?

Mike

 

[smudger1960]

The whole hobby has moved on Brian! So many changes (mostly for the better). Not least the standard of the both painting and sculpting. The talent out there now is just phenomenal. Stuff that was getting Silver, Gold and even BoS 20 or 30 years ago might pick up a Commended now.



And not an e-mail address, web site or mobile number anywhere to be seen. How did we ever manage?!



Still a regular at Euro.



It's rubbish now Brian. Certainly compared to what it used to be. I pick one up occasionally because I model AFVs as well, but it has definitely gone downhill in recent years. It even feels cheap when you hold it. I just keep the articles that interest me (systematically filed away in A4 display wallets in a very anally retentive manner!) and bin the rest.



I was away from the hobby for most of the '80s, in fact didn't really start dipping my toes again until the late '90s after attending my first Euro in 1998. But I like to look back over the history of the hobby and these are always fascinating to see both for nostalgia and to make comparisons. Thanks for the share, mate!

- Steve

Yes Steve,I have to agree,the standards are so high now and the quality is awesome,however I still like to look back and remember the great days in the early 80s when I started figure painting

 

[Ray Stout]

Me too Brian, does anyone remember Campaigns Mag. Much better than MM.

 

[smudger1960]

I remember it Ray but i never brought any,wish i had now

 

[OldTaff]

Campaigns was very well produced and outshone MM in many respects. I think well-known[at the time] collector Philip O. Stearns was behind it, along with many luminaries of the Model Soldier world at that time. I used to get it, but long ago extracted the articles and pictures I wanted to keep, and chucked the rest. This was because of house moves, always a time of drastic discarding for us.

 

[badger]

I managed to get a couple of campaigns mags from America,i wanted to read an article in one of them on how to paint a dappled horse. when I got them I felt like I was an international modeller, I was expanding my horizons ha ha./badger

 

[ellie]

Got the Full set of Campaigns mag still look through them to this day lots of good stuff in them I think you can still pick them up on ebay from time to time. I stopped buying MM years ago loved it back in the day when you had some great stuff on figures in it. sad it's gone the way it has.

Ian

www.elliesminiatures.com

 

[Helm]

I miss watching my dad paint figures and reading the mag with him, I miss that a lot
Steve

 

[tomifune]

The whole hobby has moved on Brian! So many changes (mostly for the better). Not least the standard of the both painting and sculpting. The talent out there now is just phenomenal. Stuff that was getting Silver, Gold and even BoS 20 or 30 years ago might pick up a Commended now.
- Steve

Shep said a few years back that his stuff wouldn't even get a bronze paint wise in competetion.

Bob

 

[Colin_Fraser]

Shep said a few years back that his stuff wouldn't even get a bronze paint wise in competetion.

Bob

Shep is humble and wrong IMO.

 

[DEL]

Following on from this thread I decided to have a further trawl through the articles I cut from MM years ago.
Came across a couple of excellent ones by Gary Jocelyn the best being a conversion of a Polish officer in training in the Scottish Highlands.These were the sort of articles that engaged and inspired.
Sadly I think Gary Jocelyn died a few years back at a relatively young age.

 

[DEL]

Following on from this thread I decided to have a further trawl through the articles I cut from MM years ago.
Came across a couple of excellent ones by Gary Jocelyn the best being a conversion of a Polish officer in training in the Scottish Highlands.These were the sort of articles that engaged and inspired.
Sadly I think Gary Jocelyn died a few years back at a relatively young age.

 

[Ybrossculpts]

I was recently having a tidy up in my model room and was looking through some of my old Military Modeling Magazines which I collected for over 25 years from 1985 onwards,i have attached some photo's of one of the magazines dated December 1986,i chose this one because it has a 4 page report on the first Euro Militaire from that year,oh how the show has moved on since those days.


Another memorable thing for me was seeing all the old model and figure companies adverstisments,they really brought back some happy memories for me.

The Best of Show at the first Euro was a 54mm Napoleonic by Bruno Leibovitz titled - Kellerman,a beautifully painted figure and sculpted by himself.
View attachment 192770
Another fine model was by the late John Hunter of Northants BMSS titled - Panzers on the Flank which won him the AFV class.
View attachment 192771

Here we have the late Mike Taylor receiving one of his many awards that year from the BMSS president Roy Dilley

View attachment 192772

Here we see the great Max Longhurst doing a painting demonstration,his historex conversion works were a big inspiration for me in the mid 1980s

View attachment 192774

Here we see some of the beautiful German AFVs by Tony Greenland

View attachment 192775

And finaly some of the old advertisments from companies of years gone by past and present

View attachment 192776View attachment 192777View attachment 192778View attachment 192779View attachment 192780View attachment 192781View attachment 192782View attachment 192783View attachment 192784View attachment 192785View attachment 192786View attachment 192787View attachment 192788

Another nice thing back then was the painting tutorials you got each month,a step by step guide to oil painting,i found this really useful

View attachment 192789

Sadly I ceased buying the magazine in 2010,it just didn't offer me anything interesting,it slowly began having less figure articles and more AFVs,no interesting articles or contributions by great modelers and when I see it in the shops now IMO it dosent hold up against the old ones.

I hope this brings back some happy memories,it certainly brought back some very happy memories for me.

Brian

I've got that same issue, certainly brings back the memories.