Don Perkins has sent us some photos of the Confederate Leaders figures that Action Casting is doing. The Action Casting Confederate Leaders figure on the left is General Pickett. The Action Casting Confederate Leaders figure on the right is General Lewis Armistead. General Pickett was the special figure that was available at last year’s Gettysburg Show. General Lewis Armistead will be available at this year’s Gettysburg Show.
Here is the back of the figures.
Action Casting Confederate Leaders Will They Fit IN
The biggest question people have is how will they mix in with your other figures? Don was told by John Stengel JR. of Action Casting that the figures were mean to go with the Conte Collectibles Civil War.
Update
Don Perkins has sent this update.
At next months Gettysburg Show, Stengel says he will also be releasing, as another Show Special, a wounded General Hancock, just after he’s been shot off his horse, in a semi-upright position, attended by two of his staff aids, just as depicted in Ted Turner’s movie “Gettysburg”. I think Stengel said the 3-figure vignette will all be on one base. He didn’t say what the price would be.
They look taller than CONTE to me.
About PARAGON or TSSD size or taller.
Of course the base again bring to scale up.
Thanks x great comp pictures Don.
We can said in the same big scale as other easy.
I think the general on the horse is supposed to be George Pickett. At any rate this is a welcome addition!
Paul, I don’t know why the photos came out vertical, rather than horizontal. Sorry.
But permit me one correction. The mounted figure depicted is meant to be General George Pickett, according to Stengel, rather than Jeb Stuart.
When placed next to Conte standing firing figures, rather than the running, leaning forward poses I selected, the new Action Casting Lewis Armistead figure indicates the same height as the Conte Conderates.
At next months Gettysburg Show, Stengel says he will also be releasing, as another Show Special, a wounded General Hancock, just after he’s been shot off his horse, in a semi-upright position, attended by two of his staff aids, just as depicted in Ted Turner’s movie “Gettysburg”. I think Stengel said the 3-figure vignette will all be on one base. He didn’t say what the price would be.
Don
No problem on the photos I just used some software to correct it. As I mention before I have credit the mistake. thanks for the additional information, it will be added to the post.
Interesting side note to the Armistead figure. Sometimes the sword starts drooping due to the weight of the hat on the relatively thin piece of resin that keeps it upright. John told me that if you hold it 6 to 8 inches above an open flame it will straighten right out. Well, low and behold I took mine out today and the sword had begun to droop significantly. I held it about 8 inches above a Bic lighters flame and much to my amazement it returned to it’s original position. Very cool, it just snapped back all by itself.
Ed, are you sure about the figures being resin? John told me specifically they are NOT resin. He said they are the same “cold pour plastic” he used for his Vietnam U.S. Marines, which he insists is a completely different chemical composition than resin.
To me, they “feel” very much like the Conte plastic figures he modeled them after.
I assume these are done in small quantities: does John do mail order for these? Can’t find a website for him.
Cold pour plastic resin I think, they feel pretty hard to me, no way they are soft plastic like Conte’s early figures, maybe the same as his Bloody Omaha. We call them resin, but they are plastic, pretty close to what is used by Plastic Underground, everyone refers to them as resin, but he really uses cold pour plastic. Just a matter of terminology I guess.
I don’t believe he does mail order,shows only. He does attend a lot of shows and supposedly he will have a few dealers, or he was going to, not sure of the status on that.
Ed, it is true they are not “soft plastic like Conte’s EARLY figures”. But they seem very much like the stiffer but still soft plastic Conte used in his LATER Civil War and Omaha Beach figures.
Again, John himself is insistent that his figures are definitely NOT resin. He insists the chemical composition between his own cold pour figures and actual resin figures like Barzso originally made are very different from each other.
For John Wallace —- Yes, all Stengel’s figures are done in limited quantities. He says the mounted General Pickett figure is all sold out, and won’t be offered anymore. Toy Soldier Shows are his natural venue, and I’m not sure if he’s quite ready for regular mail order. I get the impression he believes his entire output can be marketed either through shows, or, eventually (if a certain line doesn’t get totally sold out at his shows), through strong mail order retailers like TSSD, Tree Frog Treasures, and Steve Weston.
But believe me, at the recently concluded Midwest Toy Soldier Show, when John started unveiling his new productions during the Show’s set-up period, you would have been surprised at how fast a crowd quickly gathered around him.
Stengel exudes a natural enthusiasm for his products which becomes quite infectious. You find yourself rooting for him to succeed.
I’m not going to be able to attend OTSN (officially renamed “The Chicago Toy Soldier Show”) this year, so I’m hoping the Stengels can once again attend Joe Saine’s Michigan Toy Soldier Show, now scheduled for July 30 (the auction), and July 31 (the actual show). That’s the only way I feel assured of obtaining his new products.
I’ve checked a few suppliers of these types of products and haven’t come across any actual plastic yet. I think that you are correct that it is ‘cold pour plastic resin’ which is one of the products I have come across, which is actually resin and has the same properties. This would explain the problems reported that he was having with air bubbles which also affected some Barszo figures.
It would interesting to find out the name of the product ,if it is actual plastic there are a few of us that could make plastic figures for ourselves in the size we want.
Do Conte still produce their plastic ACW figures ?
Les, I don’t think Conte has his ACW plastic figures in current production, but his website (“Conteco”) still shows all of them for sale.
I recognized who they were supposed to be immediately. Well sculpted!
I really like these poses. Pickett’s face looks a little cartoony, but the figures really have a lot of character.
I like poses and dynamism captured. I’m sure that is the big excitement; so far faces are not too accurate in my opinion and deep uniform detail neither as far I can see but like every figure nothing come perfect. About size hard to determine from pictures as few figures are like in a mount of stones and earth soil. So again (Why ever body like these huge hilly bases)!?I do not know …But seen like another trend that least not that big in EXF till now.
Will like too see the Viet Nam figures versus TSSD Vietnam
I don’t know what he uses as not figured in hand at all.
But here are few typical materials used based in what you guys mention above if are they and descriptions.
Resin (Rosin)
Interestingly enough, resin isn’t really a plastic a all from the technical sense. It’s compound consists of mostly organic ingredients found in plants and trees. What we commonly see in figurines is actually a synthetic resin. This synthetic resin has similar properties to ABS, but it is more brittle. It’s more akin to liquid solidified, almost like soap. The process is similar to epoxy – combining two liquids together to cause a chemical reaction of solidifying. When casting resin, this is essentially what happens. A finished resin cast has the same smoothness as PVC, but has trouble sticking paint. It too has to be primed. Resin is that it’s typically used for hobby kits, and therefore the sculptor doesn’t have to concern too much with technical restrictions of mass production products like PVC and ABS. The pieces are cut up into logical manners to fit within the restriction, and it’s up to the hobbyist to hide the seams, and fit the pieces together. The advantage of resin kits is that it’s soft and easy to sand and cut, while sturdy enough to hold up weight. High quality resin is typically very dense and can withstand quite a bit of pounding, but will shatter under significant pressure, while ABS would simply bounce back. But because of ABS’s toughness, it’s easier to sand resin.
Polystone (Resin compound)
Polystone is a similar property to resin, but is even more brittle! It’s higher quality than resin because of the base materials it uses – mainly it uses minerals such as aluminum hydrate, as opposed to synthetic materials. It’s typically made for mass-produced statues, such as the Final Fantasy 7 polystone cold-casts. From what I can tell, it seems that polystone is the least restrictive. The edges and cuts seem the cleanest, and a fair amount of detail can be put into it. This may be why polystone is the material of choice for mass produced resin cast figures.
Cold Casting (Epoxy)
Cold-Casting is the process of mixing a urethane resin with a metal powder to give the appearance of a shiny metal surface. It can also be used with paint to produce a resin of a certain color. As far as I know, cold casting is quite the opposite of regular casts, which are typically done with moderate temperature plastic molding. I think with cold casting, the liquid resin is already cold, and is freshly mixed. There is a certain amount of time before the mix solidifies into a solid. It’s during this time that the liquid must be poured into the mold. I believe it’s because of this, that you can get such clean lines and smooth surfaces.
Another method I know of for plastic making include heating plastics into solid molds. A solid object is made as a base, and a sheet of plastic is placed on top, and heated. It then melts and conforms to the shape of which it is placed on. The excess is then cut away. This is typically how plastic take-out trays are made. Another is the blow method, where a sheet of plastic is placed into an enclosed mold, heated with hot air. The air blows and expands the plastic to the walls of the mold and is then cooled. This is typically used to make plastic bottles like milk jugs. Vinyl figures can be made using the above manners, though I don’t know how efficient that actually would be.
Recently, a new type of plastic has shown up in the figure market – ABTC, or acetyl tributyl citrate. This isn’t actually a plastic or a derivative. It’s a plasticizer. Basically a chemical that is compatible with PVC to change its consistency or hardness. Here is a list of figures made out of ABTC
Hopes this help a bit.
Best..
And ,does any body happen what is about Plastic Underground??
Are they or him still making figures?. I saw few on eBay other day and pass but not see much around.
Don thank you x effort and pictures ,but please pardon me ask you a favors ,if you are able to do this please?
If not much trouble could you take pictures of different brands in more standing position next to each other in one line row at table focus level shot position!? Should be one of best way see real measures comp in my opinion. Sorry bother on it..thanks
Erwin, after doing it this first time, I now realize how much effort regular picture posters like you and Nevins and Major Liska are going to. But I’ll try to get to it this week, since you guys do it so often.
Don
You will get the hang of this. I have been doing this for too many years so it is second nature. The trick is having good software for editing. When you pictures came out horizontal it was easy to rotate them.
Thanks Don. Not worries ,will take you some practice, we all learn. A good camera with nice software as admin said will help. Not saying invest, the photos u took show a good quality image pixel resolution-MEAN =Great camera. It is in the game playing with natural light from window, use of less flash possible and stand camera on same table as figure so they level, then take as many to get the right one. Some times I spend 10 pic out one to get a single one good.
So take u time.
Best
Size schmiz scale shmale,as long as the figure isn’t a giant like the Peco figs and it’s from a historical period I’m interested in I’ll get a few sets of whatever BUT could we PLEASE give a figure a plain flat base if they can’t stand on their own two feet or at the most a base like Beau’s Confederates have and no more of the Mini-Mountain bases.
Brian before I did not worry too much but looks like every single figure is every year going high in rocks, I agree, could they go down a bit from these rocks please!!.I had to cut off some bases at times and place in flat ones but I think they are wasting material a lot !!
For some reason in the big series that “Dragon can do” where they made civil war,Knights, ancient Greeks,Mexican ,samurai all based in movies such (Gettysburg ,Time line,Alamo, Troy,Last Samurai and few others) I manage to get all their set and the one about Gettysburg bring 6 poses included G Pickett in same pose as this pretty much .Now those sets are harder to get anywhere. The scale was described as 1.24 but they are less ,about 65 mm ,still big but nice detail poses/paint figures ,only exact matches back them were Tim Mee,Andy gard , Reamsa , jecsan and few others.
Sorry I forgot ;they did a Union 5 poses army set too x Gettysburg, Pirates of Caribbean and astronauts Apollo 11 set too.
Plastic Underground is still around, I just got some figures from him Saturday. One of the figures was a custom of Gray Dutko as Armistead. He did a custom of my partner last February too. Been a while since he did something new, but he’s still in business, he will take orders.
Ed .Thank you!!
Do you have his web site by any chance?
Send me an e-mail and I’ll send you the link.
Never mind I found your old e-mail. It looks like he stopped selling on line, but I’m not sure.
That what though ed as usually it saw his site under same name and not any more.
Thanks any how ed , I appreciate it .If any update let me know please…
never mine I got your email with his link and his eBay name too. Thanks a lot!!