Back in 2015 I was a bit bored, needed to fill my life with some kind-of-artistic achievement or creation,I had just discovered a whole movement on youtube about plastic army men (plastic soldiers in 1/32 scale) and stop motion, some videos really got my attention, like Plastic Apocalypse, which is long (about 30 minutes), violent and fun.
I also wanted to experiment with monetized content, my wife is making some cents and I thought that it would be nice to have my own content producing some $$ for me too. I observed some pathetic toy animation or toy destruction videos with hundred of thousands of views, so I decided: I can do some shit like this, I like WW2 toys, I have good taste for this kind of toys, and I have an admiration/obsession with British Commandos, my childhood heroes, So the first concept emerged: I would create a series of short stop motion movies about WW2 British Commandos and their brutal raids, Plastic Commandos! Task #1 done.
I had so nice toy soldiers when I was a kid, much nicer than those regular cheap "Army Men" that most teenagers use for their stop motion movies today, so I just did identify a distinguishing feature for my movie series: I would use fine diecasts (tanks and vehicles) as well as fine soldier figures, all in 1/32, so I started hitting hard my wallet and enjoying the trip: Amazon and Ebay, here I come (now it is only ebay, I discarded Amazon for this type of purchases some months ago).
I spent some time getting familiar with the range of products offered in 1/32 scale, I did not want to build models or paint figures, although the later would be unavoidable.
My first purchase was a box of Airfix British Commandos 1/32, I learned that Matchbox Commandos were quite expensive at present, but after I learned how to use ebay, I did catch an incredible low price ($5 plus s+h) one lucky morning. Usually this Matchbox Commandos are sold well above $35.
So I started practicing and learning about stop motion, and prepared a set of tests to make myself "present" in the WW2 stop motion community, I used my youtube channel to post all my Plastic Commandos material, first test was published in may 2015, very basic stuff:
From may to july I managed to create and post 15 tests, and then I was ready for episode 1...or so I thought. All these tests can be watched in my youtube channel:
Plastic Commandos youtube channel
At the moment I had (and have) two art oriented passions: this WW2 stop motion stuff and Mid Century/Danish modern furniture and accessories design, in fact I have a very small investment in the later. So when struggling to define the scenario, I tried to simplify things and somewhat make it unique by combining my two passions, so these mother fuckers would battle among the mid modern furniture and objects present in my home office. Problem solved, and also resulted in a homage to one of my favorites Call of Duty 2 maps: the kitchen.
On september 10 2015, I published episode 1, after about 2 months of production, my first short stop movie, I could not believe it, neither my partners! they supported me a lot along the way, since I decided to dedicate a lot of time to this endeavor.
Episode 1: For King and Country
After about 5 months and some hundreds of $$ spent, I did publish my second movie, Episode 2, with a different scenario aesthetics, more dark/gothic (I started using green/blue screen), and also paid homage to another big influence: David Bowie. His death caught me by surprise starting january 2016, I have been listening to his music catalog since then, I cannot stop god damn it! Mid Century design was left out of this episode and some references to David Bowie were introduced, as well to the poetry I like most: T.S. Eliot (the wasteland), Siegfried Sassoon and T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia).
Episode 2: At Her Majesty's Service
With this one I lost a bit of control with time and budget, but after a creative struggle I managed to finish this production, and I am happy with the results, I see improvement and evolution, also broke my own (very modest) records: 100+ views in the 1st day. I know it is nothing when compared with many stop motion movies, but means a lot to me and also really enhanced my stats.
So this is it, my first post for my brand new blog, Plastic Commandos has two more multimedia resources for Fans:
Facebook Fan Page
On this blog I will publish material that is too long for Facebook or Instagram, also material that may be of interest to WW2 toy collectors, because in the process of producing Plastic Commandos I did build a modest but very nice collection of vehicles, diorama elements and figures, and I will publish reviews of many of them, no unboxing shit, just the real thing, straight to the point.
..."Uncage the colors, unfurl the flags, let them know who did this, we are the Motherfucking Brtish Commandos bitch!"
Good luck and good bye! Thank you for reading this article.
