Collecting John Pickford: Four A Miniatures is now on Kickstarter

Good friend, Andrew Coleman (owner of Four A Miniatures) is back with some new Pickford sculpts. This time he will be bringing them out through Kickstarter.

Back in 2013 Andy released a set of 4 awesome chaotic dwarfs/dwarf creatures. I picked those up personally in London at Salute 2013 and when visiting, Andy revealed that more was to be made. And it's those pieces that have found there way to Kickstarter, now.

The two new pieces are both an attempt on making female chaotic dwarfs. A delicate subject, as there isn't much material regarding female dwarfs in general, so lots of artistic freedom interpreting. And John really explored the subject and twisted and curled it into two weird, but wonderful, characters.

Here's some shots of the wonderful creations John made for the campaign.

First the sorceress type character called the Weeping Queen

Normal version

Winged version and alternated head

And the other one is the magnificent 17th century styled character, called "Bella"

Normal version

Spider version

Like most dwarfs by John, these are multi parted miniatures and both comes in two different versions. A normal one (or as normal as a female fantasy Chaos Dwarf can be) and a gifted/mutated one - and for a merely £20 pledge you can get all 4 version.

I'm really looking forward to this. Fingers crossed, that the campaign will succeed and that the cooperation between John and Andy will continue . and they will keep producing such excellent personalities/characters.

Should you like to learn more and even consider supporting it, you can find the Kickstarter here - and should you just like to learn more about Four A Miniatures, you can find them here

Collecting John Pickford: Sci-Fi Pig Faced Orks (Sporks) by Foundry

... or kind of, as these have never been actually released.

Back in 2011, just before the Ansell's took back over the control of Wargames Foundry, John was commissioned to transferred the fantasy Pig faced Orcs (used in the God of Battles-rule system for the Warriors of a Thousand Tribes) into the future and he made a range of of Pig Faced Orks in Space - with the working title "Sporks".

The ranges consists of several sculpts and war gear items, but the range was put on hold when new management took over and the characterful sculpts that had been made are still unreleased by Foundry.

For a long time the only proof of their existence has been this picture from Foundry:

However, at Christmas 2015 I found the following 3 sculpts in an recently made order from Foundry. The miniatures was a little gift making up for a small delay, I even didn't notice :)

I was very excited seeing them in the flesh. Till now, I had only seen the little personal Spork tribute John did me in 2014 after surgery.

But now seeing official metal casts from Foundry make me feel one step closer seeing these miniatures given a prober release.

Thought, that was it, but in March 2016 James Halloway posted some rather interesting news on his blog: Gonzo History: Gaming Edition (Go check it out if you like Orks). In this blog post James talks about his attendance at BOYL 2015 (Bring Out Your Lead, which is an yearly Oldhammer wargaming event - held at Wargames Foundry in Newark) - and a chat he had with Foundry (and Citadel Miniatures) founder Mr. Bryan Ansell. Yes, that Bryan :)
During this conversation Bryan showed James their unreleased Sci-Fi Orks and kindly gave out a set of 15 of them. Wow! :)

And with James' permission (thank you, James), I'd like to present the Foundry Sporks :) And for those interested they have also been added to the Collecting John Pickford Wiki.

Wargames Foundry: Sci-Fi Pig Faced Orks (Sporks)

13 unpainted Sporks

Leader (close up)

As you can see there's only 13 in the picture because the last two have been beautifully painted by James:

And no, I'm not jealous, not jealous at all. 

Collecting John Pickford: Bood Wargames

Bood Wargames is a new small-production company/private venture.

Bood Wargames is currently producing a small line of dwarfs in an wonderful old-school medieval/imperial style. Much in style with the old Citadel Imperial Dwarfs range sculpted by the Perry-twins.

The basic components (heads, torsos, legs, arms, weapons) of these miniatures are sculpted by John Pickford, but the final assembly and component adjustments are done by Eddy War. The fantastic and characterful ponies (serving as mounts for the dwarf cavalry) are originally Pickford sculpts, as well.

It's a wonderful little range of very characterful Pickford dwarfs and very attractive to any dwarf enthusiast. I'd say :-)

Unfortunately, I don't have any of these in my collection - but here are a few examples from the Bood-Wargames page:

Drunken Dwarf by Bood-Wargames

Mounted Dwarf Troopers by Bood-Wargames

You learn more about Bood Wargames and how to get your hands on these - here at their blog.

Bood Wargams has also been added to the wiki - but for now, there is not much to show.

Hill Troll - take 3

Third Hill Troll is done - and this one was quite a challenge. Been sitting here - finished - for 3 weeks, without posting - as I really didn't like talking about it :(

This one is the first one of the throwing ones, and I decide doing the one chucking a rock - and I must say that this "one foot base-contact pose" was almost destroying the miniature.

I should have noticed this from the very start, as the weight balance is a bit strange on this one here. But I didn't - and close to finishing it broke by the ankle. Wonder why I needed a toothpick when doing this WIP picture? Lesson learned, I hope.

I drilled a 2mm hole through foot and lower leg and pinned it with brass rod and then repaired it with green stuff. And then repainted the ankle area. Thought I that had saved it, but no - the repair was weak and after a day it started leaning forward and the left almost touched the ground. Bending it back broke the ankle again. So had to start all over and ended up pinning the left foot to the base, too.

But here he is - after a lot of sweat and a few tears :(

Wargames Foundry: BSTR004 Giant Hill Troll chucking a rock

That's the third Giant Hill Troll done and dusted. Two left to go but I'll have to sit on this for some time. An awful experience, it was - and I don't really feel like start doing another right now - especially not the para-glider one.

Collecting John Pickford: TAG - Dwarf Empire Knights on foot

White Knight Miniatures Imperium have announced that they have joint forces with The Assult Group (TAG) and that TAG will take over moulding, casting, stocking and the processing of orders of the John Pickford Dwarf Empire miniatures.

From, 1st of December 2015, TAG will be involve in all aspects of the design, sales and distribution of White Knight's Dwarf Empire. And all the dwarfs are now available for general sale through the TAG-web-site.

TAG has been a strictly historical miniature maker, but are now breaking into the fantasy genre. To kickstart the dwarf-venture TAG has launched a crowd-funding campaign to fund the release of 17 brand new packs - The Dwarf Empire Knights on foot.

The Kickstarter campaign is a short one and ends on 31st December 2015. You'll find the campaign here:

Here is a small teaser to show what it's all about:

To see more of the new miniatures check out the TAG-campaign page, WK's blog or the many photos on WK's Facebook-page

Happy Holidays

 - and may this holiday season bring us peace, love, joy and understanding - cause our world needs it.

Up here in the cold north (ain't actually that cold, yet) it's Christmas, so what better excuse than painting the Wargames Foundry Skeletal Santa from the just received Christmas Special VIN101 - Scary Santa - pack - sculpted by John Pickford, of course :)

Pucks

Finished these two the other day - or is it four?

Back in 2007 the Frother’s Unite Community ran their 4th Pro-Am Sculpting Competition. The theme for this on was, as it always is, a very open theme trying not to limit the sculptor's creativity. The 2007 Competition theme was: "The Unseelie Suspects or the dark side of Faeryland" and sculptors where to do fantasy characters, spirits and creatures with inspiration taken from the classic folklore and fairy tale without going Disney.

A young sculptor named John Pickford entered this competition and was competing in the "Satyrs and woodland spirits" category.

For this category John did a entry called "Puck's Dance" - a diorama piece with roots in classic English folklore and Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - but with the usually little twist of evilness and humour that is seen on many Pickford sculpts. Puck was inspired by Neil Gaiman's "the Sandman" - in here Puck aids the Norse God Loki in kidnapping Daniel, and am playing a small role in the death of the Sandman.

The main figure is Puck, dancing on a rock, his true nature is revealed from behind.

With him are Peaseblossom on lute and Mustard Seed on trumpet, who provide the music for Puck's Dance.

The three of them are dancing and playing on what appears to be a pile of rocks and don't pay notice of the true inhabitant of the rock, who has safely hidden himself inside.

Clam Minis: Puck's Dance

  

The diorama was mastered back in 2007, and the rights for it given to White Knight. Peaseblossom and Mustard Seed has already been released by White Knight Miniatures, but he never did the hole piece. However, in 2014 White Knight offered me the chance of releasing the hole piece - didn't hesitate a second. And can be found at The Old Bag, now.

With the one existing master cast I got from WK came a variant head for Puck. I've cast it, though Puck is a single-piece cast. On a spare cast, I gently did the head swap and I have also painted the variant.