Hello,
I'd like to use this "reflective time" at the end of the year to look back on the past year.
In January 2025, I decided to start this little blog with the intention of creating a kind of digital archive of my collection, and to continually motivate myself to craft, draw, or paint paper figures. This initial enthusiasm was fueled by the idea of creating a collection of handmade figures in the style of Alsatian soldiers, inspired primarily by Jean Pfeiffer.
Unfortunately, the necessary time wasn't always available (old house, garden, two children, pets, work, other hobbies), so this area often fell by the wayside. Although I'm not particularly good at drawing or painting, I tried to find my own style. I experimented with watercolors, oils, and acrylics, creating simple figures without shading as well as more elaborately painted ones. I still owe you some of these experiments, meaning I will definitely show some more pictures of them here in the future. And my experiments aren't finished yet. I also have more ideas and various templates that I'd like to try out. But I'm close to the point where I'm satisfied with the figures—especially with the ratio of production time to appearance—so I hope that I can fulfill my dream and start with the making of such a collection soon.
The second part, creating a kind of database of printed historical paper figures, has been much more successful, I think. I was sometimes surprised myself by how much I've accumulated over the years. I think I have enough material for this blog for many more years—and new finds are constantly being made. I also keep discovering new things through research that I'm happy to share here if they relate to one of the presented prints.
I've received a lot of questions about specific pieces. I'd like to answer some of the more general ones here for everyone. First of all, there are many collectors who like to create their own figures for their collections from historical printed sheets. For this reason, I've started making most of the figures included on the presented sheets available as 300dpi scans. If you haven't noticed, you can click on these images and save the scan as a separate file to print it yourself in the desired size. If you'd like to craft any of the figures I've presented here that I've forgotten to scan, just let me know, and I'll add them.
This, of course, doesn't apply to new figures, especially those released as digital downloads for the wargaming community. When I present such items, it's primarily to promote the respective product—not because I receive anything for it, but simply because I generally like these figures and want to support the designer or publisher.
I've also been asked several times if I cut out the figures from the presented print sheets. No, of course not! As much as I enjoy cut-out figures, the intact print sheet is the best way to preserve these older pieces. And it would be a real shame to destroy them. Please don't do that.
Regarding some questions about the "restoration" (or repair) of cut-out soldiers: Not all of the cut-out figures I present here originally arrived in the condition shown. Many of the figures need minor restoration. Sometimes the figures' legs or weapons are bent and need some support from behind. Sometimes the wooden bases are missing. Sometimes only paper tabs are attached for display – depending on their condition, I sometimes replace these with wood, etc. Some figures were also very poorly cut, and I've made some improvements there. Some figures are also coming loose from their cardboard backsides or need a few new adhesive dots to prevent them from falling off. My goal with all these small repairs is to preserve the figures as well as possible for the coming years and decades as collector's items, and certainly not to destroy or unnecessarily alter anything.
A few details about the blog itself: When I wrote the first lines at the end of January 2025, it took quite a while before the first interested readers found this blog. When I saw some click counts, I was delighted to see that there are apparently people worldwide who enjoy looking at such old prints or are interested in historical paper figures.
The number of visits to my blog has steadily increased since then! I'm truly amazed by how many different people—and from so many different countries—are looking at my little soldiers!
In total, I've uploaded 95 posts so far in 2025.
Over the last 11 months, I've had 6970 visits, or about 20 per day.
The post with the most clicks was the one featuring German artillery from 1940, published by ABC Verlag (published on June 23, 2025).
Broken down by country, most of the visits came from the USA, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, and the United Kingdom. This is just a selection, though. Even if I'm sure many of the visits originate from proxy servers in these countries, I'm delighted that there seems to be a worldwide interest in this wonderful hobby.
I hope to present you with many more interesting pieces and information about paper soldiers next year.
I wish you and your families a wonderful, healthy and successful 2026, and continued enjoyment of looking at, crafting, or collecting paper figures.
Best regards,
Andreas
