Greenwood & Ball Catalogue - 1975

Well, I have finally found a piece of software to edit photos on the new laptop......one that I can almost understand. Window Photo Viewer has changed so there are no editing tools like the old simple crop I used all the time......God Bless Irfanview. It's given me an easy way to crop and rotate scanned catalogues....no longer will I have to post wonky pics! On to the goodies......picked up off eBay recently I thought it would be good to share. The errata sheet at the end shows the first pictures of a new range; 'Sword And Sorcery'. I was 14 at the time and didn't discover them till the next year or so. John Braithwaite was the 25mm designer for Garrison, the wargame figure area of Greenwood & Ball. He was, apparently, a lifelong smoker, as was the habit in those days ......my own parents were never without a Player's No.6 either in their mouth or being lit up......great for us children as the vouchers that came with them would allow us to choose gifts from a catalogue...much joy had over Timpo plastics turning up in the post.......halcyon days indeed. Cancer took John in the late 70s however his sculpts live on. Rob Young currently has most of the old molds over at Garrison Miniatures although that site is now closed for business. Rob has left a potted history of the company here and is carrying on as usual in the hobby himself with his own worthwhile blog The Eastern Garrison. As Rob has taken down the catalogue, check out the Lost Minis WIKI listings here.

Hopefully you can save the files and view at your leisure. Enjoy!

As usual; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Empire of the Petal Throne 1984 interview with Prof M.A.R Barker

Creator of one of the most vivid fantasy game settings, I thought this interview with the Professor might be of interest to many! Taken from issue 71 (Nov/Dec 1984) of 'Space Gamer', the magazine is a feast of related articles. Hopefully you should be able to save the images and enlarge them at your heart's content for future perusal.....

The only drawback with the Space Gamer magazine was the general lack of miniatures related articles over the years. They had some capsule reviews but, published by 'Steve Jackson Games' (the US guy, not the UK Games Workshop founder), the company always concentrated of the game side of the industry rather than the miniatures....that's not to say they didn't produce miniatures, far from it, but overall they were not the lead heads they should have been.....they are indeed still going strong, producers of such games as 'Illuminati', 'Munchkins', 'Ogre' and many more...check them out;

http://www.sjgames.com/

As always; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Me as a Tudor Nobleman.......sweet sculpt......

A short while ago a good hobby friend, Pete Brown, set up a Kickstarter campaign to introduce the world to a new range of Tudor miniatures designed by Nick Collier and released by 'The Assault Group' .... for some reason it didn't attract the attention it deserved and the Kickstarter was pulled......however I had put some pennies towards a face sculpt and they have just been sent out.......very impressed!

Now available as part of Tudor Pack III....get a piece of me folks whilst they're still hot!

I still don't understand why it didn't fund when Cool Mini or Not / Reaper can command millions in funding.....go figure, every pun intended......The Assault Group still have a massive range of figures that are well worth checking out..........Tudor range here. Tell them I sent you.....Pete also runs The Mouldmaker......source of God alone knows how many miniatures across the hobby universe!

As always; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Foundry's John Pickford Barbarian Warriors - at last!

Back in March this year the wonderful Clam extolled the virtue of these sculpts on his blog;  Clamshell & Sea Horses. One thing led to another and they joined the coffee table machinations of this elderly mind ie I completely forgot about them.....they were then mentioned on a Facebook group a week ago.......I hastily got in contact with Foundry and lo and behold they arrived a couple of days ago...night shifts being what they are this is the first chance I've had to show them off. Gone are the days of sending off a postal order and then waiting impatiently for the postman.....we live in enlightened times......

Completely old school in style so I have no worries about showing them here. Email Martin on customers@wargamesfoundry.com and tell him I sent you. If, like me, you are a fan of John's sculpting you could do no better than stroll on to Clam's dedicated WIKI site here. Quite frustrating as there are many unreleased sculpts......and you may lose your soul (or more accurately your bank balance) once you tread into the White Knight's private venture area here......

C&C as always to; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Tom Meier interviewed by Iron Wind Metals......

One of the sculpting Gods of this hobby......Tom chats about his early days....if you follow the You Tube link here there are more Iron Wind Metals videos....what a place to work!

I remember seeing Tom's work when Wargames Publication (Scotland) Ltd first imported the Ral Partha line into the UK back in the 70s. 50p each - a fortune at the time but oh so 'wow' factor. Still got these old pieces, lovely soft lead.

(Edit 25/02/2022) - loads of Tom's sculpts are being re-released by Jacob Fathbruckner through Ral Partha Legacy  

I had to pull out of the earlier Iron Wind Metals Kickstarter due to the divorce and the expense of buying a new house but will certainly be picking up a bunch of these releases at some point!

As always; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Warmonger Group Shot...........

Quick post as I bought a light box for taking pics and thought I'd start with these babies......

There are loads more being sculpted including Chaos types. All weird and wonderful and most thoroughly needed.....that evil infiltrator Steve Casey has a great heads up over on his blog here.

More later!

Valley of the Four Winds - Minifigs reissues Satan and more!

Back in 1978 Games Workshop, Minifigs and Rowland Flynn created a wonderful Hieronymus Boschesque world populated by weird beasts, living skeletons, Swamp Lords, pixies and more...it was a boardgame based around a short story and an extremely imaginative set of miniatures that pushed current figure design forward. 

A great link to peruse the work of Hieronymus Bosch is here.

Excellent review of the Games Workshop Valley of the Four Winds is on Boardgame Geek here.

I've just finished painting (bar a touch up where I just dropped him and the varnishing.....) the old VFWM11 Satan....available here. I tried to keep his 'wang' as low key as possible.....

Highlighted the imps a little...

Quite a few people, myself included, have noticed a distinct resemblance to Satan from the classic 'Pick of Destiny' which, if you haven't seen please believe me when I say you are missing out....Tenacious D 'Tribute' below...the movie is unmissable.

Finally for now, a quick preview of 2 of the unreleased Swamp Lords types.....trying to work out if these were the humanoid overlords for the more bestial (and larger) original release or if they were the prototype which ended up being put on a back burner.....the codes were then taken by the Gondemarian Dwarves.

Dave has them available here. Tell him I sent you please!

As alway; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk