Polishing a turd

[Doc Twilight]

Svenn, old friend, I believe you've managed to make a very passable mini out of this one.

Dave Alsop's loss really hurt Old Glory. It's quite obvious that they never recovered. Their Marlburian range is still quite nice, though the molds are getting old, and the castings can't be doing well because of it.

Believe it or not, these can be polished, though I often doubt that it's worth the effort. A recent addition to our gaming group has been working on a Span Am project for years, sort of his dream collection. When he started it, he tried unsuccessfully to get a regular and reliably consistant product from Honorable Lead Boiler Suit, and the only viable alternative was Old Glory, which has a very large Spanish-American War range in 28mm. Amazingly, and I don't envy him the work required at all, he has put together a collection of absolutely beautiful stuff. Even did some head swaps and conversions to represent troop types he couldn't otherwise get. Everything from the Cazadores to the Krupp guns is just... gorgeous. And unless you know Old Glory enough to identify their six or so standard poses, you wouldn't guess they're OG. He says if he were to do it again, he'd consider doing it in another scale simply because of the pain it was to clean them all up.

My own personal OG horror story happened in early 2003, when I was working on a "group project" for the Mexican-American War to be put on at Historicon, 2003. The battle of Monterrey, specifically, with approximately 30,000 men involved historically. As so often happens, about half way through the process, and precariously close to the convention, two of my three partners bailed out on the project. A third got very busy with family stuff, but did what he could. Which left me painting roughly 1,000 figures (I believe the number is just under - 996, something like that), all of them Old Glory 28s. (I wanted to do First Corps MAW, but the group chose Old Glory for reasons of economy). It was a -nightmare-. The figures were covered with flash, most of the swords, lances, and bayonets were broken, and there were bits of mold stuck in and around many of the figures. I think I nearly had a nervous breakdown.

Somehow, with the aid of medication and Mina, I was able to get them done just a weekend before Historicon. Not bad, all told - I'm proud of most of those paintjobs. Of course, the computer program we were using to run the game crashed about halfway through, making the battle a true disaster. On the other hand, it inspired me to write my own MAW rules, which I recently published, so not all bad, I guess.

I recently converted the whole lot to 15mm - easier to deal with in most gaming situations - and the OG figs were used as painting references by the professional painter I had do them up;) I'm still sitting on them, in case we have a sudden financial emergency that requires an infusion of funds. Given that they're Old Glory figs, though, I'll probably be lucky to get unpainted prices for them..

-Doc

[Bugsda]

A wise man once said " life's too short to paint Old Glory ", It must have been a zen exercise or something.

A good job but in the end, futile.

[Hammers]

...I'll have to send some turds your way for a polish  .

Brrr, bad mental image...

[Axebreaker]

Well actually it's only the 25/28mm that is the real hit and miss and so I don't bother at all to buy these,but their 15mm are pretty good and worth investing IMHO.

Your paint job of the turd is very nice btw.

Christopher

[sepoy1857]

I quite like it Svenn; Well done! Where is that banner from!? Very nice indeed. Nothing like battling a horde of colourfullly dressed Chinese wielding swords and polearms...

[Svennn]

Thanks for the comments chaps. I have got ten of these done now and am starting to think they will look more than passable as a unit of thirty so they may all get finished after all

The flag is from TVAG, I unfortunately had run out of the designs in a more suitable colour.

Svennn

[Bako]

Lion stool polishes best.

[Galloping Major]

Lion stool polishes best.

And keeps foxes away 



www.gallopingmajorwargames.com

[chicklewis]

Wow, you guys are such a pack of Toffee-Nosed Elitists !!

I really like most of the Old glory figures, and they are SUCH good value that we use them at the Bengal Club all the time.  With the Old Glory Army discount of 40% the foot 28mm figures are only $0.65 each.  And SOMEBODY in the Bengal club is always a member of the Old Glory Army.  They paint up dandy and quick, and look fine on the table, though perhaps not in super-closeup photos. 

I have even grown to LOVE the poses with heads turned around to the side, shouting to their friends. 

At Historicon I purchased 24 painted Old glory German Colonials and 24 OG French Colonial Marines and they look great.  I'm basing them now. 

Some of the OG ranges have extremely nice sculpting.  My favorite unit of all time is a large batch of their Fantasy African Warriors.  OG made me a special purchase of one of the 'face' shield types so all 60 of the different poses could carry the same shield.  And our Buddy Rudy Geudens made that possible by selling me one each of all the poses from his bags.  Thanks again for that, Rudy. 

Chick

[Malamute]

Wow, you guys are such a pack of Toffee-Nosed Elitists !!

I think fudge is more appropriate under the circumstances don't you

[Captain Blood]

Wow, you guys are such a pack of Toffee-Nosed Elitists !!

Arr. That be fightin' talk, shipmate...

Like I said before, I've seen some nice OG figures - specifically some of the Pathans.
But I've also had two large bags from two different OG 28mm ranges with so many fundamentally crap figures - anatomically hopeless, weird poses, crudely sculpted, and just plain badly cast and misshapen - that over half the figures in each bag were literally unusable.

Yes, they're cheap. But if they aren't usable - so what?  I wouldn't call that good value.

Is it being toffee-nosed and elitist to say that the product quality is just not good enough compared to what most manufacturers are turning out these days?

Chick, if they work for you, that's all that matters. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You like them, and I understand you not liking people criticising them.

But where I've personal experience to call something out as poor quality, then I think it's fair enough.

No offence.

 

Richard

[Lurkalot]

You cant polish a turd . But you can roll it in glitter 

[Doc Twilight]

You cant polish a turd . But you can roll it in glitter 

Going to resist the urge to make a Sarah Palin or Amy Winehouse joke here... ok. Almost;)

-Doc

[chicklewis]

Captain Blood wrote:  "But I've also had two large bags from two different OG 28mm ranges with so many fundamentally crap figures - anatomically hopeless, weird poses, crudely sculpted, and just plain badly cast and misshapen - that over half the figures in each bag were literally unusable."

Really sorry to hear it.  I have not had that experience.  Were these recent bags?  Hope OG is not using old molds well past their retirement date.  That would be a quick road to lousy quality. 

I'm happy for anybody to call quality as they see it, but I feel somebody should wave a flag for a manufacturer that I admire and value. 

Apologies if anyone was seriously offended by being labeled a toffee-nosed elitist.   

[carlos marighela]

LOL. All comes down to a matter of taste. OG does some useful guns and some bits and bobs nobody else does but frankl if I'm handing over cash for lead they would be somewhere near the bottom of my list. Actually I'd like to see a round of the painting comp where you could only enter a selected figure from OG, Irregular or Tiger. Make the buggers work for their glory.