The year 1990 found me found me strapped for cash despite holding down a full-time job, so for a while I used what I'd learnt so far about making wargames buildings to eke things out. I made models for several well-known wargamers at that time, and found out that some people could be very fickle about what they wanted, yet quite assertive about how much they wanted to pay. And everything took me much longer than I had expected, because I wanted to finish it to my own standard regardless of payment.
One customer who didn't mess me about was AWI gamer John Ray, and here's some photos he took of two models I built for him, based on contemporary line drawings of a house and a church of that time. I think John supplied some castings for the windows, and the figures shown are his own. Otherwise the building methods are what I've described before: card, balsa, Wills plastic sheets and model railway fencing. I wouldn't make the same choices now with all the methods and colours you see here, but there's no learning without trial and error.
The tree and hedge foliage is rubberised horsehair, teased apart and sprayed black, with leaves added from dyed cork granules. Don't worry if that sounds a bit obscure! I have been improving this technique over many years and I will explain it properly in future posts, hopefully a tutorial as such. I recently built new trees for my own table in two batches. I was a bit fed up of trees in the end to be honest, but I've got 50-odd nice ones made, reasonably quickly and cheaply too.
More magnificent pieces, John. I agree that wargamers can be a frugal lot.
ReplyDeleteGreat work once more John. I can imagine earning a living from this sort of work would be impossible. I find it hard enough to part with my hard earned money for figures - I have virtually no commercially made scenery - not because I dont think the modern mdf kits are great looking buildings, I just dont want to pay that much for a backdrop! It always astonishes me that there are people out there who regularly pay to get their armies painted - I have seen £8 per infantry figure quoted, which seems incredible to me - who has £1000 per small army to shell out on top of the cost of the figures - some people do though, obviously!
ReplyDeleteThere is a substantial minority of wargamers who are happy to pay £8 and £10 for a nicely painted figure, and considering the time it would take (an hour plus?) I think that's cheap labour. I have always painted my own figures, but used to have a friend who said he found it too boring and preferred to put in overtime at work and use the money to pay someone else to do it. These days some people are poor in terms of money and others have enough money but are poor in terms of leisure time, so friendly deals are struck.
DeleteYes indeed - I am definitely in the former camp - although hardly poor, I would rather spend the money on figures and paint them myself. I certainly concur with the economics - I have a friend painting here in Auckland who does a very nice job and charges around $10 (£5) per figure. He has two or three repeat clients and just spends all day every day painting figures, which provides him with enough income to live on - not a bad life but as you say, $10 an hour is half our minimum wage, so the labour is pretty cheap when viewed in those terms!
DeleteYou're right. As well as disparities of wealth, there's maybe another factor here. Some people are happy painting figures all day. They put their music on or whatever and paint away all day. I couldn't do that. To me it's boring painting my own figures, albeit a means to an end.
DeleteBTW I meant to say - that rubberised horsehair is used to fill mattresses or something I believe? A friend has some trees he purchased from the UK using that technique and they look fantastic
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteI remember our many meetings with fondness where I would collect the AWI buildings you made for me.
I still treasure the models you made. My only regret is that I wish I had commissioned more from you. They are delightful pieces to own....Thank You
Kindest Regards
John
It's very nice to hear from you John. Glad you are still going strong, and thankyou for your kind remarks. I do remember in particular a very pleasant trip to your house in maybe 2002, where it was great to see your AWI-based collections. I'm glad you found my new blog, and plan a lot more content which should be of interest. Do you have any sort of internet presence these days? If I remember rightly, you had a blog or website for a while but then took it down?
DeleteYes, John I remember your visit and meeting you at shows to collect models...wonderful memories.
ReplyDeleteStill have the Blog and 18th Century Forum.
The blog Phil was kind enough to create for me prior to the AMG book.
Blog amilitarygentleman.blogspot.com
Regards
John
Found it now, thanks, and saved for a proper look later. It all looks lovely and colourful.
DeleteSmashing images of a gorgeous collection. Added to my Links. Am I missing something though, though? The blog seems to have numerous posts over recent months, but nothing prior to that other than the one in 2013 when it was set up?
DeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteI flit in and out of blog posting. I delete old posts. The blog is not a journal/record of my hobby but a number of random postings.
Best Wishes
John
I see now. People do their blogs in all different ways, as I'm learning!
Delete