So here he is: pretty crude, but great fun!
Sunday, 29 December 2013
The Tim Pollard collection: unreleased Space Marine with guitar
It is not known if this Space Marine was ever intended for release, or if it was simply an in-house cast. The front of the tab is labelled "MARINE" and the rear "GW 1987". I've looked through my back catalogue of Rogue Trader era Space Marines and I can't find any obvious candidate for a donor figure, so it's possible that this is a completely new sculpt. If anyone spots a potential donor then please leave a message. Slaanesh had their Noise Marines - is there anything in the fluff of the period that mentions Space Marines wielding guitars? Not that I'm aware of.
So here he is: pretty crude, but great fun!
So here he is: pretty crude, but great fun!
Saturday, 28 December 2013
The Bryan Ansell collection: Daleks and Cybermen
This week saw the 800th episode of Doctor Who and Matt Smith's final appearance as The Doctor. Although "my" Doctor will always be Tom Baker, I think Matt's performance has been up there with the best, if not the best. I for one will miss him, but I have faith in Matt's replacement, Peter Capaldi. Here's to another 800 episodes.
To celebrate Matt's time in the Tardis I thought it fitting to show these Dr Who figures in Bryan's collection. They are plastic Cybermen and Daleks, and made their appearance in a boxed set in 1987. The figures below are the ones that appeared in an advert in White Dwarf 89, and if you look closely at the colour schemes of the Daleks you can see that they are still ranked-up in the same way as in the White Dwarf 89 advert. You will also see, if you look closely, that the painting is pretty crude: they certainly looked much better in the advert!
To celebrate Matt's time in the Tardis I thought it fitting to show these Dr Who figures in Bryan's collection. They are plastic Cybermen and Daleks, and made their appearance in a boxed set in 1987. The figures below are the ones that appeared in an advert in White Dwarf 89, and if you look closely at the colour schemes of the Daleks you can see that they are still ranked-up in the same way as in the White Dwarf 89 advert. You will also see, if you look closely, that the painting is pretty crude: they certainly looked much better in the advert!
Thursday, 26 December 2013
The Bryan Ansell collection: Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers and Elven Attack Chariot
Seeing as it's Christmas I thought Elves would be the most appropriate focus for the season. OK, tenuous links aside, here are some pictures of the Elven Attack Chariot that appeared in White Dwarf 88, and the Regiment of Renown Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers from White Dwarf 92. These figure sets now reside in Bryan's collection. Enjoy (oh, and Merry Christmas!).
Elven Attack Chariot
Monday, 23 December 2013
The Tim Pollard collection: unreleased multi-part Space Marine metal kit
Back in the Rogue Trader era Games Workshop produced the RTB01 Space Marines, a boxed set of multipart Space Marines in plastic. They were and still are today a very popular kit. Multipart kits of Space Marines following the RTB01 model with multiple options of heads, bodies, arms, guns, knives, backpacks etc were only produced in plastic, right? Well it seems not. At least one multipart Space Marine set was produced entirely in metal, but was never released. Fortunately it was discovered in Tim Pollard's collection:
Saturday, 21 December 2013
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
The Tim Pollard collection: Dark Future and Rogue Trader vehicles
Last June the excellent Realm of Chaos 80s blog posted an article about Tim Pollard, former stalwart of Games Workshop back in the glory days of the 80's. This blog post, together with a subsequent one, revealed the incredible painted miniature and original GW artwork collection in Tim's possession. Tim revealed during the course of the blog post that he was involved in the advertising of GW minis back in the day and remarked that "in order to advertise the minis I got sent at least one of each to photograph, and then I got to keep them". This raised an intriguing possibility: if Tim still had these miniatures in his possession, could they include some previously unknown rarities? Not being one to miss a potential opportunity to mine for hidden treasure, I got in touch with Tim and he agreed to let me trawl through his collection of castings (which was very kind of him given that Tim is incredibly busy being Nottingham's official Robin Hood and that he is about to become a proud parent!).
Tim was initially concerned that he might not have anything of note in his collection of castings, other than a large number of general release figures. As it turned out he didn't need to worry! The first thing I was presented with on meeting Tim was a large box of mainly preslotta figures of mixed manufacturer. I immediately spotted some parts of the Citadel Giant (you know - the Citadel Giant) lying in the box. Nice, pretty rare, but OK not an eye-popper. But then my attention was drawn to a metal vehicle lying amongst the figures. It gradually dawned on me that I was looking at a metal casting of a prototype Dark Future Interceptor (production castings were plastic). Here is a view of Tim's metal prototype followed by a plastic production casting:
Tim was initially concerned that he might not have anything of note in his collection of castings, other than a large number of general release figures. As it turned out he didn't need to worry! The first thing I was presented with on meeting Tim was a large box of mainly preslotta figures of mixed manufacturer. I immediately spotted some parts of the Citadel Giant (you know - the Citadel Giant) lying in the box. Nice, pretty rare, but OK not an eye-popper. But then my attention was drawn to a metal vehicle lying amongst the figures. It gradually dawned on me that I was looking at a metal casting of a prototype Dark Future Interceptor (production castings were plastic). Here is a view of Tim's metal prototype followed by a plastic production casting:
