King & Country
Captain
- Joined
- May 23, 2005
- Messages
- 5,098
Hi Guys,
Over the weekend I was mulling over the latest batch of questions and comments on Treefrog and thought I’d take this opportunity to reply.
Best wishes and happy collecting!
Andy C.
Over the weekend I was mulling over the latest batch of questions and comments on Treefrog and thought I’d take this opportunity to reply.
1. Redo The Seaforths…
I would love to and… seriously considered it for Chicago this year. As often happens in this business other ideas and priorities came up and took over and this particular project got put on the “back-burner”. However it is very dear to my heart and we will revisit it in the future… I’d love personally to see our Highlanders with the new sculpting and matt paint style… don’t despair!
2. Diorama Enquiry
Very sincere apologies to “Noli Poli” about the lack of K&C response on his enquiry about several diorama possibilities. I checked up with Tammi here in head office and she is preparing a reply and a quotation to go out later today (Monday 8th.September HK time).
Gordon handles the “artistic” side of the K&C Workshop’s displays and dioramas. Tammi… the business side. We apologize once more for the delay!
3. Stop Releasing More Shermans, Tigers etc. etc.
Well boys and girls…Shermans… Tigers and Panthers sell! Pure and simple… Why else do you think Figarti, Honour Bound and New Model Army followed K&C down that particular road!
New collectors come on stream every single day and many of them want the “classics” of WW2 Armour. Often, at the beginning anyway, they may not know as much as some of you guys but they know what they want and know what they like.
Simultaneously all of us manufacturers want to constantly improve and develop our models to meet collectors ever growing expectations and demands for higher quality. And that’s why you see newer, and I believe, better versions of old favourites. If they didn’t sell... nobody would make ‘em!
4. K&C need to think “outside the box”…
Again, let’s examine that statement a little more closely… In my highly biased opinion K&C has been doing that for quite some time now… Here’s a few random examples.
I would humbly suggest that this is one company that constantly thinks “outside the box”… If you actually just sit down, take out pen and paper and make a list of all the vehicles releases of the last 5 years you might just get a surprise!
Or next time you’re in Hong Kong come along to our head office and peruse the displays and ranks for yourself.
Oh I almost forgot what about the French 1940 tanks we’ve produced… Is that in or out of the box!
5. Different Sculptors… Different Factories
Here at K&C we try to give the same sculpting teams the same ongoing projects.
For instance the same 3 guys (inc. 1 girl) have sculpted all our Crusaders & Saracens since the beginning of this series up until the present.
Another team has produced all of our WW1 “1914” series and will continue to specialize in that area.
With World War Two, being such a huge, multi theatre operation everyone works on that. However even here we try to “specialize” where possible. Most Waffen SS figures are sculpted by just one man. In addition our vehicle team (2 brothers actually) work exclusively on all of our vehicles and do no figures at all!
Factory differences… obviously we do our best to minimize any differences between painting styles and try to make all figures conform to a general K&C standard.
For the most part I think we succeed but in any hand-painted product there is bound to be some exceptions… nobody’s perfect.
Obviously you can see, I hope, big improvements in painting style. For instance newer sets like the recent “Big Red One” GI’s are considerably more realistic than some GI’s released just a couple of years before.
We continue to strive to be better all the time. On this you have my solemn promise!
I would love to and… seriously considered it for Chicago this year. As often happens in this business other ideas and priorities came up and took over and this particular project got put on the “back-burner”. However it is very dear to my heart and we will revisit it in the future… I’d love personally to see our Highlanders with the new sculpting and matt paint style… don’t despair!
2. Diorama Enquiry
Very sincere apologies to “Noli Poli” about the lack of K&C response on his enquiry about several diorama possibilities. I checked up with Tammi here in head office and she is preparing a reply and a quotation to go out later today (Monday 8th.September HK time).
Gordon handles the “artistic” side of the K&C Workshop’s displays and dioramas. Tammi… the business side. We apologize once more for the delay!
3. Stop Releasing More Shermans, Tigers etc. etc.
Well boys and girls…Shermans… Tigers and Panthers sell! Pure and simple… Why else do you think Figarti, Honour Bound and New Model Army followed K&C down that particular road!
New collectors come on stream every single day and many of them want the “classics” of WW2 Armour. Often, at the beginning anyway, they may not know as much as some of you guys but they know what they want and know what they like.
Simultaneously all of us manufacturers want to constantly improve and develop our models to meet collectors ever growing expectations and demands for higher quality. And that’s why you see newer, and I believe, better versions of old favourites. If they didn’t sell... nobody would make ‘em!
4. K&C need to think “outside the box”…
Again, let’s examine that statement a little more closely… In my highly biased opinion K&C has been doing that for quite some time now… Here’s a few random examples.
AMERICAN
The DUKW Amphibian
The Deuce and a Half
The M12 Self Propelled Gun
The M18 Hellcat
The M10
The Sandbagged Sherman
The Ambulance Jeep
BRITISH
The Matilda
The Vickers MkVI
The Bren Carrier
The Austin K2 Ambulance
The Bedford Truck
The Crusader Tank
GERMAN
The Desert Demag
Panzer Meyer’s Halftrack
The new 8 wheel Armoured Car
The new Schwimmwagen
The Hotchkiss SPG
The Hetzer
Rommel’s Horch
Panzers I, II, III, IV (in various guises)
Plus a whole host of German transport half tracks.The DUKW Amphibian
The Deuce and a Half
The M12 Self Propelled Gun
The M18 Hellcat
The M10
The Sandbagged Sherman
The Ambulance Jeep
BRITISH
The Matilda
The Vickers MkVI
The Bren Carrier
The Austin K2 Ambulance
The Bedford Truck
The Crusader Tank
GERMAN
The Desert Demag
Panzer Meyer’s Halftrack
The new 8 wheel Armoured Car
The new Schwimmwagen
The Hotchkiss SPG
The Hetzer
Rommel’s Horch
Panzers I, II, III, IV (in various guises)
I would humbly suggest that this is one company that constantly thinks “outside the box”… If you actually just sit down, take out pen and paper and make a list of all the vehicles releases of the last 5 years you might just get a surprise!
Or next time you’re in Hong Kong come along to our head office and peruse the displays and ranks for yourself.
Oh I almost forgot what about the French 1940 tanks we’ve produced… Is that in or out of the box!
5. Different Sculptors… Different Factories
Here at K&C we try to give the same sculpting teams the same ongoing projects.
For instance the same 3 guys (inc. 1 girl) have sculpted all our Crusaders & Saracens since the beginning of this series up until the present.
Another team has produced all of our WW1 “1914” series and will continue to specialize in that area.
With World War Two, being such a huge, multi theatre operation everyone works on that. However even here we try to “specialize” where possible. Most Waffen SS figures are sculpted by just one man. In addition our vehicle team (2 brothers actually) work exclusively on all of our vehicles and do no figures at all!
Factory differences… obviously we do our best to minimize any differences between painting styles and try to make all figures conform to a general K&C standard.
For the most part I think we succeed but in any hand-painted product there is bound to be some exceptions… nobody’s perfect.
Obviously you can see, I hope, big improvements in painting style. For instance newer sets like the recent “Big Red One” GI’s are considerably more realistic than some GI’s released just a couple of years before.
We continue to strive to be better all the time. On this you have my solemn promise!
Best wishes and happy collecting!
Andy C.
