Tuesday 12 February 2013

Not strictly speaking fantasy...... Perry Miniatures


I was trawling through various blogs, Facebook pages and related forums when I came across the Perry twins take on the recent find of Richard III's remains......


Classic rendition with a great sense of humour.....take note of the disabled sign on the toilet door.......the body being discovered beneath a public toilet at a car park  in Leicester, England. Apparently the remains had come close to being destroyed by the addition of the toilet foundations......a close shave Richard? Richard III, of course, died in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, having gone down in history books as the evil murderer of the 'Twins in the Tower'. 


Anyway, I digress. The sculpt is a typically wonderful one from the hands of the Perry twins, both of whom I have been following for nigh on 35 years now from when they first started sculpting for Citadel Miniatures back in the dawn of time and pre-GW corporate involvement..... apparently they sculpted in the schoolroom under their desks during lessons....probably ending up with a 'could do better' on the school reports.......these are the same guys that gave us the 'Chicken Dragon' and the first real giant...........


Nowadays large sculpts are relatively common however at that time they were very rare.......although there was a similar sized giant sculpted by Nik Bibby for Asgard, Bryan Ansell's earlier figure company...pic courtesy of the Armory 'Buyers Guide to Fantasy Miniatures 1983' ...the ultimate 80's pic reference source for lead addicts.


The Armory Guide can be downloaded free from the Megaminis site here. Johnny Lauck of Megaminis is a great guy and very interested in all aspects of the hobby. He has uploaded a bunch of old catalogues on the site from various sources for everyone to get for free. Greater love hath no man....

Back to the Perrys...............I do look around their site on a regular basis and it never ceases to amaze me at the sheer size of the subjects portrayed. They have just released figures for Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow in 1812......I often wonder why Hitler hadn't read his history books......




I then got looking around the various forges they do...I have a thing for blacksmiths...although only in lead miniature form mind...please don't get me thinking of large muscular men dripping with sweat...not an area I want to visit! 
  




Just incredible sculpting and I really need them all....no, seriously I do. 

Another few blacksmith types are available from Wargames Foundry......email Marcus with any queries, he is the son of Brian Ansell, the lynchpin of the old industry, and very helpful and approachable.




Any collection of course would be incomplete without the addition of this Blacksmith's beauty from Tabletop World


A snip at 88 Euros but a magnificent beast nonetheless......these are limited edition pieces due to the complexity of the molds and should be picked up before they go. They have an infuriating section of the old pieces on their site.....grrrrrrrr. Further to this post it is currently unavailable.....double grrrrr.........

In Germanic and Norse mythology, Wayland the Smith (as opposed to Wayland Games, the online game retailer.....who I like use occasionally) was a legendary master blacksmith who features in the Raymond E Feist novel 'Faerie Tale'.....possibly my favorite read ever. Wonderful story of modern man meeting the creatures of the Fae. If you haven't read it please do so soon with my wholehearted recommendation.


Anyway, that's enough babble for now.......keep the emails coming, I always enjoy the lead related conversations!

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