>>9800256Would just like to point out, you don't don't sculpt tin soldiers, you smelt them. At most, you'd sculpt a prototype of the figure, and then cast a mold of it for production. But the final product wasn't actually sculpted. In effect, the basics of toy manufacturing haven't changed in over a hundred years.
Growing up, my father used to do exactly that, and still does though not as much these days. He wouldn't sculpt the original prototype, he would buy other toy soldiers (both metal and plastic), modify them to his liking, make a mold of said new figure and then produce new figures which he'd then hand paint. We'd then go up and down the east coast almost every weekend and sell his figures at numerous Toy Soldier shows.
Having grown up in the late 80s, early 90s, I never really appreciated the smaller, static figures that were miniature Toy Soldiers, but I did respect the effort that all the sellers put into their crafts. While I had and enjoyed my box of green plastic army men, I always much rather would play with Ninja Turtles, He-Man or most specifically G.I. Joe figures. To me, Toy Soldiers were static and boring, where I preferred figures with articulation and swappable accessories.
But to my father, and the hundreds and thousands of Toy Soldier enthusiasts who visited these Toy Soldier Shows, these little metal figures were their favorite toys. They were the toys they had as kids and they were the toys they grew up to remember fondly. Even though they were static figures, meant to sit on display and in many cases could be fairly expensive, they were still first and foremost toys.
Didn't see many "Statue" sellers at these toy shows though, because while a statue may be a static figure meant for display and often times fairly expensive, you could tell they weren't actually toys.
In the end, one of the biggest things you need to consider would be the intent behind the creation of the item.
