Boxers

[Chris]

<blockquote><img src="images/quistoboxersrecon.jpg" align="right" hspace="10">It s over a year ago that I decided to restore a couple of early Quisto boxers. I got as far as repainting the heads and showed them on here. Now I have at last got around to giving them bodies.

This is not really a restoration, rather a re-utilisation, for I have no idea what they were like originally. I do have a policeman, beadle, parson and Jim Crow in the same style, and they do have hands and bodies. but the boxers were virtually only heads.

It might be of interest that I used acrylic artists' colours for painting. I do not like a high gloss finish - a shiny head loses detail and visibility - so I avoid varnishes. There is a matt acrylic varnish but it doesn't offer a great deal of protection.

What I do use is Super TUFcote from Ripmax. This is sold for coating model aircraft parts to make them fuel resistant. It is actually a re-packaged parquet flooring protective. It is a two part (resin plus activator) material which is available in matt or gloss versions, or the two can be mixed to give an eggshell finish. I find that the matt version is not completely matt and gives adequate sheen. It is touch-dry in 5 minutes and hard in 2 hours.

TUFcote is available from model shops or from the Ripmax website.

This is not a new material - I used it on the set of Punch figures I made over 30 years ago and it does a grand job of protecting the paintwork.</blockquote>

[Richard Coombs]

A splendidly Bold set of Boxers there Chris. You must be pleased with them. I especially like the paintwork on the 'Black-Eye' ... mostly because you haven't used only black or grey paint - the huge variety of colours used really read as bruising.

Its a splendid effect.

Painting can be a crafty business at times ...I was struck by the shining silver armour in some pre-raphaelite paintings in Birmingham Art Gallery a few years back. It really shone and glistened , yet there was no silver at all on the canvas - the mixture of colours that made up the landscape around the armoured figure were all patchily 'reflected' in the 'metals' surface - result : your eye 'sees' shining silver.

Just as here all the daubs of colour make your eyes 'see' bruise !
Bravo !