Toy Soldier Art

Classic Soldier Poses, Part 2

The three fellows above look like they are doing the "rifle dance." Are they wading across a stream, or fighting hand-to-hand? You have to wonder. Lido had a plastic figure with rifle held high. I know from my Army days the need to carry your rifle high when walking through water. I get the impression that these three are in a bayonet fight.

The middle figure stands out because he is not painted like a G.I. He is tan, with dark brown helmet. There is a "Tan" army that became popular due to the 3DO "Army men" computer games. I tried to work out my idea of how a Tan uniform might look. The fellows on the side wear World War II type uniforms. One is in darker olive green, the other in the lighter sage green.

These three fellows are throwing grenades. The one on the left is in sage green, the rightmost one in olive green. Both shades were in use from World War II to about 1980. Fatigues that started out as olive drab eventually faded to sage. The middle fellow is another attempt at a "Tan" uniform. The Grenade guy is a staple of toy soldiers. Nearly ever set of soldiers has one, be they American or foreign figures. The common stance has the left arm forward, raised, and the right arm to the rear. The right hand is either below the waist, or it is bent, or both. The only exception is the ""cricket player" we showed earlier. Grenade guys could also be used as cannon and mortar crewmen.

One of the more intriguing experiences for a young recruit is the grenade range. Holding that handful of boom-boom the first time, pulling the pin.....well, you had to have the experience to understand it.

This merry trio is marching. The mold is unusual, as it truncated the rifle. I painted these for use in our annual Yule train display. They have faded sage jackets and dark trousers. The idea was to make them look good.

Tim Mee made plastic figures of World War II era U.S. soldiers. Several were obvious copies of Ideal's large figures, but most were original Tim Mee. Rapaport made several molds using Tim Mee figures. The three Tim Mee figures shown here are from the Castings Inc. mold # 6088 "training squad"..

Four poses were less popular, and two of them are to the left. They are the Mine sweeper and the Binoculars guy. (The other two are the Radio guy and the dead guy.) If you are playing with toy army men, these four do not seem all that useful. Of course, kids do not understand the significance of land mines,field engineering, forward observers or radio communication. All they know is that they have no real use for these poses. The dead guy's uselessness is self-explanatory.

Our minesweeper is kitted out for World War II. He wears the khaki battle jacket and leggings. His mine sweeper's power pack and such are on the end of the stick. Most of the other minesweeper figures I have seen wear the power supply like a backpack. I never saw one up close.

This particular binoculars guy is curious. He wears the short jacket that was popular with tankers and armored cavalry units since World War II. In fact, versions of it are still in use. His black boots make him post-1960. Brown boots would be World War II to 1960. He wears his pistol in the manner of tank and armored car crewmen. I do not know when they switched from leather to webbed holsters. I remember seeing tank crewmen with leather.

There will be more to come. We have not run out of poses yet!