Hi guys
As a kid growing up in the 70-80s I imagine like many of you, I grew up on Airfix, Esci and matchbox figures, I was lucky enough to have every WWII figure set at one time or another, losing my collection in a fire in the 90s, until now I have avoided the nostalgia bite because I have over the years bought many of these subjects (European theatre) and have them in my stash, I generally use metal figures and only use plastics when I’m doing heavy conversions e.g my Gebirgsjager or winter Fallschirmjäger armies, however, recently I have seen some Pacific war projects using Airfix and matchbox figures that have given me that nostalgic kick, mostly because I haven’t owned these Pacific war sets since being a kid as I have concentrated on the European theatre.
As I have had the Pacific war on my to do list for a while now I’m taking the opportunity to start it and combine it with a Nostalgic project, the nostalgic project will be to paint at least 1 of each pose of each WWII set from these 3 companies, starting with Japanese and Aussies, I recently purchased the Airfix and Esci/Italeri Japanese sets, if anyone has a set of 1 of each pose of the Matchbox Japanese and Australian available for trade (I have the Airfix Australians on their way) PM me.
The Airfix Japanese were one of the first sets I owned, I loved these figs as a kid, I was maybe 5-6 years old, I had those and the US marines (I have the marines in my stash somewhere) later I had the Esci and matchbox Japanese and Australians, these 2 sets still have very good moulds, the Italeri figs have almost no flash and thankfully are cast in firm plastic, the Airfix figs are in their usual softer plastic, I remember many of the Airfix figures getting brittle as a kid, I’m hoping they fixed the plastic and this is not still an issue, I’m going to try and give them the best paint job I can, looking forward to this project.
I’ll be adding metal and resin figs to the Pacific project, I will also be doing my usual mix of 3D printed and built model kits for the vehicles.