Collecting John Pickford: An era has come to an end

Just a short update to let you know that an era is coming to an end. Otherworld Miniatures (OW) is closing.

Back in November 2023, Richard Scott (Funder of Otherworld Miniatures) announced that he would be retiring in the summer of 2024. An era is now ending. 

WORDS OF GRATITUDE

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"For my, OW was the main reason for returning to this hobby of mine. It was with Otherworld I learned about the great talent of Mr. John Pickford (and others) and to be proud of retro-looking, old school miniatures, again.

To my eye, John's job with OW was the job that lifted him from 'just another miniature sculptor' till one of the absolute best fantasy hand sculpting sculptors (if not the best). The combination of Richard Scott's high ambitions and courage and John's enormous talent they have moved the limits of what can/and can not be done, miniature wise. 

So thank you, Richard! Thank you for all the magnificent and beautiful miniatures over the years. It has been such a great pleasure following the growing of Otherworld and to see, how you have evolved into one of the best miniature manufacturers. You've done such a great job for our hobby. You've done an excellent job and many of your miniatures have really made my life a lot happier. 

I'm wishing you all the best for your retirement."

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Collecting John Pickford: If it's black, attack. If it's brown, lay down. If it's white ....

Something huge is coming :)

The Assault Group (TAG) is now live with a new Dwarf Empire Kickstarter bringing you Bear Knights mounted on HUGE bears.

Some might remember the Bear Knights from previously. Back then, they where all mounted on barded ponies, but TAG has now upgraded them and mounted them on more appropriated bears 💗

The Assault Group: Bear Knights on huge bears

Collecting John Pickford: OSM presents Ewal Dvergar

Art by Mustafa Bekir (Spevna Studio) ©Old School Miniatures

This one here, today, is a bit special to me. Some of yAwou are well aware that I had my own little miniature venture into miniature design and manufacturing going. The project has been focused on creating a private army of evil dwarves sculpted by John Pickford - I've called them the Ewal Dvergar.

It was always a private project, but there's been a growing interest in getting these miniatures, a demand I was not capable of fulfilling. So, about a year ago I made a deal with Old Schools Miniatures (OSM) and gave them the license to manufacture and sell all the evil dwarfs sculpted by John Pickford as they complement OSM existing Chaos Dwarfs range very well

OSM is now live on Kickstarter raising money to complete this transfer and put them into full production and to give them a broad availability.

Collecting John Pickford: How to tackle the dragon

Back in the day, when I came to know John, we often talked about interesting subjects for future sculpts. Back then, John was the "monster maker" for Otherworld Miniatures (OW) and very keen on doing  most dungeons and dragons monsters, and John always spoked passionately about a chance of doing a dragon for them.
This never happened, though. As when OW later had the strength to actually do the classic dragons the job went to Andrew May. It sadden John,  I think - and for years I thought that the unreleased Foundry Orc King on Dragon would be the closet we'd ever get having a Pickford Dragon.

Collecting John Pickford: Old School Miniatures new giants (second part)

Let's kick of the new year with some gigantic news 😁

The Old School Miniatures Company (OSM) have made all stretch goal giants from the successful "Fe Fi Fo Fum I smell the blood of a little dwarf" campaign available.

During the Kickstarter campaign 4 goals were reached:

• a big one multi part metal giant (Think Maruder giant size)
• a two headed body - a re-sculpt of one of the bodies to accept 2 heads
• a new fourth body and 2 new heads to take it to 4 bodies and 8 heads in total
• a giant in a cart

And since the campaign ended on 28th March 2021 John has been working bringing these to life.

OSM has regularly updated the campaign with its progress and the stretched goals have now been shipped to backers - and also added them to the OSM online store.

I'm still awaiting my gigantic box of sweets, so you'll have to do with greens and store pictures, for now 😀 

- Happy New Year and please enjoy!

Collecting John Pickford: Dwarfs need protection

Another Kickstarter from the OS Miniatures Company is now live. This one is a: "small, short timed, very limited scope and few if any stretch goals"-Kickstarter.

And what's this one about, then? ....: "Shields, actually 5 new dwarf shields". And John has sculpted the set of five that will fit most old school dwarfs.

The greens:

©OS Miniatures Company

Collecting John Pickford: I am a Giant

.... "Stand up on my shoulders, tell me what you see.... 'Cause I am a giant, uuh!.. We'll be breaking boulders, underneath our feet ... I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am a giant" ..... - Okay, I shall stop the singing, now 😁

The Old School Miniatures Company (OS Miniatures) is back with yet another Kickstarter. Again, it's for the release of a new Pickford sculpt (well, it's actually 3 new sculpts). 

Previously we've seen them Kickstart a Daemon Cannon, Alpine Dwafs, the Chaos Dwarf Baggage Train and a lot of Pickford Shields. But this fifth Pickford Kickstarter is "gigantic" cause its all about Giants :) Proper old school Giants that actually fits your gaming table. These giants are the size of old Citadel C28 giants - so something like 2-2½" tall.

Collecting John Pickford: Time of the Orcs

Back in May 2020 Crooked Dice Game Design Studio made it official that they had purchased most of John's Otherworld Miniatures goblinoids (Goblins, Wolf Riders and Ogres) and that they planned a Kickstarter kicking off their new venture into "7TV Fantasy".

Their Kickstarter was called "Time of the Orcs" and went live 1st October 2020. As promised, it gave us a re-release of all of John's goblinoids, but most surprisingly it gave us a brand new range of Orcs designed with the creative geniuses of Dave Needham (Zhu Industries) and John Pickford. And not only did they give us a new wonderful range of Orcs on foot, no - the range included a 85mm tall and 110mm long wolf mounted Warlord called Klagg, too 😍 Included where also some awesome trolls by Iain Colwell and some wonderful human characters by Mark Evans.

But we shall focus a bit on the Orcs on here 😀 - as the full range is now available from Crooked Dice. 

Croocked Dice: Orcs

©Crooked Dice

Collecting John Pickford: Bar Room Brawl - part 3

We are still waiting for The Little Soldier Comapny's  fulfilment of their Bar Room Brawl kickstarter (on target for an early March fulfilment) and while waiting, John Pickford has been busy sculpting.

Firstly, the additional figures from the Kickstarer - the Landlord and Landlady and their hounds (a pair of Westies) and the 3K stretched goal Accessory Sprue but also a coming new release for the diorama set as another two fighting/enraged dwarves will be up on their website once the Kickstarter has been fulfilled.

Last, a Chaotic toilet/mimic. Not really sure that has anything to do with a Bar Room Brawl, but who can be without a chaotic toilet 😆

Bar Room Brawl: Landlord and lady (KS-add on)

Collecting John Pickford: Bar Room Brawl - part 2

Little Soldier Company's Bar Room Brawl Kickstarter is now live and doing well.

Now, that its live I can give you a little insight what to expect from this awesome project, as I've been gifted with an almost complete prototype set, by David Wood.

The Little Soldier Company: Bar Room Brawl Drunks and dog

Collecting John Pickford: Bar Room Brawl

Can't tell you much about, but I can promise you, that it is as good as it looks.

The Little Soldier Company is soon to release a Kickstarter called "Bar Room Brawl - RPG Miniatures for tavern skirmishing!" - about creating a set of Dwarven miniatures to fill your taverns with life.

All miniatures and accessories are sculpted by John Pickford of course - and it's said to be the start of an ongoing range to allow characters and non-player characters to fill your games. Sound good, doesn't it.

Here's a sneak peak of the awesome art by Martin Buck:

And you can follow the campaign progress here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1896378744/bar-room-brawl-rpg-miniatures-for-tavern-skirmishing

Collecting John Pickford: Gigantic news

Back in March 2020 I told you about Crooked Dice and that they are now the proud owner of the old Otherworld Giant. Back in March I couldn't tell you much more than that, but on 16th of April this "Not at Salute sale"-poster showed up on different social medias:

And on April 18th this gigantic monster got released.

I do have an original Otherworld metal giant already in my collection, but by the pictures floating around it looked rather crisp and fine. So with the benefit of a lighter resin version, I jumped at it. Helped along by a introductory price at 'only' £50, that made the deal even sweeter.

Collecting John Pickford: A giant and some shields

Sadly, I have nothing painted to share, but what's the next best thing .... new Pickford stuff, of course.

Biggest news would be that the old Otherworld Giant (original released by Otherworld Miniatures) has now found a new, good and caring home at Croocked Dice Game Design Studio. It's not released yet, but moulds for a new resin version of the über-cool giant had been made and Karl showed off one of the first succesful casts at Facebook on March 17th.

Still look so fresh and beautiful.... her 15 years after 😀

Crooked Dice: Giant

Collecting John Pickford: Hell Awaits - wave 4

Devil Inside Productions is back with their 4th wave of the "Hell Await"s - again it's a KS crowdfunding campaign in support of their creation of a range of 28mm classic demons and other denizens of Hell all cast in resin.

John is hugely involved in this one as he has been sculpting 3 out of 5 pieces.

The 3 pieces are:

Devil Inside Productions: Xipe Totec
First one is Xipe Totec - Aztec Deity, the 'Flayed One'. Yes, a flayed human holding his skin suit. Probably some history behind this, that I don't know of, but it looks cool, I think.

©Devil Inside Productions

Collecting John Pickford: Chaos Dwarf Baggage Train by OSM

What's a 'Chaos Dwarf Baggage Train', you might ask. Well, back in the early days of Warhammer - back in 3rd edition - there where rules for including baggage in your army and rules for protecting/capturing it.

Armies need provisions of food, clothing, equipment and ammunition and therefore would be acquiring camp-followers (sutlers, drivers and womenfolk with children etc). This is represented by a 'baggage train'. When a army enters battle, all the unnecessary personal gear is sent to the rear with the army's wagons, tents and camp-followers - aka 'the baggage'. The baggage is then protected by a rough circle of wagons and defended by those civilians, women and disabled troopers found in there.
To represent this a baggage train consisting of a wagon and 5 civilians where allowed  for each 1000 point in your army.

Game-vice attacks on the baggage influenced your game play and could have huge effect on the final result - and to many Oldhammers a fantasy army ain't complete without a colourful array of camp followers and baggage trains.

There wasn't any official release for these trains but in the early 90s trains could be found for Empire, Orc&Goblins, Dwarfs, Elves, Bretonnians, Chaos, Slann and Skaven - but non for Chaos Dwarfs :(

So, when the idea popped up in our little private corner of the inter-web in 2017 Jamie (of OS Miniatures Company) wasn't late to pick up the idea - and soon a concept was ready: 'A daemon bound cart with driver and crew'.

Collecting John Pickford: Hmm, Otherworld....?

Usually, this Collecting John Pickford-section of the blog has been dedicated to write about new Pickford pieces, lost gems found and other additions to my collection.

Today's story is a bit different, as it's more about stuff that has disappeared, in risk of disappearing or has or will shift hands.
Today's post is about John's Otherworld range. A range I'm very passionate about as it's the one range that started my journey into Pickford collecting. I knew of John's early Foundry works, but it was the characterful and beautiful Otherworld Miniatures that convinced me of John's great talent - and started a hobby I wouldn't do without.

One of my all time favourite OW miniature

So what's this all about?

Collecting John Pickford: Hell's Minions on Kickstarter

Devil Inside Productions are back.

After a couple of successfully funded "Hell Awaits..."  - Kickstarter Campaigns - bring us a weird and wonderful little range of denizens of Hell (for horror or fantasy miniature games and RPGs), Devil Inside is now back, trying to fund a new range of figures, this time for Fantasy Football (*cough*Blood Bowl*cough*).

They are branded as "halflings" - but if you look closely at the tiny little players, you'll see another range demonic minions

©Devil Inside Productions

 - because, just like the campaign says, Satan has decided to send his minions to battle on the fantasy football fields around the Earth! The Hell's Minions - A Demonic Fantasy Football Team! will enter the pitch :)

Now, why is this interesting for a non-sports-gamer like me, well ...? .... I guess it piqued my interest  because of the two big guys in the back.

Collecting John Pickford: Perv, the dwarf beast handler

Yes, it's been to waaay to quite in here, I know and I do apologise :(
- but I shall spare you all the poor little excuses for not painting or bringing you news.

However, I shall try make up for it over the coming weeks, as I've got quite a few Pickford gems and news to show and share.

This one, today, is a special one - and probably the most exciting one of them, cause I guess most of you (just like me) probably didn't even know of it's existence.

But back in 2010, around the time where John did til Artisan Dwarf for the CCM-Yahoo-Community, one of the members commissioned John doing him a dwarf beast handler with two beasts.

I haven't noticed this being made nor has John told me about it. He do enlighten me about his earlier works, but its all based on "memory" and an old online email inbox - both are close to be put out of service, hi hi :)

But back in August, a good collector-friend of mine, Threadbare, sent me a link:

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Pervs_Collection#.22Perv.22_Miniature_-_Sculpted_by_John_PoshGoblin_Pickford_-_Painted_by_atacam

I was all over the moon, because at the very end of this link a little gem is hidden - a "Perv" Miniature, sculpted by John "PoshGoblin" Pickford and painted by "Atacam".

Sculpted by John "PoshGoblin" Pickford ?? Those 5 words are sweet music in my ear :)

Collecting John Pickford: Devil Inside Productions

Devil Inside Productions is a new company with a mission of creating a range of 28mm classic demons and other denizens of Hell ready to be summon into your homes and eventually bring out a board game to support their line of Demons & Denizens. Eventually, we might also see some of their sculpts entering the fantasy football scene, as there are planed Fantasy Football variants for some of them, too.

The company ran their first (wave 1) successful "Hell Awaits..."-Kickstarter campaign back in September 2017.

A second wave ran successfully in February 2018. This time it included a Kali, Goddess sculpted by John Pickford.

Collecting John Pickford: the Alpine Dwarfs on Kickstarter

The OS Miniatures Company (OSM) are running their third Kickstarter campaign and again its involving John Pickford. This, third campaign, is all about a general release of the Alpine dwarfs - yes, those dwarfs I preview back in June 2017.

I've been fortunate to pick up a set of these skiing dwarfs as OSM sold a limited number of sets through their FB-page.

And they are truly magnificent:

So, if you like what you are seing - why not stop by the Kickstarter campaign and also have a look at the beautiful painted samples Jamie did - just click the widget here

Oh, and don't forget to check out the awesome stretch goal that'sjust been added - a  verynice little OSM signature piece - also by John: