These are dime-store soldiers which were produced by the Barclay Manufacturing Company some time in the 1930s. The company was started in 1924 and according to Wikipedia was named after a street in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Barclay was a prolific toy-company, producing hundreds and hundreds of different lines of figures and vehicles. And, being able to take advantage of F.W Woolworth’s vast distribution chain, was able to sell their toys far and wide. Figures were created doing about anything you can imagine. The military figures, in addition to fighting, were also posed eating, carrying passenger-pigeons, baking, digging ditches, taking photographs, writing letters on typewriters, carrying spools of barbed wire, laying out communication lines, lying injured. It is positively amazing how many were made. And how unique they were.
In its time Barclay was the largest toy-figure maker in the United States. Perhaps not something you would put on a list of amazing human achievements. But if you were a depression era young’n with a nickel and bin of soldiers to choose from it was more than a wonder.
In the 1960s Barclay quit selling their dimestore-soldiers in Woolworth’s and started selling them exclusively in hobby-stores. The company survived into the 1970s making figures and vehicles for collectors, but eventually they couldn’t continue competing against plastic toy manufacturing.
The few that have come through here were discovered in different places – antique stores, estate sales, birthdays. One I found in a cigar shop. I’ve never actively hunted for them, I prefer to believe they find me. I find life is peaceful when you don’t strive for things and let things come and go on their own.
I’ve heard stories that there are rare Barclay figures that would bust your kid’s college fund. I’ve never come across them. The ones I have aren’t worth much more than the metal they’re made of. I haven’t paid more than ten dollars for any of them.
The soldiers don’t do anything now except fill the edges of high bookshelves. Something for the kids to gaze up at and covet while contemplating methods of ascent.
They’re no longer allowed to be toys – Too fragile to take much handling. And too much lead and peeling paint to ignore modern parental concerns.
It’s been a long time since they’ve been toys. Generations of time has passed since they began their journey from Hoboken. And here they are. They’re still in the world, they’re just no longer part of it.
But.
If you listen closely.
You can hear them telling the stories of their adventures when they were.
I promised a lesson on painting water in a complicated way and here it is.
Or is it?
This technique really isn’t all that complicated. It’s more time-consuming than complicated. It’s also a great exercise for concentration. I should have called this, “A Time-Consuming Exercise of Concentration while Painting Water”.
There is also a bit about creating clouds. I need a sky for the water to reflect.
So here we go – “A Time-Consuming Exercise of Concentration while Painting Water with a Bit About Creating Clouds”.
First a couple of gradients to indicate where the sky and water meet in the distance.
This is going to be a background for a kids animation so I’m using a saturated palette.
Now I create a new layer and paint wispy clouds in the distance. As a general rule I create a new layer for each step.
Next come the clouds that are closer. This is going to be a silhouette of the clouds. I have this layer set to be a bit transparent so blue sky can show through.
I go over the clouds and paint in where the light hits the clouds. And then I use the blend tool to soften the color into the shadowed parts.
And finally some pure white highlights. Not too much. Enough to define the brightest edges.
Now onto the water.
Water can be reflective and in this image I want it to be. So the first step will be to copy all the cloud elements into a new layer, flip them vertically, and place them over the water as to create a reflection.
And then blur it.
Now it is time to get down to business. In a new layer I’m going to do is paint the water surface in grayscale. I’ll begin with a really dark shade and progressively lighten the grays until they start fading into the blue.
Think of the water’s surface as a series of bumps getting smaller as they go into the distance. I’m concentrating while I do this, but my brain is doing nothing else. You can tell you’re in the right state when your mind isn’t telling you stories about what you’re doing.
First I’ll paint the dark side of the bumps.
And the next gray more of the bumps begin to appear.
The next gray.
The last gray. I know this is the last gray because the next lightest would be a similar tone to the blue.
This is where the digital magic happens. Change the grayscale layer’s blending mode to ‘Overlay’.
If you want to roughen up the water a bit you can paint some white caps on the crests of the waves.
And that, my friends, is the more complicated way create water. I’m thinking my next water tutorial should show how to paint breaking waves. A Hawaiian beach scene perhaps.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful. If you have any comments or questions you can post a reply below.
What I’m going to show you today is a quick and simple way to create water using Photoshop. This is a great technique when you don’t have time to do it the hard and complicated way. I’ll show the complicated way in a future tutorial.
The first step is to think of which colors the water might have in the distances, and then which colors it would have close up. From those colors, create a gradient.
Pretty. Now we’re going to put color aside and work in grayscale.
Create a new layer and fill it with whatever color you like, It doesn’t really matter what color you choose. Next use the ‘Add Noise’ filter. Filter->Noise->Add Noise
In this same layer apply the ‘Gaussian Blur’ filter. Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur
Don’t worry too much about getting yours to look exactly like mine. This is a very forgiving technique. If yours is similar, you’re doing fine
Next apply the ‘Emboss’ filter. Filter->Stylize->Emboss
With an application of the ‘Motion Blur’ set to blur things along the horizontal and it’s beginning to looking like a grainy photo of water. Filter->Blur->Motion Blur
We’re almost there. Now select the layer and use the ‘Perspective Transform’ to create some depth. Edit->Transform->Perspective
Last step! Change the ‘Blending Mode’ of the layer to ‘Overlay’ so the gradient can bring color in.
There you go. An easy way to create water. Now you get to play. Experiment with what happens when the filters are at different settings.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful. If you have any comments or questions you can post a reply below.
Anyone can draw. That includes you. There is no need to fuss over whether or not you have a talent for it. I certainly don’t and I draw very well. Seriously. I have no talent. I wouldn’t know talent if I’d been married to it for twenty years and it was poking me in the eye with a Lego-block while yelling it’s name. And that’s a great way to get to know something. Though not a nice way.
(sigh) If only I could have been talented. Many’s the time I sat myself down and lectured me about why this drawing stuff didn’t come as easily to me as it did talented people. I’d go on and on to me about how I should be able to draw this or that and how easy it should be. But no matter how good the drawings were or how much I suffered over it I just couldn’t be talented.
So I quit trying.
I just let things be as the were.
When I gave myself a break, tuned myself out, removed the word ‘should’ from my vocabulary, and spent every day for years drawing my skills readily improved.
What I’m trying to express is that I draw well because I have a lot of experience doing it. It’s not because I possess something no one else does.
All-righty then. Now it’s time for you to ignore your ego and start building some experience.
In this first tutorial I’m going to show you how to use spacing and size to make better, more interesting, characters. It doesn’t really matter what style you’re drawing. Whether you’re drawing stick figures or fully rendered people these principles apply.
Let’s get started by drawing a face. A simple face.
It’s not a bad face, really. It’s just not very interesting. It lacks individuality and character. It’s a ‘blah’ kind of face.
Here’s why it’s not a great face – The features are evenly spaced. There’s no variation.
There is nothing inherently wrong with designing a character with regularly spaced features. This might fit a character that represents everyman, or a character that doesn’t stand out.
I want this fellow to be a bit more unique. Watch what happens when I change the spacing of his features. I’ll move the eyes and nose up, and the mouth and ears down.
Now the character has a more dynamic appearance. He’s much more interesting to look at, don’t you think?
I can push this further by changing the size of the features. Check out what happens when I shrink his eyes a bit, enlarge his nose, and stretch his smile.
That’s a character with a lot of character.
Does this work with more realistic characters? I dunno, let’s find out.
Yep. It sure does.
Keep in mind that I took it to an extreme. You don’t HAVE to go as far as this to create an interesting character. In fact if you go too far the design will fall apart.
The same principles apply to the character’s body. First I’ll sketch a character in which everything is evenly-spaced and the same size. His torso is the same size as his head. His belt is exactly in the middle of his belly. There you go. The character is friendly enough, but even wearing a leisure-suit doesn’t make him very interesting.
With a few changes in spacing and size and we’ll see some magic. A character becoming a character with character.
(Feedback from a young critic – he felt I needed an action drawing with a sound effect in the tutorial.)
Ka-Zapp!!
Let’s see what’s happened to our character.
The variations are nearly endless. I say, ‘nearly, because, things really can be pushed so far that the character won’t work.
Now a little game. You can probably guess what this game entails.
Draw a character. It can be as simple as a stick figure or as real as you like, then start playing with size and spacing. I like to draw animals so I’m going to make a dog.
You know, it’s looking more like a bear. So it’s going to be a bear.
Some size and spacing changes to the original bear-shape and I have three unique characters.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful. If you have any comments or questions you can post a reply below.
Check back in the weeks ahead for more tutorials. In the next character tutorial we’ll delve into shapes.
For the folks looking for more advanced tutorials, I’ll get into silhouettes, expressions and action-lines. From there lessons on life-drawing, giving characters life and animating them. If you’re into painting I’ll be showing how to paint skies and water.
Posted in History on August 12, 2011
After the armistice of November 11, 1918 Coblenz became the seat of the Inter-Allied Control Commission for the Rhineland until 1929. The armistice didn’t actually end World War I; it was merely a truce that allowed the peace negotiations needed to end the war to take place. Condition V of the armistice agreement stated, “The areas of the left bank of the Rhine shall be administered by the local authorities, under the control of the occupation troops of the Allies and the United States Armies of Occupation.” Over 250,000 doughboys were sent to occupy this area of Germany.
That’s when and where the following postcards and photos originate.
Coblenz train station just before the war. A time of overlapping transportation. Trains, trolleys, bicycles, and horses.
Festhalle, the center for Coblenz social life, was turned over to the Y.M.C.A as a place soldiers could find entertainment, reading rooms, billiards, and a cafeteria.
Coblenz taken from the East side of the Rhine.
Turn around and take a picture across the river from Coblenz and you see,
Ehrenbreitstein Fortress.
This last one is a photo taken by an occupying Doughboy from the 38th division. battery E, who was on leave for a few days in 1919.
Posted in Art on July 29, 2011
It’s was a fine evening. The rest of the household turned in early so I pulled out the creative tools and banged out a painting for the hell of it. A little warm-up for a background painting I’ll be creating next week. Yes. I know. It’s not art. There aren’t any messages of societal despair nor special insight into anything. Most importantly nothing in this painting allegorically represents anything else. If it seem to, it wasn’t intentional.
From the February 16, 1918 issue of Collier’s.
Soap! Real soap! In fact there was room for make-believe soap in soldier’s kits. Imaginary soap doesn’t take up much room at all.
They just wanted everyone to be clear that this isn’t sham soap they’re shilling. It really and truly exists while maintaining its reality in all conditions.
And its reality continues to be maintained; Williams Mug Shaving Soap
Rented The Illusionist not knowing what to expect. An effective movie. Very entertaining. No complaints. Well. Maybe one; The sex scene could have benefited from fewer close-ups. Body parts squished up against other body parts, whether it be it hands, legs or chests, all look like derrieres when shot that close. I don’t mind sex scenes. I tend to laugh at butt scenes. Don’t know why, I just do.
On a totally unrelated note I find myself wondering what Indiana Jones would be like if he were played by Paul Giamati.
On a much more unrelated note; Jo ordered up a new vacuum. It’s purple and cost four hundred and fifty bucks. Kids will like it because it looks like it was made by Fisher-Price. The cats will hate it because it’s a vacuum and kids are chasing them with it.
Here’s a few of the spot drawings from the February 1918 Colliers article, The Yanks are Coming!
It’s the illustrations that I love most about magazines from this era. I used up a lot of paper copying these illustrations. Trying to see like the artists. Drawing after drawing, impatiently waiting for it to become easy. It never did, and I was perpetually frustrated, but I kept coming back and eventually my skills improved. Studying big-shot Renaissance painters was all well and good, but I felt more connected with these drawings.
I haven’t looked into who did these particular illustrations for the article. I imagine he cranked these little spot drawings out by the hundreds. Which is probably how he became so good at it. Passion and talent only take one so far. It’s practice that tops it all off. “I can’t draw” isn’t proof that one can’t draw. Draw something ten thousand times and you’ll see that you can.
Scored a spot in the local scandal-sheet. No heaters from the rag to report, but the bulldog pap snapped my mug and ran with it. You might have heard from the boojack, I’m city-wide. Look for me in the barrel if you missed it.
Sorry. Slang spasm. Can happen to anyone. I know. Not a real thing. Not yet, but if I don’t get it started now, “slang spasm” never will become a common affliction.
Anyway. My image appeared in the newspaper – Front page of the lifestyles section. Hey! Also online! Denver Post
Just to be clear, I was dramatically posing for a very cute photographer. That my finger happened to be directed in the direction of an Eaglemoss Captain Marvel Figurine from the Classic Marvel Figurine collection was purely coincidental. I don’t know how the thing ended up in my office.
Oh. And; No shirt, no shoes no service?!? Hulk Smash!!
Hero Headquarters is an occasional stop for a merry chat when I’m not quite ready to be home. An opportunity to get dilly-dallying out of the way before domestic duties. It’s also a great place to find Hong-Kong-Fooey toys for the kiddies. Pop in for a gander, you don’t need to be crackers over funny-books. Sorry. Slang spasm.
Hero Headquarters
8757 Sheridan Boulevard
Westminster, CO 80030
On this day Jim the owner (also pictured) had a guest with a camera. We had our gab session about whatever we talk about, but this time we did it while pretending we weren’t aware of being on camera. Except we were aware of the camera which only makes one more aware of all the awareness which is another layer of awareness. Being on stage is okay. It’s what we’re doing here, right? Playing our parts. I much prefer the wings, though. Too much spotlight and I start interrogating my own character.
The news story? Oh. Comic-Con coming to Denver. What’s a Comic-Con? It’s a ginormous comic and popular culture convention. Will I be going? No. Not even for a coveted wifely eye-roll. And, yes. I realize I’m saying this with evidence of me in a comic store picking out a character figurine.
