Airfix Ancient Britons

[Captain Blood]

To add to the colour spectrum……and give me many pleasurable memories…..
Robin hoods were sherwood green (natch), sherriffs men grey, hussars were cream, astronauts were white, foreign legion were dark blue, Arabs were cream, guards colour party and band were red.  Tarzans, all the animal sets and zoo sets  were cream.  Cowboys were cream, high chaparral and wagon train were brown, Indians brown, and seventh cavalry were blue.  ACW were blue and grey, but the artillery was brown.  The WW1 sets were coloured like the WW2 sets, except the horse artillery were brown, and all the later sets, like aircraft ground crew, came out in cream….
Thanks for the memory jogger.  Love it!

Peculiarly, my Guards colour party (possibly the most boring Airfix set ever?) were in bright red plastic, but the Guards marching band was in a ghastly pale pink. God knows why.

My High Chapparal set was dark chocolate brown, but yes, cowboys, indians and wagon train were all in that kind of brick red-brown - like the ancient Britons in fact!

(Sorry Cubs, for derailing your thread, but such an inviting rabbit hole you have opened )

[Harry Faversham]

Airfix Arabs came in white plastic. We spent many happy hours building forts and buildings out of empty Weetabix boxes. Valiant deeds of derring-do took place on the buff coloured army blanket that passed for our Sahara desert.

 

[Cubs]

I remember the British Waterloo dudes all being yellow, but I've also have them in red plastic (I have some yellow and some red Highlanders upstairs now), so they didn't keep to the same plastic over the years. These Ancient Britons are brown, soft scaggy plastic.

[FierceKitty]

Oh, the memories all this conjures up...after I spent all that time and money in therapy to recover!

[2010sunburst]

I think the yellow cream stuff became more common over the years.  It was probably raw plastic without added pigment so was cheaper…..might be wrong thought…..sadly I ditched all of mine in the first lockdown (probably a couple of thousand, mostly unpainted) because I needed the space.  I sold a couple of unused boxed sets, still on the sprue, but that was more hassle than it was worth.  Apart from the platform accessories kit in the original window box, they went for a good few quid  . Don’t remember Arabs in white though, only astronauts.  They look better than the cream ones I had….

[has.been]

La Haye Sainte play set was definitely the best Christmas gift ever.

I preferred the Roman fort, but then Ancients always was my favourite.

[SteveBurt]

My ancient Britons were grey, I think they changed to brown in the 70s. Romans were also grey but newer ones acquired with the fort were red.
The older figures suffered badly from brittle plastic syndrome and disintegrated

[Harry Faversham]

Thought this might be going a tad too far, but then again, he's genuinely 'ancient'!
Airfix toy sowjer from the dawn of time...

 

[Cubs]

(Sorry Cubs, for derailing your thread, but such an inviting rabbit hole you have opened )

Look, I'm the one who opened Pandora's magic box of Airfix nostalgia, so I can't really whinge at what is unleashed.

[Plynkes]

Airfix Arabs came in white plastic.

Mine were in a rather garish yellow.


Pretty much all my HO/OO Napoleonics were yellow too, except the grey Prussians (and maybe the French Guard, can't quite remember). This would not stand, so young Plynkes had to paint them. The French became blue, 3/4 of the Brits were red and the rest were green (even in those pre-Sharpe days, little Plynkes thought Riflemen were the coolest thing going in Napoleonics).

And when I say they were painted, I mean just solid blocks of colour. Brits all red or green, and French all-blue. This system had one thing going for it, it didn't take very long. Some would say my painting has become more sophisticated and subtle since those days, some wouldn't... 

[Captain Blood]

 

[2010sunburst]

  +1

[Cubs]

I've put some slightly better photos in the first two posts now.

Okay, so the kneeling dudes next. I never liked these back in the day, but as with many things (cheese for example) I have come to appreciate them better over time. Just look at the versatility of these guys, without any sort of physical conversion at all! Because the detail of the sculpt is quite shallow, using just paint you have three very different looking dudes by colouring outside the lines.

The first one is the virgin model as depicted, with iron cap. The second one I've painted with a bronze Gallic style helmet, with cheek pieces and a brow ridge, just by painting over the face. I've also given him a mail shirt (tiny little silvery dots - lots of them!). The third guy has lime-spiked hair, woad body paint and arm torcs. I've shown the back of the models as well this time, so you can see the different designs in their tunics and trews.

[armchairgeneral]

Superb painting 

[has.been]

Superb painting 

Plus one to that.