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Translation :
Daniel Serrano
My Name is Alan Ball,
I was Born in Liverpool England on
June 22nd 1955.I am
married to Marion (Ebensperger), we
live in Switzerland with our Cat
Suso.
When I was young we
lived in Aden, at that time a
British Port in the middle east . We
had no TV and the only recreation at
night was the radio or reading
.fortunately, there was a toy shop I
town, that sold a lot of Airfix
Kits, and I used to buy them
whenever I had the pocket money. Of
course at that time, there were no
figures available except for
Britain’s lead soldiers, which I
used to also play with (though the
always tended to get broken after a
short time).
At that time I also
used to make small figures with
modelling clay ( Plastecine9 , these
you could move, as the plasticene
didn’t set hard, but they of course
didn’t last long either ….so I
tended to make them pretty
regularly, based on the films I had
seen or the comics I had read (
Zorro , or Spiderman etc ) that was
all fun, but of course, I also got a
basic idea of how to go about making
a figure this way., and when I found
out that you could buy a putty that
set hard, this was a revelation. and
I started to work with
Milliputt……..still working in the
same wa as I had with the
Plasticene, but eventually I adapted
and changed the wa I worked with
this new material and found that I
could also add a lot finer detail
and not worry about it being broken
quite so often.
I was working quite
alone, and making things up as I
went along .how to work, what to do
and basically discovering for myself
all about sculpting ( at this time
my figures were I guess about 100mm
, as I didn’t know about the scales
.
I then found out
about the old Airfix Magazine,
quickly followed by military
modelling and Scale models
.magazines which I started to get
regularly……..this is where I learnt
about the scales and 54mm figures. I
also saw examples of models by Bill
Hearn, Shep Paine, Max Longhurst and
others, and was inspired to improve
as much as I could .
Yes, Marion and I do
a little archery, swimming and
biking, apart from that I love to
read a lot , and I also spend too
much time on the computer.
I admire anybody who
has a real feel for a figure, and
cann bring it alive , Maurizio
Bruno, Bill Horan, Christian Petite
, The Cannone Brothers among mayn
others are an inspiration . When I
was painting I used acrylics ( I
never got the hang of oil paints )
but ws never satisfied with the
final outcome …..now I leave all the
painting to Marion , as she has a
lot more patience with the painting
than I ever did .for me it was
something you had to do to finish
the figure, but it wasn’t something
I enjoyed very much …..I just liked
to sculpt
My favourite scale is
75mm, as I think you can get a lot
more detail and feeling into a
figure this size, without it taking
up much more room that a 54mm
figure. My favourite putty at the
moment is a mixture of Magicsculpt
and A&B putty,<though I also like
Aves apoxie and Green stuff (DURO)
for details .
I have no one
favourite manufacturer, because the
sculptors I like can work for a
couple of companies, and I tend to
like the style of sculpting of
certain sculptors, rather than the
manufacturer that they may have done
a specific figure for .
MY favourite subject
is always the unexpected, but
something that has a story to it, or
a panache to the figure or pose .at
the moment I like woodland Indians,
because you can get a lot of
animation and freedom of movement
into a figure wearing loose clothing
, and it’s nice to be free to
experiment with ideas in this way.
My list recently is
pretty much the same list as
Marions, though in thepast I have
had Gold Silver and Bronze at
Euro-Militaite, along with several
commended or Highly commended
certificates, I also had a couple fo
Siilver medals at Chicago I also had
silver and Gold medals at the
Atlanta show , as well as many Gold
medals at local shows in England .
I think this hobby
will last for quite some time, and
will keep growing.
With so many figures
available now, it is a real help to
people starting out and deciding
which subject they like the best
…….these days it is very easy to
specialise, and you could if you
wanted just have a collection of
Hussars, Samurai, Grenadiers or
whatever you liked , and in whatever
scale you liked …………We get a lot of
mail from people who are starting in
the hobby, asking for advice or help
in some way or another, and it is a
pleasure to answer when we can, a
it’s sometimes as much fun to write
and exchange ideas with people as it
is to actually make something J
This is after al our
hobby as well, and we are no
different from anyone else in
enjoying it.
Each show you go to
has it’s own feling and personality,
whether In Euope or the USA they are
all slightly different, which is why
we keep going back , Atlanta is
different from Chicago, which is
different from Euro-militaire, which
si different from St Vincent or
Ingolstadt or Antwerp. or any of the
others…..the great bthing is meeting
friends old and new and having a
good time .probably the best yet was
the last World Expo in Boston………a
great big party, and walking around
Boston , we were always meeting
people from the show .
On the Bopat trip
around Boston Harbour for the 4th
July fireworks , someone said that
if the boat sank then there wouldn’t
be any magazines or other shows
for the next few years, because the
editors , organisers and almost all
the people whose’ models we see in
the magazines and at the shows were
on the boat J
This si a great
hobby, and it gives you as much as
you put into it, if you simply enjoy
it at home then that is fine, and
you can look at pictures in
Magazines or on the internet, and
enjoy all that is out there, if you
go to shows, then you have the added
bonus of meeting and becoming
friends with people from all over
the world ………you can travel to other
countries and not be a stranger ,
it’s a good and worthwhile hobby to
be involved with and I would
certainly recommend going to shows
and not being afraid to talk to
people …….pretty well everyone is
friendly and will take the time to
talk to you once they know that you
are interested.
Alan Ball
Gallery
Album
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