Unreleased Heroquest Knight Number 1

I painted the 3rd figure in this series over the weekend...probably goes by the name of Sir Orange l'orange...

I went for an overall warm tone and a limited palette. Base coat of Vallejo Hull Red followed by Foundry Orange shade and GW Troll Slayer Orange.

He's the first of two knights in this set. The second one will be making an appearance once I've decided on a colour scheme for him.

Here's a group shot so far:

In other news I've decided on a colour scheme for my Sons of Horus 30k Heresy figures, and I'll be tackling a Leviathan Dreadnought once I've worked up the courage!

Painting progress: first quarter 2018

Blimey, I can't believe it's been 4 months since my last post. Being the hobby butterfly that I am, I'm currently back in the fantasy/scifi vibe with my historicals taking a bit of a break...go with the flow, eh?

So here's a roundup of what I've been upto so far this year.

Unreleased HQ

Back in 2014 I reported (here and here) on some unreleased figures that I'd found in Bryan Ansell's collection, which we believe may have been unreleased prototypes for Heroquest. I've been very lucky to acquire a set of these, which I've started to paint. So far I've completed the wizard and the elf:

Unreleased female Space Marine: update

A couple of years ago (almost to the day) I blogged about an unreleased female Space Marine that I found in Bryan Ansell's collection. The sculptor was a mystery - but no more! Kev White from Hasslefree Miniatures has stepped forward and claimed the honour. Here is what Kev has to say on the subject:

"This gods-fugly miniature was possibly the ninth miniature I had ever made. As with all my other first attempts, she was made in my lunch breaks while working as a miniature painter (yes, the jokes you're thinking of were done at the time as well) at GW and were sent off by Rick to be cast. As she was one of the last I made I never received any castings because I left my employment shortly after handing her over (there's also another Squat out there somewhere - one with a heavy bolter on his right shoulder).

So, yeah, she's an ugly mini, but she's mine. From an age when I believed in genetically engineered women with power(!) armour and access to guns that fired explosive ammo."

Thanks for the update Kev!

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:

Unreleased female Space Marine (1993): the Bryan Ansell collection

During the time I've spent trawling through Bryan Ansell's collection of Citadel Miniatures castings, looking for unusual and unreleased figures, I've uncovered a few gems. The feature of today's post is certainly one of them!

From 1993 I present to you an unreleased female Space Marine:

Previously unreleased "Empirical Squads" now available from Wargames Foundry

The good folk at Wargames Foundry are now selling some of Bryan Ansell's science fiction miniatures that have been unreleased since 1987. Here's an image from their website:

If you want to order a squad of these you can give them a call or purchase them directly from the website. Details here.

If these figures are a complete mystery to you then you might want to look here, here, here and here.

They come with integral solid bases similar to the ones on all their other models.

Here's what the Foundry website has to say about these figures:

We believe that these newly discovered items are the almost mystically rare deathcasts of the elite

EMPIRICAL ABSOLUTION and LIQUIDATION SQUAD. We estimate their value as somewhere in the region of an ENTIRE GALACTIC EMPIRE, probably with a couple of lost mythical lands thrown in.

The Empirical Abs etc. demanded absolute and immediate unthinking obedience to the Empiricator [BLESS HIS NAME!] and not only from the inhabitants of Known Space, but also from the entire population of the Multiverse.

Indeed: after a boozy afternoon of high stake rune casting and seven episodes of the most sacred tapes of STARTREK, the EALS (as they liked to be known) took to speculating as to what their ultimate rewards would be for their lifetimes of ceaseless holy work:

At this point the Empiricator [BLESS HIS NAME!] got a whiff of what was going on. He sighed heavily, made a few passes in the air, clicked his heels together twice, shouted SHAZAM! And he had obliterated the foolish boozy EALS. All that was found was a neat pile of bleached skulls. Each bore the word HUBRIS and each had a tiny lead ceremonial Manikin perched there on its dome.

A wish called Wanda

Those us who collect Citadel Miniatures can be a bit obsessive, it has to be said. We are driven to collect all examples of a particular range, or in some cases, of all ranges! Consequently something that really gets our collecting juices flowing are variants: figures that closely resemble one another but have slight differences that mark them out as different. Such figures are usually share the same basic body sculpt, but are noted for head swaps, modifications of weapons etc. Despite the breadth and depth of figure knowledge in the Citadel collecting community, new variants are still coming to light, and this blog post presents what is in my opinion a prominent addition to the range of variants.
The variant in question is that of Wanda, a character who features in the Shadows Over Bogenhafen and Death on the Reik Citadel scenario pack figure ranges (scans courtesy of the Stuff of Legends):

Wanda: top left

Update on unreleased unseen Heroquest prototype figures (Bryan Ansell's collection)

Back in May I posted about some fascinating figures I found in Bryan Ansell's collection that appear to be unreleased and previously unseen Heroquest prototypes. Well I recently had the pleasure of discussing these figures with none other than Jes Goodwin, and he appears to have solved the mystery.

Firstly, Jes confirmed that of the seven mystery figures, he sculpted the following five:

 

 

He suspects that the remaining two were sculpted by the Perry twins:

 

Now, with regards to why these prototypes do not resemble the known prototypes, Jes' theory is as follows:

Jes seems to recall that the seven prototypes above were the very first prototypes created for Heroquest when the game was in development. He suspects that the two knight figures were dropped and didn't make it into the final game. The known Heroquest prototypes (seen here) were later created to be painted and used in the box art. So the known Heroquest prototypes are in fact a second incarnation of prototypes. The neat thing about this theory is that it explains why the known metal prototypes closely resemble the plastic production figures (for example, here), but most of these previously unseen prototypes do not!

Thanks Jes!

Unreleased unseen Heroquest (?) prototype figures (Bryan Ansell's collection)

This is potentially something a bit special. I say "potentially" because there's a bit of a mystery surrounding the origin of these figures. They were all found in a zip-lock bag in Bryan Ansell's collection with "HEROQUEST" written on the bag in marker pen. Although I can say for sure these are unreleased sculpts, I cannot be certain on their link with Heroquest. First the figures, then the reasons for why they are a mystery:

Barbarian

Unreleased Rogue Trader adventurer (Bryan Ansell's collection)

Today's offering from the Ansell horde is yet another unreleased Rogue Trader Adventurer:

This figure is labelled "Feral Shaman" on the tab and was produced in 1987. I don't know who sculpted it but at a guess I would say Trish Carden or Aly Morrison. Could be wrong though. No idea who painted it but it was part of the collection of Bryan's painted Rogue Trader Adventurers that can be found in this advert from White Dwarf 99:

I have no idea what he's carrying under his arm - any suggestions? Also, does anyone recall reading about feral shamans in the old Rogue Trader rulebooks or White Dwarfs, or do you think he's just a "generic character"?

Unreleased playtest/prototype Titan (Bryan Ansell's collection)

Work and family commitments have resulted in a lull in my blog posts recently, but now I'm back and my unreleased cup overfloweth. I've got plenty of fine figures to show you, both from Bryan Ansell's collection and also ones I've accumulated for my own personal collection over the last few months. So, on with the show.

***PLEASE NOTE*** this blog post has been updated since the start of the day. I initially though I was blogging about an unreleased Rogue Trader era robot but it appears it's an unreleased playtest/prototype Titan.

Today's offering was found in Bryan's collection and is an imposing Citadel Miniatures unreleased playtest/prototype Titan sculpted by Bob Naismith (thanks for confirming that Bob!):

Happy Birthday to my blog! A review of the year

It was a year ago today that I started this blog, and what a year it's been! Some incredible unreleased and previously unseen Games Workshop figures have emerged in the Bryan Ansell collection; Tim Pollard's collection has revealed some fascinating surprises; Dave Perry's painted old-skool figures have wowed us; and I've started gaming and painting again after a 25 year break! There's plenty more to come in my second year - and I might even do some more painting and gaming.

The blog has attracted 157 followers, and another 51 people are my google+ followers. Does that count as 208 followers?! I guess so...Anyway, the blog appears to have had around 133,000 pageviews which I'm delighted about because more people need to see the stuff in these collections. So please spread the word!

Please indulge me as I revisit some of my favourite posts of the past year.

The blog kicked off with preparations for the forthcoming Oldhammer Weekend at Wargames Foundry, which was still 6 months away at that time, but much needed to be done. My first post offered some suggestions for chaos beastmen colour schemes, based on some of Bryan's beastmen to be seen in the pages of the Realm of Chaos books. Continuing with the beastmen theme, I began documenting the contents of Bryan's "Cabinets of Chaos" which revealed some truly stunning figures.

Unreleased Rogue Trader Adeptus Mechanicus (Bryan Ansell collection)

I'm starting to run out of adjectives to describe the figures I'm unearthing in Bryan Ansell's collection. Today's figure - an unreleased Adeptus Mechanicus from the Rogue Trader era - is exquisite. But on first glance you may not fully agree with this sentiment:

Unreleased 40k gang member sculpted by John Blanche

Here's something that you may not know ever existed, even if you are a fan of Old Skool Confrontation/Necromunda figures:

A 40k gang member that was sculpted by John Blanche. Yes that's right - sculpted. And cast! Here's some blurb from White Dwarf issue 121:

Now to find the actual version that was painted by John Blanche...

New unreleased genestealer in Bryan Ansell's collection

The original Rogue Trader rulebook contains a section on the alien races found throughout the Imperium, and includes an illustration of a prototype Tyranid that later made it into very limited release (essentially unreleased). It now appears that the "proto-nid" was not the only Tyranid-related illustration to have resulted in a miniature: the original Genestealer or "Ymgarl Genestealer" seems to have been produced but not released. This figure was found in Bryan's collection of castings in a zip-loc bag labelled "Genestealer":

Unseen Rogue Trader Space Ork Weapon Platform: Bryan Ansell collection

Here's a curious little item that I unearthed in Bryan's collection: a weapon platform for Rogue Trader era Space Orks:

The gunner and weapon are standard issue from the Ork War Buggy of the period. It's the platform that is unreleased. Here is a view from the top-down:

You can see the hole for the weapon mounting on the left, and two indents where the gunner's feet sit on the right.

Here is a view of the underside:

Are those three discs on the perimeter some sort of anti-grav devices that allow the platform to hover? Have you ever come across rules or descriptions for this in one of the old Rogue Trader rulebooks?

So it may not be much to look at, but this particular collector thinks it's a lovely little piece of kit.

Tim Pollard's pinhead Yakuza

Found this interesting character in Tim Pollard's collection:

The body was produced with a number of head variants, for both GW's TSR range and their Oriental Heroes ranges. But thus pinhead version never made it into release. I asked Tim if he was aware of a back-story; he thought that it was an idea to:

"allow extra (full-sized) heads to be sculpted over it. No idea if that was a wind-up though, I have a feeling it was and that it was just a joke in itself..."

So, anyone have any other theories why this fellow might have been sculpted? Was there a pinhead yakuza in some comic book or something back in the '80s?

The Dave Perry collection: unreleased Heroquest Wizards of Morcar figures

I'm sure that many of you will have played Heroquest at one time or another, and possibly one of its many expansions such as Wizards of Morcar. Part of the appeal of Heroquest and its expansions was that they came with a set of plastic figures based on characters and races from the scenarios covered, and therefore it was unnecessary to purchase additional figures. What you may not know is that many of these plastic figures had metal prototypes which did not see general release. There are always subtle differences between the plastic production figures and their equivalent metal prototypes.

I am planning a future post dedicated to the topic of metal prototypes of plastic Citadel Miniatures, but the focus of this particular post are the unreleased metal prototypes of the Heroquest: Wizards of Morcar figures painted by Dave Perry. Dave has done a grand job of painting these figures using a subtle yet beautiful colour palette.

These figures are very rare, and I would love to acquire some. If you know of any please get in touch - excellent reward offered!

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!

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: