Hand operation so little going on.....

General anaesthetic on Thursday and hopefully getting rid of Dupuytren's nodules on my right hand..... bit of an old age thing unfortunately.... buggers up guitar playing and holding a beer securely....

So....not much of a post beyond some nice adverts from some old ('76/'77) ads from Little Wars Magazine..the early historical TSR magazine to accompany The Dragon mag.....

Great War of the Worlds..Minifigs style...

“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own” 

H G Wells published his work 'War of the Worlds' in 1898...a time of great colonial powers already ensconced around the globe, some on the rise and some on the wane... Minifigs have taken the idea and had Gary Morley and Andrew Ellis sculpt the beginnings of what, hopefully, will become a sizeable range allowing us to re-enact scenes similar to those conjured up by Mr Wells... the sculpts are based on the earlier Valley of the Four Winds Swamp Lords who were obviously the initial wave planted years before where the Martian advanced science and technology have never arrived...

MART1 Greater Martian Warlord

MART2 Greater Martian Close Combat Warriors (3 versions)

Group shot...supplied as MART3

MART50 Martian Heatgunner

GWW1 British Pankhurst Battalion Officer

GWW2 British Pankhurst Battalion Infantrywoman Advancing

GWW3 British Pankhurst Battalion Standard Bearer with cast flag

GWW4 British Pankhurst Battalion Infantrywoman advancing

GWW50 Martian Hunter Officer

GWW51 Martian Hunter Firing

GWW Martian Hunter Advancing

Awaiting copies of these guys...

GWW53 Martian Hunter with Edison-Farnsworth Disintegration Ray on Tripod

GWWM1 Martian Drone

Group Shot with an unsuspecting Artizan Designs waiter... shows how huge these guys are....

 Shot including one of the old VFW Swamp Lords... 5 of which have been re-released by Minifigs here. 

The range is in the Minifigs shop here. If you do mozey on over to the site and get involved, please let them know where you got the message and point out that we need the rest of the Swamp Lords released... nb Dave has told me that he doesn't have all the molds although seems to have the masters, all of which have been chromed to protect them from oxidisation etc  - apparently Neville Dickinson was paranoid about this as the Ral Partha masters had started to suffer... also, the sales from releasing the VFW do not currently justify making up more molds. Buy some and that could change!

enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Shades of the 80s.....Grenadier AD&D Lizardmen re-released.....

The Italian stallions Mirliton have continued their re-releasing strategy of old Grenadier ranges and have now hit the AD&D figures - just the lizardmen so far but we live in hope. 

The original (104 Lizardmen)

and the new.............

Available here

This was an incredible range at the time and so well marketed. Pics of the blisters below, many taken off ebay over time so no details of the original owners, apologies and all kudos to them all. Many of these examples were signed by the sculptor Andrew Chernak.....I so wish I'd bid on them....

101 Kakshasa

102 Bugbears

103 Orcs

104 Lizardmen

105 Djinn & Efreet

106 Driders

107 Umber Hulk & Zorn

108 Goblins

109 Basilisk & Cockatrice

110 Golems

111 Kobolds

112 Wererats

113 Elementals 1

114 Elementals 2

115 Adventurers

116 Giants

4 more packs were listed on the rear of the packs but do not appear to have been released;

117 Undead

118 Lycanthropes

119 Centaurs

120 Pegasus & Unicorn

Grenadier lost the AD&D licence in late 1982 and many sculpts jumped into other lines barring the ones that were specifically AD&D creatures.....

I was in the States back in 1982 and ordered 3 of these blisters from a mall hobby shop in Pheonix, Arizona. They only had the lizardmen and the bugbears in stock so I took them with me along with 2 copies of the Tom Meier Ral Partha  Imperial Dragon......still my fave dragon of all time.  Unfortunately the blisters I ordered never turned up back in blighty....I often wonder if they were ever posted. I didn't even take an address for the place. Trust now needs to be earned.......32 years on it still rankles..... 

 As usual contact me on enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Short post.... Asgard Miniatures X2 - 3 Armed Robot.........

Can't remember where I scanned this advert from but McEwan miniatures imported Asgard into the States back in the day.....haven't seen this mini advertised in the UK before......my example is pictured on an earlier post....(minus the top piece) here. Somewhere I have some more but they are well hidden so I have no idea if I have all of the top bit......grrrrrrrr. Apparently this is a conversion of a Cyborg sculpted by Stan Pochron who came over from the States working with Bryan Ansell all those years ago. More info if I find any!

Edit; just been through my files and it was from September 1978. Jeez, I was approaching my 17th birthday.....

As always; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Valley of the Four Winds.......part 2.....35 years on.....plus Goblinaid

Having sorted out some of my Minifigs VFW boxes I thought it about time to carry on with a paint job started 35 years or so ago... VFW Lord of the Swamps on litter... although at the moment he looks a little like a bikini clad something or another... hopefully this will change...

The litter is a bit of a swine to keep together...all those years of storage have not been kind... I wanted to drill out the poles and replace them with steel wire but don't have a long enough drill bit to hand... the thought of attempting to go through our understairs cupboard for my DIY mini drills was too much to bear... I superglued a couple of end pieces at the front which will need some filling. Once I put the Swamp Lord in place (I did drill out his supports) I will need to play around with more putty to get it right. Or not... In the centre of the base is an old Citadel frog (hidden here by my clever photography) and hope to give him a poison dart frog paint job.

I am also after these pixies from the VFW range... please email me if you have them to trade/sell/donate etc... enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Last but definitely not least, a WIP of the Goblinaid flyer...

Otherworld Artifacts - 1986 Catalogue

Wonderful old resin company back in the day.....also cast in dental plaster (thanks Chirine) so not sure at the moment if just smaller pieces were resin or if they moved into resin later etc. Info appreciated!

Took a while to scan and upload so hope you enjoy it!

3 pics taken off ebay from a while back not sure who's so unable to ask permission - apologies in advance but hope it's ok!

Cavern Expansion Set (cast in dental plaster)

Any q's or trades email me on enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

(Edited below 4th January 2016)

And now some pics from Rick Snider (thanks Rick, never seen these in the flesh before) .....