A. Because
everyone would spend their lives getting drunk and having
indiscriminate sex too often and not EVER tidying up.
The human race would have died of dirt and disease before
anyone got around to discovering penicillin or the wheel.
Q. If there is a loving God why does He permit
evil?
A. My
son believes it is because He gets bored. Can we have
some some slightly less Frequently Asked Questions now?
Q. These internet addresses could be anywhere.
What state are you in?
A. Not
bad, all things considered. My back aches sometimes.
Q. No, what STATE. Of the Union.
A. None.
I live in England, which is a small country comprising
about 50% of the landmass of a largish island off Europe.
Not to be confused with New England, which has central
heating, proper showering facilities, ridiculously cheap
fuel, food and booze, and which is a part of the USA.
Q. How did you first come to make military figurines?
A. Once
upon a time I was a freelance graphic designer. No-one
ever calls in a freelance unless they are in a corner,
so I spent a lot of nights frantically working for 9am
deadlines. In the early hours of one morning I raised
my burning eyes, and saw the words ‘Sod this for
a game of soldiers’ form themselves in shimmering
script on the wall opposite. So I took it as an omen.
Q. Have you ever thought of doing ‘girlie’
figures and the like?
A. Oh
yes, but as soon as I start on the research I become overcome
with lust and can’t concentrate on the sculpting.
Q. Why don’t you do a model of a Ruritanian
Horse Marine? (or insert unusual figurine of choice ).
No-one else does.
A. There’s
a reason for that.
Q. What size are the original sculptures?
A. The
same size as you see them.
Q. How do you get such detail into your work?
A. Hours,
days and weeks of obsessive toil, aided by a complete
lack of a social life, and a largely meatless diet.
Q. What tools do you use?
A. A
jeweller’s eyeglass, scalpel blades, a piece of
copper wire shaped into a curved point, very fine glasspaper,
emery boards, milliput modelling putty and two anglepoise
lamps. One to accelerate the drying process and one to
see by. Oh, and bad language and a radio superglued to
BBC Radio 4.
Q. What techniques do you use?
A. I
prefer to shape the putty roughly when it is pliable,
then harden it off and carve the final detailing. The
joy of milliput -type modelling putties is that you can
constantly add or take away material. It's not like carving
stone!
Q. Do you ever use water?
A. Not
in the modelling process, but I do bathe at least once
a month.
Q. There are rumours that you are going to retire?
A. Not
for a while yet. It’s still only 5.30 pm here in
London.
Q. So how old are you?
A. Clearly
older than you, whippersnapper.
Q. What is wrong with your eye?
A. It’s
a nondescript sort of colour and a bit shortsighted as
well.
Q. No, the other one
A. It’s
a real eye but blind.
Q. What can you see out of it?
A. Do
you know, opticians always ask me that. Words fail me.
Q. Is only having one eye a handicap?
A. Not
at all. I attribute the line of dents down one side of
my car to bad luck and vandalism.
Q. Your stuff appears often in the modelling magazines,
particularly the Hornet heads, but they can be very difficult
to find. Your distribution doesn’t seem to be very
good.
A. Yes,
it’s a problem. Resellers vary widely in the frequency
and quantities they order, and some countries (e.g. France
and Germany), are Hornet deserts. I keep a large stock
of models boxed up and ready to go, but I cannot force
trade customers to buy. Some stockists (understandably)
hold only token amounts, and not all of them buy from
me anyway. But if anyone tells you that the fault lies
with me, don’t believe them -they’re passing
the buck!
Q. So what can the frustrated modeller do?
A. Go
to another supplier who is able to send the goodies promptly.
It’s a big world out there and your credit card
will enable you to buy anywhere and get billed in your
own currency, regardless of the country the supplier is
in!
Q. Can we buy direct from you?
Q. Why are the images on the site so small, and
why are the heads in black and white?
A. Before
sketching out the sequences on the website, I looked at
other sites. Some looked gorgeous, but took a long time
to come up. I wanted a site that was simple and swift
to use. All images were simplified. There was no need
to show unpainted heads in colour, and mono came up quicker.
Even with increasing broadband use, I think it was the
right decision.
Q. Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why do you
produce so much WW2 German stuff and neglect the other
combatants?
A. I’m
sure you’ve heard this before. It is because the
German subjects sell much better than the others. I mean
MUCH better. The appetite for them seems insatiable. I
have made considerable efforts to bring in other soldiers,
particularly with the headsets, but many of them sell
hardly enough to cover the time spent producing them.
In the end, I am doing this to make a living and my customers
speak with their wallets.
Q. Why do you concentrate on WW2 anyway? There
are much more colourful
subjects in other periods of history.
A. The
same answer again, I'm afraid!
Q. I can buy a box of decent plastic figures for
not much more than you charge for 5 tiny heads. Why are
they so pricey?
A. God,
if you only knew the hours that went into them! Believe
me, they are cheap at the price. Also, we use resin because
that allows flexible moulds, which in turn produce extremely
fine detail. But the moulds wear out quickly and have
to be remade constantly. The process is not automated
and we cannot get economies of scale, whereas the injection
moulding technique can knock out shots for pennies, but
can’t get the same detail. Much the same goes for
the figurines.
Q. But I have seen headsets that look identical
to yours but at a fraction of the price!
A. They
are pinched, nicked, stolen, purloined, remoulded and
taken without the owner’s permission. When all you
have to do is pop someone else’s hard work into
a mould of course you can cut the price. You can usually
buy stolen goods at dirt cheap prices. Gentle reader,
only buy if it is genuine Hornet!
Q. Why don’t you do the obvious and get
the models made cheaply in China?
A. I
don’t think I can trust them out there! At the moment
the pirates are having to remould production sets with
consequent unavoidable loss of quality. If they get their
hands on the original sculpts they could have a field
day! And I can’t afford a hitman who can speak Cantonese.
Q. It is really bizarre that you sell HH10 as
female heads - but they have no hair! Why?
A. Women
are always changing their hair. What style should I choose?
Instead, I have carved soft female features and I leave
it to the modeller to add the hair or headgear. That way
the ladies can be of any period of history.
Q. You produce both 1:35 scale and 1:32 scale
items. Similar sizes, so why do both?
A. An
accident of history. Once upon a time a British company
established the 1:32 ratio, and in the UK this became
the standard size for first toy soldiers and later for
more refined figurines. In the 1960s the Japanese selected
1:35 as the ratio for their then pioneering model tank
kits, and inevitably applied it to their figurines as
well. When we set up Hornet and later Wolf, we decided
to adopt 1:35 for the WW2 period military figures, but
retain the traditional scale ( now commonly called 54mm)
for the historical figurines in the range. At the time
this was a radical decision, but most other companies
take the same line these days.
Q. A lot of us are still confused about scales
and ratios. For example, how high should a 1:35 figurine
be? Of course, we all know how high a 54mm figure is -
54mm, right?
A. Good
grief! Don’t they teach you nuffin these days? 1:35
(ratio) simply means that a figure is 1/35 of the height
(or length or width) of whatever is being portrayed. So
obviously the actual height of the various model figures
will vary too. Small soldiers will be portrayed as smaller
than large soldiers, just as in real life. As to ‘54mm’
I wish it were that simple. I interpret it to mean 1:32,
but the term can mean different things to different sculptors
and manufacturers. It has variously been said to mean
the overall height of a figure including headgear of any
type, the height from ground to eye level, the height
of a figure without headgear....and how tall a man anyway?
Oh, and how long is his rifle in ‘54mm’? A
nightmare. This is why the Saunders Megacorporation tries
to stick to ratios.
Q. Sometimes when I use a Hornet head on a figure
it looks too small or too large, yet you say you pay great
attention to scale.
A. Human
head sizes and shapes vary a lot. I can’t make a
universal sized head because it doesn’t exist. The
Hornet heads do vary, and some of the bare heads will
even look ok on some 1:32 scale figurines if bulked out
with hair. But I have no control over what figure the
modeller is putting the head onto! Just try it and see
-if it looks right it IS right!
Q. Why don’t you make sets of headgear which
the customer can then place on the bare Hornet head of
his choice?
A. Same
reason. Even steel helmets are issued to soldiers in varying
sizes. I want to make the fit of the helmet look authentic,
so I model it with the head inside! Besides, the technical
problems of producing hollowed out headgear are too great,
even if there was a universally sized soldier’s
head! (Which there ain’t - as I believe I remarked
heretofore)
Q. Sometimes I notice very similar faces to the
Hornet range on other manufacturers’ products. Do
you sculpt for anyone else?
A. No.
There is nothing to prevent another manufacturer from
imitating my general style, but if he actually uses a
Hornet/Wolf head or figure on a commercially produced
model he is a thief and should be boiled in oil. Slowly.
Excuse me - I need to kick the cat.......
Q. But you sometimes issue ‘new’ models
in your range that look oddly familiar to earlier products
from some other manufacturers. Bit hypocritical isn’t
it?
A. Nope.
For a few years in the 1980s (before getting into Hornet),
I produced work which was marketed under other company
names. However, I retained copyright. I have the option
to reissue these items if I want to. Unfortunately, most
of them are in the wrong scale for the Hornet range.
Q. Why do you produce two ranges, Hornet and Wolf?
A. Another
historical accident. Nic Adams originally approached me
to supply figurines for a range he was planning to be
called Hornet. By this time I was no longer selling my
sculpting outright, but was offering a service that involved
both sculpting and volume production of my own models.
After some years Nic Adams started a companion series
which used other sculptors, leaving me to run Hornet.
Later still, Nic decided to take a back seat and asked
me to run Wolf as well. It’s an oversimplification,
but effectively I control Hornet because almost all the
models in it are my copyright, and Nic Adams owns Wolf
because he bought the models in that range outright.
Q. I envy you, making a living by modelmaking.
Was it difficult?
A. It’s
true that it is a great way to make a living - IF you
can make a living! To anyone that wants to try it, I suggest
that you do not give up the day job. It would be a bad
idea to think that there was a huge market out there just
because of the coverage in various magazines, and competition
is fierce. It has been enjoyable, but yes, at times it
has been difficult. And, by the way, it doesn’t
earn you much kudos with the uninitiated. (I dread the
question at social gatherings ‘...and what do you
do?’) Strangely, you don’t meet many women
either.
Q. Do you have a family despite all that?
A. Yes
Q. What do they think about your peculiar occupation?
A. My
wife has a lingering suspicion that I spend most of my
time watching daytime TV. My son and daughter are both
grown up, but I still have to hide when their friends
come round.
Q. So who will take over when you hang up your
scalpel?
A. Apres
moi, le deluge.
Q. So no more Hornet if you give it up?
A. Well,
there’s always a chance that some entrepreneur will
arrive and offer me a lot of money to take it over. I’ve
always fancied a larger yacht.
Q. Isn’t it time for your milky drink now?
A. Is
that the time already.....?
