Clothespin Soldiers!

My little guy is 3 years old and I've been working on a set of wooden soldiers for him to play with...a gamer in the making. I thought I'd go in the H.G. Wells "LittleWars" direction with a simple and durable set of toy soldiers made of wooden clothes pins (the old fashioned spring-less kind) that we can roll plastic golf balls at...for starters. Again my crafts outlet comes to the rescue to make it simple. They sell both the clothes pins and a nice wooden ring the right diameter that allows you to base them. I added a dowel for a musket and painted them up in a classic "British Guards" uniform ( a simple spray black undercoat and a red coat, plus face and belts and you're done.) So a nice little unit of 20 for less than $10.00 and the painting time...which is, since its my son, a labor of love and did not take that long since the paint scheme is pretty abstract.

My next part of the project is to design design a cavalry figure and artillery out of the clothespins, I've got some ideas... and.... hmmm those look pretty fun...I've got a copy of "Littlewars" around here somewhere...