Thanks for the update re John Curran. It's been nagging away at me for a couple of days regarding his surname. I remember John showing up at the old Northern Militaire shows with these very large scale figures & groups sculpted & painted in a very individualistic way. Great stuff.

Geoff

Further to my comments re figures sculpted in wax for Hinchliffe Models, I remember there was an associated range produced By Hinchliffe called, I think, Crown Metal. These were approximately 80mm in scale and were of a similar concept to the Victorian/Edwardian civilian figures produced in 54mm by Phoenix & were sculpted by Paul Knight. Further details if & when I find/remember them.

Geoff

Also an article on Cuiffo in
Scale Models Vol3 N°'4 april 1972
Military Modelling was in Dec 1974 and a diorama in Mil. Modelling Feb 1973

some of them were sold later (1997) at Christie as part of the Forbes Collection with lot of zeros in the price
Best

I have only just looked in on this post, I am fairly sure John Runnicles wrote a series of articles published in the Military Modelling magazine on large scale figures. This was back in the 70's or 80's.
Dennis

thanks for the links.
I've passed the info onto the BMSS Archivist, who i know will be interested in your find.
PS. John Runnicles did indeed write some articles for Mil Mod.

Found another for the archive Paul...

William Carmen, Vice-chairman of the British Model Soldiers Society at home

Few more - well known...

Marcus Hinton (Hinton Hunt?)
Charles Creed
Britains workshop (1965)
Britains workshop (1949)

God God - this site is a goldmine!
Way back in 1978 my very first job was a trainee at Aeronautical and General Modlelmakers - this site even has a film of it!!!
AGM was a big deal back then and was famous for building a lot of the models for 'Thunderbirds' - they are featured in this short film

Model Makers 1968

Deep joy...

Thanks for posting links to these films. That Charles Creed has a great collection of figures.

Rgds Victor

Really interesting thread, did you know that Mata Hari was executed wearing a Creed suit?
You would do if you wasted as much time watching the films and searching for the participants as I did yesterday.
Roger.

I think Ray still uses plasticine for large masters. I seam to remember you could harden the surfice with banana oil!

Martin

I loved the Britains thread as I now sculpt for them. Things have changed somewhat as now produced in China and US based. There are a few sculpted in the UK though 
Will have to show Richard Walker these films as I think he will find them very interesting, great to see.

If you can still get it you can use a product called plastilline its a more waxy medium and holds it shape better and came in Hard medium and soft consistancy I used to get mine from a place in Reading years back and I believe it was what David Grieve used to use to get his first cast converted to Metal it is a much better product than Plastacine for this use.....

Alec Tirantis was the place

This is all Tiranti has at present: http://www.tiranti.co.uk/EdgeImpactShop/category.php?Category=7

Mike

Dear Sir/s, (in particular Geoff, aka Polyphemus).
With regard to the posts concerning the Plasticine modelmaker from the early 1980`s and Northern Militaire:
Hello! My name is John Curran, and I was the modeller in question. I have not been involved in modelling for many years now - my last competition was in 1983-84 and that was it. It was a pleasant surprise to find my work being discussed from all those years ago, and thank you for the kind words.
The Northern Militaire show was the main one which I built my models for between 1975 through to 1984, occasionally entering those same models the following year in the BMSS Annual Show, and once or twice in the Model Engineer Exhibition - both in London.
There was only the one model which was (and still is) at the Lancashire Fusiliers Museum in Bury, featuring a skirmish between French Cavalry and British Infantry from the Battle of Minden - and which was made in 1982. The museum has had this model on indefinite loan since 1988, until I decided to give it to them on a permanent basis around 2007 or thereabouts (can`t really recall now). I know for a fact that it is in need of some minor repairs, but I very much doubt that will happen now. Time has moved on and I am not really interested in making the effort anymore (that went a long time ago).
Looking back I made about ten models from Plasticine during those years, of which only five remain.
A single figure of a U.S infantryman from the Vietnam period was sold privately, five were scrapped (two samurai models, (one foot,one mounted), a mounted model depicting a survivor of the Light Brigade, and the First World War model - `The Last Gun at Nery`, plus a large scale model of a Sheridan Tank.
As mentioned, the Minden model is now in the museum, and I have the remaining three models at home.
These are the paras at Arnhem model (vignette 1979), the SAS vignette (1981), and `Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima`, made in 1978, and which remains my own personal favourite as there are a lot of special memories attached to that one, and I will never part with it.
Reading the posts on this site prompted me to specifically register so I could post this reply (!), so to close, thank you once again for the kind words, and bringing back some pleasant memories from those days.

All the very best,

regards

John Curran

Yes Seagull, I remember, so long ago, at the time had 2 shops a small one ( the first ) dedicated to wargames and carts , and, later, around the corner of the street the second one, far bigger with lot and lot of figurines . They introduced also Almond, Hearnes etc... in their Seagull range ....

There are a number of John Cuiffo figures coming up for auction at Vectis auctions (www.vectis.co.uk) on the 24th November 2020 There is a vignette of 3 RAF pilots behind barbed wire.

The Northern Modeler's name was John Curran. He won Best in Show at Northern Militaire with a Diorama of the L Battery at Nery W.W.1 He opened a Model shop in Monton (Salford) called Ace Models. It lasted around 2-3 years before closing down. He made a 14th century Knight but he received a lot of negative critism because the Heraldry was all wrong, and subsequently dissapeared off the modeling scene. He was quite young, late teens , early 20s. Ray

Dear Mr Stout,
My name is John Curran, and I am just sending a reply with regard to your post; You were correct about my `L` Battery model and my model shop in Monton (although I had it for four years not three - and an experience I would sooner forget).

However I am writing in about what you said about the `14th century Knight` model.

Departing from my usual plasticine modelling, this was made from Historex parts in order to enter a specific Historex competition at the time - and it came second in its class. It went on to do very well at Northern Militaire - I can`t fully remember now, but I think it won the 54mm mounted class in 1982 which made it eligible to enter the Supreme Champion Trophy (specifically for previous winning models) the following year - 1983.

So I did and it won that as well.

Your comment about it receiving criticism was correct up to a point, but the way you have phrased it makes it sound as if I dropped out of modelling as a direct consequence of that criticism, which was not the case at all, so I am just writing in to correct that. It had nothing to do with my disappearance from the modelling scene.

There was also nothing like the amount of criticism which you suggest the model received. I distinctly remember that it revolved mainly around the comments of one person, who had a real go at me one time in the `Reader`s comments page or ` Postbag` section of the Military Modelling magazine shortly afterwards. Realistically, his criticism was based on 99% sarcasm and 1% constructive, and all because I made the mistake of not putting buttons down the figure`s back (or something along those lines). Whatever it was modelling wise, it was a minor and careless omission on my part, and I wrote back and thanked him for pointing it out and correcting me, but suggested that he could have done it a lot less aggressively and sarcastically.

It was a storm in a teacup, but whoever it was who wrote in to MM turned it into a nuclear strike.

It also had nothing to do with the heraldry being - as you put it - `all wrong` - which as far as I am still aware was correct.

All the best,

John Curran