The Army of toy soldiers

TESCO'S ARMY

The idea behind the toy soldiers was a fantasy apparent of what will happen in a worst case scenario with the credit crunch. I developed an idea of our chain-companies taking over and creating a super store army which would destroy smaller businesses and therefore impact the communities around these businesses.
So I took on the idea that Tesco being one of our biggest take over companies around the UK would sponsor an army to fight on the smaller businesses to take them out, so Tesco can overcome and monopolise these areas. To make the soldiers I brought a few packs of plastic green kid’s toy army men. First I spray painted them white then found “Tesco” blue and red model paint to paint onto the army men. The biggest problem I had with them men is deciding how I would paint up the uniforms to tell they were from or made by Tesco but also keep that style subtle to the audience.
After experimenting the different ways to paint the uniform. I thought I would work with the colour blue, red and white as they are the colours I would mostly associate with Tesco’s the superstore .Through trying different types of paint on the models. The problem was with painting the solders is that they were a green shiny plastic. What acrylic paint would be too thick and lumpy on them. So I went to Games Workshop in town where they suggested a primer paint, so white spray paint worked a treat and as it was spray paint it only took a matter of minutes to dry. The sales assistants in games workshop suggested model paint to paint onto the toy army men as the other tined paint I got form the art shop just seemed to be to runny and not stick to the figures. But the paint they suggested to me was a lot thicker I think it and stuck onto the white spray paint perfectly.
I decided on just a plan white body and a few lines of blue and red paint onto the arms legs and helmet as stripes to represent the Tesco uniform. This worked well and through researching into people if they understood the colours and could understand the likeness between the army men and Tesco’s I was set on that design. After working out how I would paint them up I had to work out how many I would paint, how and where I would display them all. The packs of army men came in pack of 50 so I thought I would paint up a pack at a time and arrange them how I though an army would attack and see what visually looked more effective with the amount of men I was using. It worked out to be about 150 army men to use for the display what I thought worked well visual and looked like an attacking force whilst placed on the studio floors. For the displaying of the toy army men the best way was as if they were attacking or defending something like the army would when they were on missions, and through experimenting with this I thought this way to display them was the best.After making the army men, and working out different ways to display them I though a good idea would be to actually take them down to the super market and start to photograph them as if they were defending the store and going out on the attack.
After taking the army men down to Tesco and taking over 75 photographs of them placed in different attacking and defending scenes all around the inside and outside of the store, I had to decide where I could progress from this. I was thinking into maybe doing an installation piece using the army men and the photographs together to complement each other. But this will be decided by the curators for our show Here Today Gone Tomorrow.
From taking the 75 photographs I had to decide on how many I world print out and how I would display them. I managed to decide on over 10 photographs what I felt was the most successful and visually effective as a photograph. Most of the images I decided to use were actually around the outside of the store, around the petrol garage and car park, behind fences and up on a wall.
With the photographs focused on the army men’s position with the Tesco signs in the background not straight in your face as I thought that would make it too easy to understand. I didn’t have any problems with taking the photographs outside the store or in the car park, petrol station it was inside the store which was the hardest. Taking the photographs in the store was the hardest to set them up and take the photos without being noticed by the employees as it is illegal to take photos within the store. Due to the store actually being private property rather than public and the store usually has no photography rule due to industrial spies and to stop potential robberies.
So through the help of a friend I was able to set them up in different scenarios with him on look out while I took up to 30 photos without being noticed. I think if I was to do this again, as I do want to with different themed solders, with different super stores, I think I would phone ahead and actually ask if it was ok to do so, so I can actually create bigger staged sets to take the photographs with more army men then the ones I used. I still want to carry on with this theme with my work with other super stores taking over the country and relate them to the credit crunch and my fantasy of them taking over our communities.

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