And now something of completely different...

After a long absence (the real life, so bad...) no pictures: not yet.. I want to tell about my beginning with this hobby: it was in the early ’70. In my city there was a section of the italian branch of IPMS were I learnt the basics of static modelling. My first model was a Frog FW-190 A in 1:72 (an interesting kind of model: nice decals, well documented and correct colour schemes and the landing gear sink totally absent!). Then I switched to german tanks in 1:72 and 1:35 and finally to 1:72 plastic soldiers.

Lead miniatures a rare bird: you need to order them from Great Britain, paying them in Pounds with an International Money Order and waiting for the Custom bureucracy peculiar notion of time.
The only resources at hand were the readily available and cheap Airfix 1:72 plastic napoleonic soldiers: French and British line infantry, Prussian Landwher, French Cuirassiers and Artillery, British Hussars and Royal Horse Artillery.
My collection grew up (with substantial reinforcements from some Minifigs cavalry, bought in the most expensive model shop in Florence) until I moved to Rome to begin my Academic career. No soldiers were painted until 1995, when I took the brushes from the closet and started the Torgau Project.

In 2001 the Napoleonic plastic collection underwent a major disaster in the hands of my 2 y.o. son: the unfortunate survivors, lead and plastic intermingled, were sent to garrison a forgotten plastic bag. In the meantime the rate of growth of Torgau project was as unsteady as possible until 2005 when finally I decided to finish the project, and my interest in plastic soldiers revamped in the form of Strelets Swedish and Russians of Great Northern War.

Finally, a couple of years ago the Napoleonic plastic heroes emerged from their resting place just in time to be fully restored and rebased: this concided with massive investiments in plastic soldiers. Now I have more than 150 boxes ranging from Thirty Years War to Napoleonics, all of them waiting for painting….
In the future posts I’ll mix the Torgau project pictures with those from the “Holowczin Project”, another Volley and Bayonet project, and those from the “Napoleonic DB-Hx Project”, so stay tuned…