The Bryan Ansell collection: Space Marine Scouts (Rogue Trader era)

Just a quickie today to showcase some of the painted Games Workshop/Citadel Miniatures Space Marine scouts in Bryan Ansell's collection. A mixture of metal and plastic (from the Advanced Space Crusade set). Some of the plastic scouts are particularly well-painted, and the metal scouts look great with the face paint!

The Dave Perry collection: Chaos Space Marines part 2

In my first review of former 'Eavy Metal 'eavyweight Dave Perry's Chaos Space Marines I focussed on his Plague Marines; this week it's the turn of Khorne and the Iron Warriors. Bloooood! Deaaaaath!

Khorne

The Dave Perry collection: Rogue Trader Eldar part 2

Here is the second installment of Dave Perry's superb Eldar collection. I particularly like Dave's deep and rich oranges on the Fire Dragons. Enjoy!

PS - I've started inserting "read more" breaks into my posts, which I think makes for scanning multiple posts easier. Any feedback would be appreciated.

The Dave Perry collection: Chaos Space Marines part 1

Some old classics here. I particularly like the Nurgle marines and in my opinion Dave has given them the colour scheme they deserve. I've never really clicked with the Night Lords: a bit too cartoon-y for my taste but I can't fault Dave's painting of the figure.

The Dave Perry collection: Rogue Trader Eldar part 1

Dave has quite a few of Jes Goodwin's Eldar in his collection, harking back to the very first Rogue Trader releases. So many in fact that I've decided to divide his Eldar between two posts. Notice Dave has decided to keep the edges of his bases black. You may recall that Fraser Grey did the same thing - simple but very effective.

These particular Eldar are an absolute riot of yellow - Dave has done Eldar in colours other than yellow as you'll see from the next post! In my limited painting experience yellow is a particularly difficult colour to do well, and Dave's results are stunning.

The Dave Perry collection: Realm of Chaos Champions and Renegades

I am delighted that Dave Perry, former resident of Games Workshop's Design Studio/'Eavy Metal team, has allowed me to display photographs of his fantastic painted miniatures on my blog. If you dipped out of the hobby in the 1980s and have only recently returned to it you may have missed Dave's stint at GW, but he's provided a comprehensive and very amusing bio below. Please note these are not my words - I want to emphasise that because I certainly don't agree with the "Never truly great, Dave’s painting was, I suppose, sufficient" comment!

Over the coming weeks I'll be showcasing Dave's work, organised fairly roughly into categories. This week it's the turn of Realm of Chaos era Champions and Chaos Renegades.

Biography

Coming soon: the Dave Perry collection

I'm such a tease...

Ivan Bartleet's Honour Guard of Chaos: Mike McVey's Greater Demon of Nurgle found

Back in April I blogged about finding Ivan Bartleet's War Altar of Chaos in Bryan Ansell's collection. I pondered on the whereabouts of the remainder of this chaos warband, which can be seen gathered together on the back of White Dwarf 128:

Well, the Greater Demon of Nurgle, bottom left of the above pic has been located in Bryan's collection, and is presented below in all his pustulent glory. The figure is actually painted by Mike McVey (thanks Stuart for alerting me to that!):

What a wonderful and sickly contrast between the dark green and pink!

The Broken Nose Tribal Army List by Richard Halliwell and Rick Priestley

I'm currently in the process of painting up a small group of 1980's Kev Adams Citadel Miniatures Orcs, and I've been thumbing through back issues of White Dwarf for colour scheme inspiration. In White Dwarf 87 I came across this unusual 'Eavy Metal article - other than displaying images of some lovely old painted orcs and goblins, it didn't really have a painting or modelling component. Instead it focussed on an army list that tied in with the recently published Ravening Hordes.

The introduction to the army list indicates that it "is intended for friendly games not the Warhammer League." I'm not familiar with the Warhammer League - is it an early incarnation of the tournament scene? If it's something you were involved in could you leave a comment and share your experiences?

The back-story to the army list centres around an impending conflict between the goblinoids and the dwarfs at Blackfire Pass, which is a "legendary battlefield" in today's Warhammer. I don't know if this article is the first time we have been introduced to the Pass?

All in all the article presents us with some wonderful and inspirational old painted figures, the usual humorous back-story we have come to expect from the likes of Halliwell and Priestley, and some very entertaining troop choices such as the goblin fanatics, snotlings and lead belcher. I'm tempted to put together a similar force for a future battle: I'm a big fan of troop choices with random consequences!

The Bryan Ansell collection: Blood Bowl (second edition) Citadel Miniatures

Today's dip into the Bryan Ansell collection uncovers some Blood Bowl (second edition) Citadel Miniatures. I've been scouring through old White Dwarfs to discover who painted these figures, and although many of them are illustrated in 'Eavy Metal articles I can't find any indication of who painted them. Any help would be appreciated.

Big Guys

Bryan's cabinets of...Oldhammer!

Bryan Ansell provided a marvellous selection of figures to display at the Oldhammer Weekend at Foundry, all carefully arranged and displayed by his son Marcus. A took quite a few photographs, some of which have appeared previously on this blog, others have not. I'll let the pictures do the talking, but see if you can spot the Blanche-painted Runequest Troll...(hint: it's not in the "Blanche" section).

Undead

The Bryan Ansell collection: Marauder Miniatures Empire Fighters and Flagellants

I love these figures! So much character and they look great lined up in units on the battlefield. Bryan Ansell has a good deal of the original painted figures from the following ranges in his collection:

- MM60 Fighters
- MM61 Fighter Command
- MM65 Heroes of the Empire - Reiksgard
- MM65 Empire Flagellants

Here are a selection of the actual painted figures released between 1988 and 1991 and appeared in the White Dwarf ads of the time. Oddly, I've noticed that some of them do not seem to have the same shields that they had in White Dwarf, although they are definitely the same figures...

Bryan Ansell's Genestealer cult

On 15th December 2012 Foundry Miniatures in Nottingham played host to an old school Rogue Trader participation day. It was a fun day with some gorgeous old school figures and game boards on display. Bryan Ansell had brought along some of his old Citadel figures, including his fantastic Genestealer cult. I took a bunch of pictures of the cult, and decided to get blogging...(6 months later!).

Many of the figures below featured in Bryan's Khornate Genestealer Cult that was described in a series of articles in White Dwarf issues 114 - 116. These issues featured a background to Genestealers in Warhammer 40k written by Paul Murphy, some fabulous artwork, and a number of figures painted by the 'Eavy Metal team (together with "how to" painting guides). Not all of the figures below were strictly speaking part of the particular cult featured, and sadly not all members of the cult were present on the day.

My blog post starts with the pictures of the figures from the day, followed by some of the 'Eavy Metal figures and painting guides.

Apologies that some of these are out of focus - I was so wrapped up in the figures that I didn't check the pictures as I went along! It was only after I arrived home that I realised my mistake.

Genestealer hybrids

A visit to the Citadel Miniatures Hall, Games Workshop HQ Nottingham

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently visited Warhammer World in Nottingham for a Forge World Open Day event, and took the opportunity to snap a few pics in The Citadel Miniatures Hall, which is well worth a visit if you are in the area. I'm writing a separate thread on the dioramas of Mike McVey which are on view in the Hall; in this thread I shall concentrate on some of the other figures I snapped, both vintage and contemporary (including works-in-progress).

The old stuff (mainly 1980's)

Bryan's cabinets of chaos 4

This week's glimpse into Bryan's cabinets focuses on some of the chaotic beasts on display. As usual, there's some well painted treasures together with cool conversions and rarities.

Mike McVey's dioramas of the 1990s: Warhammer Quest

I recently visited Warhammer World in Nottingham for a Forge World Open Day event, and took the opportunity to snap a few pics in The Citadel Miniatures Hall, which is well worth a visit if you are in the area. I concentrated much of my snapping efforts on the dioramas of Mike McVey, several of which can be found in the Hall. For Oldhammerers of a certain age Mike will always be one of the most iconic members of the 'Eavy Metal team. Mike's dioramas on display in The Citadel Miniatures Hall are all from the 1990s, which is just after my main period of interest, but the painting and modelling skill on display certainly makes them deserving of a closer look (and there are some 1980s figures on show too). In this first post of a series I'll be looking at Mike's Warhammer Quest diorama, which featured in White Dwarf 191. After uploading my pictures to blogger, I dug out my copy of White Dwarf 191 assuming I would find a picture of the diorama to add to the post..what I found was a whole lot more! I hadn't realised that Mike had put together a whole 'Eavy Metal article on the diorama, complete with narrative walk-through. So I decided to upload the article to Scribd and present it at the end of this post. Given that Mike has already done a sterling job of describing the diorama I will leave you with just my pictures, and let you read about the diorama in Mike's own words.