A pretty pointless post, and not much of a boast, considering what was required…

One summer, for a few extra pennies, I painted for Brittains. I had to cycle from Colchester to Maldon to collect, IIRC, a hundred figures. The figures were prepainted a flesh colour. The figures were just armless. We, the painters, just had to slap on the rest of the paint. I think the whole painting was done in about five goes - red for jacket, blue for trousers, black boots, silver buttons and a red stripe down the trouser leg. Yup, they were guardsmen. I think I might even had a few unpainted, armless figures around somewhere…

That’s interesting, though. I assumed they would outsource them to Sri Lanka or somesuch

They might be now, it was about twenty five years ago. Even then, though, the pay was peanuts. Most of the painters were “at home mums” who picked up the figures in boxes of a few hundred. I could only carried fifty or so on my bike.

The paint had a nice “pear” smell (Ethyl acetate), so was quite pleasing to use in a poorly ventilated room…

Are you still into the hobby, if so, what scale and period are you into?
Jeff

I used make plastic models, initially 1/72 kits, then 1/35th scale. By the time I was in my late teens, I was into roleplaying, so was painting the figures. That was about the time I painted the Brittains’ figures. Since then I drfited away, and hadn’t really done anything for years. A few years back, I picked up a box of Revell Medieval foot soldiers and a box of French knights. But never had the time to do anything with them. Then I got some Modern British, with the hope of doing modern skirmishing. I started painting them, but the first few turned out bl**dy awful… They’re shelved along with the medievals for the moment. I currently painting up WWII British 8th Army, and have Deutsches Afrikakorps just in the production line.

All figures are 1/72nd Revell. There isn’t much choice here. No special shops, nothing. I could order over the web, but then there’s the added cost of postage and what not. But my current situation means I need to keep cuts as low as possible…