Goodbye Mr Punch

This is FN367 GENERAL CAMBRONNE, in General’s uniform and cocked hat on foot, with drawn sword and waving arm who last made an appearance on this blog here back in 2008.

 General Cambronne sporting Tony's touched-up paint work that covered up the Mr Punch look.

I acquired this figure from Tony who told me that he bought it ready-painted direct from Hinton Hunt back in the 70’s. When it arrived he was very disappointed with the standard of the paint job saying that the face of the figure was more reminiscent of Mr Punch than that of the famous French General Cambronne. In fact he was so disappointed that he ended up pretty much repainting it. Hinton Hunt Figures offered all their 20mm range for sale ready-painted and as a twelve-year-old I remember wishing I was rich enough to buy a whole army of them. However, at 88p (equivalent to £9.82 now) for infantry figures and £1.76 (equivalent to £19.69 now) for cavalry figures this had to remain a pipe dream so I was quite pleased in a way to find out that I hadn’t really missed out on much.

 No, no... not the bleach... merde!

Anyway, the time has finally come for Mr Punch to be consigned to the jar of bleach to have his old paint removed as I thought it fitting to paint him first before moving onto my first unit of Old Guard grenadiers – and not before time I hear you say.