The Little World

Oh you never go there, do you?

You are far too advanced as a modeller to be seen in the die-cast, snap together, starter kit, or play section of the retailer? What if you were seen? What if the other club experts recognised you? What if they wrote about you in the papers?

Alternately, what if you found something that was fun?

I’m not saying you’d discover a fully-working model of Elon Musk or a world-beating model sailing boat in a plastic box…but you might find a toy maker had moulded something that would be perfect in your next diorama and it was as cheap as chips.

This is exactly the case if you scour around toyshops and crap marts for the junk toys that every kid loves. After all, the stuff they sell on the broken tables at the Model Car Sunday had to come from somewhere originally, and Woolworths have long since ceased to be a dime store. You gotta go scouting.

If you build to a constant scale, take a Johnny Average plastic figure that is just right along with you in your shirt pocket and compare it to the size of the toys you find. Many never state a scale, but are in recognised sizes nevertheless.

Do not be put off by colours. Kids are bombarded by all sorts of colour that we never had – the plastic dyes are much brighter. The plastic itself is better than in the ’50’s and the toys tend to break less. Wheels are nearly always wrong, but they are the easiest part of a model to replace.

Someone, somewhere, made the toy to sell, so buying it, modifying it, repainting it, and integrating it into your diorama is no sin. As long as you’re buying, you’re in command.