Aly Morrison's Marauder Miniatures sketchbook

Happy New Year Oldhammer devotees! I've got a cracking first post of the New Year for you. Last Saturday I attended Games Workshop's 40th birthday bash at their HQ in Nottingham, partly in the hope of seeing some old miniatures on display. In truth there wasn't much to be seen, but I did hit upon an absolute nugget of gold that made the trip more than worth the effort. Aly Morrison was manning one of the display tables and he had brought along his old miniatures sketchbook from his days at Marauder Miniatures!

It was great to chat with Aly, and he was more than happy to share his memories about his early years at GW/Marauder. His sketchbook was absolutely fascinating, and Aly very kindly gave his permission for me to photograph it and share the images with my fellow Oldhammerers. I was so excited I decided to photograph every page! There's somewhere in the region of 73 pages here, so you may well want to grab a cuppa and a biscuit and settle down to enjoy the view...These pages are roughly in the order in which they appear in the sketchbook, but some of them will be out of order because I've grouped some similar pages together.

I've always been a big fan of Aly's figures, but one thing I have to confess is that I had no idea how good an illustrator he is. In addition to his scrapbook he also brought along some very early illustrations he did at GW. Jon Boyce has already published some of these on the Oldhammer Facebook group, and I'll upload some more in a future blogpost; in my opinion they really are the epitome of Oldhammer.

Another characteristic of Aly's that is evident in many of the illustrations is his sense of humour. It's well worth taking a closer look at some of his notes to see what I mean!

Finally, before I let you loose on the images, I wanted to point out that I have included links to various Marauder Miniatures pages on the Stuff of Legends website throughout my accompanying notes. I have done this simply because the similarity between Aly's concept sketches and the finished product is quite uncanny, which I think is testimony to his ability as a sculptor.

If you want to see any of the images in closer detail, simply right click on a an image and choose open in another tab.

Enjoy!

First up are some MM20 Orcs. A number of these weren't illustrated in the catalogue pages but can be seen in a mail order flyer from the time:

Mining the Ansell horde: unseen unreleased Eltharion the High Elf

Following in the footsteps of the unreleased Rogue Trader adventurers, the latest previously unseen unreleased figure in Bryan Ansell's collection dates back to the early 1990's: Eltharion the High Elf. This figure is still available from Games Workshop but was originally a Marauder sculpt. Here's the advert for Eltharion riding Stormwing from the Citadel catalogue 3 (the Green Catalogue) from 1992 (image from the Stuff of Legends):

The variant I've discovered in Bryan's collection is a variant of Eltharion himself; Bryan's Stormwing figure is identical to the released version. The unreleased Eltharion is missing the high-backed "saddle" but gains a rather magnificent cloak:

The Bryan Ansell collection: Marauder Miniatures and Citadel Miniatures Dark Elves

Now, I'm in two minds when it comes to Dark Elves in general, and I don't really know why. I can't quite make up my mind as to whether I think they are just a bit meh, or if actually I think they're fantastic. Take these positives:

- I dont have an issue with the concept of there being a "dark" form of an elf (I imagine some people may take issue with this), in fact it's quite fun.
- I tend to associate them with the Melniboneans of Moorcock, which is a positive association for me, even though I know that in the 1980s Citadel Melniboneans eventually became absorbed into the High Elves range rather than Dark Elves.
- They tend to be painted in blue or palid colour schemes, which I like the look of.
- In general I like the sculpts (right from the first Perry preslotta ones), with few exceptions, and many of them demonstrate a good combination of being aloof and cruel.

So there you have it. No idea what my problem is but I tend to overlook these guys. Oddly enough I have the same attitude to their scifi brethren, the Dark Eldar. Ho hum.

Anyway, on to today's post which focusses on the Marauder Miniatures Dark Elves. Now these are nicely painted, although I'm afraid I dont know who painted them (if you do please leave a comment). Enjoy.

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'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.