Amazing John Blanche vintage artwork for sale

I was given the heads-up on this site recently: http://www.fantasyartoriginals.com/ The site has 24 - yes 24 - pieces of art by John Blanche for sale. Many of the paintings are from the 1970s, and there is original artwork from the Tolkien Bestiary, Ratspike, and The Prince and the Woodcutter for sale. The owner has given me permission to reproduce some of the images for sale here. There is a contact form on the site if you wish to purchase any, but it goes without saying: "serious offers please!"

Here is a small selection:

The Battle of Five Armies. Published in-Ratspike by GW Books and Tolkien Bestiary by Mitchell Beazley Publishers and The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien 

Putting brush to lead

I've been a collector for more years than I care to remember, but there was a time when I also gamed and painted. I say painted - I once covered a box set of Citadel Warrior Knights of Law with Humbrol enamel silver paint. That was the early 1980s, and back then I played most of my games (mainly Warhammer with a smattering of D&D, Traveller and MERP) with figures IN BARE METAL! Yes that's right. I know. Shame on me. Fast-foward a couple of decades and these were my next attempts:

A big improvement over a thick coat of silver, but still short of where I want to be, which is to be able to paint to a tabletop standard quickly.

Another year or so later and these came next:

I was fairly pleased with these. I admit, not a Golden Demon in site but pretty close to where I wanted to be. BUT, they are not finished, and that's how they have remained.

Hopefully that is about to change. I've entered the painting challenge over on the BLOOD forum and I'm hoping this will give me the impetus to get my paint brush in gear. Here is what I'm entering:

So there, I've blogged it so now I'm committed. Wish me luck!

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

Citadel Miniatures Arcane Ramblings mailing club fliers

Back in the early/mid 1980's Citadel Miniatures published a series of compendiums and journals that effectively served as catalogues of their latest figure releases. But their production of figures was so prodigious that they had to produce fliers to illustrate their new releases. Some of these early fliers not only served as notices/catalogues of new releases but also presented opportunities for the Citadel team to test new ideas concerning rules and stats for new creatures/forces. Some of these were targeted at mailing club members and were known as Arcane Ramblings - these are a great source of creature stats., anecdotes, and illustrations by the awesome Tony Ackland.

I have a very extensive collection of Citadel fliers dating back to around 1982, three of which are of the Arcane Ramblings. I thought it might be fun to share these with you, but also to ask you: do you have any Arcane Ramblings other than the ones featured here? Please let me know if you do; it would be great to share them.

I uploaded the three fliers to Scribd but the text isn't very clear, so I've also inserted images below (right-click on an image and open it up in a new tab to allow for zooming in on the text). I'm not sure of the exact order in which they appeared, so I have taken a guess (based on competition results and some of the new miniatures featured), but all three appeared some time between the First and Second Citadel compendiums.

Thought for the day

Golden Demon awards in the Golden Age: part 3 (1992)

In this third and final installment of Golden Demon awards in the Golden Age I will be sharing with you images of figures from the 1992 awards (from White Dwarf 151). I say "final" because I was unable to find a reference to subsequent awards (1993, 1994 etc) from the White Dwarfs of the period. If anyone knows different please let me know and I would be happy to scan them and put together a pdf doc. You'll notice that the majority of figures featured in this article are from the 1980's and very early 1990s, so there's a good chance that the Golden Demon awards from the mid-90's also contained such figures. SO it would be a shame if White Dwarf hadn't featured these.

If you are new to Scribd then clicking on the expand screen icon at the bottom right of the Scribd box below (to the right of the + and - zoom buttons) gives you a full screen view.

Anyway, enjoy!

Games Day 1992 by bridgend_steve

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)