Masculinity...

... is, of course, dependent on a host of variables that shift and change. The Spartans famously combed each others hair prior to the saving of the western world from the eastern model of despotism. For me, and others of my age, class, country, and region combing one's hair beyond a few stabs with a comb was a bit dodgy, never mind combing some other bloke's hair! However, one key element of northern English masculinity imparted by my father's generation was that only a wimp read operating instructions for any sort of machinery. Obviously, this caused the odd difficulty - maiming, death, machines that didn't actually work - but one's manhood was never in doubt. Time has moved on, and I have been known to read instructions, but, it has become clear this evening not always. I have begun to paint my new stove pipe shako British for the Peninsular. I thought I'd give some of Mr Tim Beresford's ideas about figure painting a go. So far, so bad. So I had another look at his article in the current Battlegames, only to come across this: 'This is the point where working with a white undercoat on complex sculpts, such as these Perry models, you need to paint really accurately...' ! Aieeee. 'Perry sculpts'. Which is what the stove pipe fellows are! Never mind, I'm still a bloke...

More happily, because black undercoated and slap dash painted, I did a little more work on my still chain and hoist free recovery panzer:

Finally, a puzzle. I came across these 25mm fellows the other day, part painted, and, I think, from the 1980s. They are pretty crude, late Great War French, but which company made 'em?

There has been an attempt here by whoever the sculptor was, to add a degree of dynamism to the figures, and, in fact, the running and crouching figure (mostly hidden by the standing chap) is quite nice. However, I should think that most gamers would dismiss these figures today. So that raises a question: just what constitutes a 'bad' wargames figure?