Collecting John Pickford: Iron Mask Miniatures on Kickstarter, again

Good friend and fellow John Pickford enthusiast Gary Price of Iron Mask Miniatures is now running his second crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter.

This second one is all about bringing mounted dwarf musketeers to his fantastic fantasy musketeer universe.

As with the first wave of Dwarf Musketeers (the Musketeers on foot) the new mounted dwarfs come as multi part figures with an extensive selection of hands, weapons and head options.

The Mounted Dwarf Musketeers includes four different ponies with exceptional personality. These ponies were originally sculpted by John Pickford for White Knight Miniatures and his Renaissance Dwarf light cavalry range and are now, with WKs kind permission, used for the Dwarf Musketeers as well.

All the miniatures have been sculpted and mastered. Therefore, all the many choices can be seen on the campaign page - but here are some samples of the wonderful builds we can do, when the campaign is successfully funded:

And I must say they all looks stunning. Just look at the Four Musketeers down here all painted (pretty sure it done by Terry Matheny of Sword and Palette):

Now, who wouldn't like such a unit to hunt down Lord Buckingham's spies or the Cardinal’s Guard - or maybe even the Cardinal himself? For let us hope this goes all the way. Because one of the many wonderful stretched goals are just a mounted version of the Cardinal.

I feel in love with the Cardinal on foot, but this one is even better. Lovely, lovely sculpt.

To find out all about the Kickstarter Campaign - just click this banner down here:

Another Troll climbed down the Hill

I've just finished the second of the total of five gigantic Hill Trolls John did for the Wargames Foundry's fantasy range.

First one I painted was the Troll Champion. For this second one I choose the Axe-Bearer. This guy holds a ridiculous huge axe. The Troll is about 3½" tall in itself - but the axe ...? it's bigger ... almost 4½" - this guy will take down a house, if he has to :)

Again, it was a enjoyable miniature painting. I just love these Troll characters. Sculpted with such great humor and love details breaking up the enormous skin areas.

The guy is really top heavy so it really need some base weight. So spend quite a bit of time making it as I had to use slate stone to give it enough weight but also needed to pin the miniature down.

Wargames Foundry: BSTR1 - Giant Hill Troll wielding enormous Axe

And as you see on the pictures they were actually rather challenging taking without stealing the focus :) - so here's some pictures zooming in on some of the details.

And last, the two brothers-in-arms - just three more to go :)

Son's of Siegward

As summer is still not on the cards, I don't have to feel guilt siting inside. And what better is there to do, than paint some of the latest casts from my own miniature project - and for a change it's not some of the Ewal Dvergar, but miniatures from the new Son's of Siegward - sculpted by Sjoerd Trouwee.

The Son's of Siegward is a small range of mutant stunties with special powers/abilities and will all be added as characters in my always growing Chaos Dwarves.

First, we have Grinner Dragarm. Grin has been gifted with immunity and immortality at the price of his good looks.

Clam Minis: SOS-01 Grinner Dragarm

Next is Sanqis Bigleap. Sanq has been blessed with the powers of the beast and will strike down anyone that comes between him and his demonic hammer.


Clam Minis: SOS-02 Sanqis Bigleap

Last, but not least we have Branding Hyld, Bran is a magician with the ability of flying the air-shark.


Clam Minis: SOS-03 Branding Hyld

And here are all 3 new charcters. Ready to enter the battlefield :)

Collecting John Pickford: News from Otherworld

Otherworld Miniatures have recently released two new monsters by John Pickford.

I'm so happy finally seeing Otherworld bringing out Pickford monsters again. They've focused way to much on PCs/NPCs, if you ask me. Not that Kev Adams, David Soderquist, Patrick Keith, John Winter and Ian Mountain didn't do a spectacular job doing the Adventures-range, but to me, Otherworld has always been all about the monsters - and Pickford monsters in particular.

The two newly released monsters are the long awaited Xorn and the Landshark.

Xorn, is my all time favorite D&D monster and I am so pleased, that Otherworld has asked John to do him. That said, the Land-shark *cough* Bulette *cough* (as most will know it as) is a real piece of art. It's an incredible, huge and a most beautiful sculpted piece, so I'll forgive them casting it in resin.  .

Otherworld Miniatures: DM33 – Xorn

DM33 Xorn blister pack

Xorn bits

Otherworld Miniatures: WE22 – Landshark

WE22 Land-shark blister pack

Sorry for the un-assembled Xorn - but I will move him up the painting queue, so you can see this weird 3 armed/legged monster.

Till then, check it out at the Otherworld online store. And while there, perhaps you might like to take a look at Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish rulebook, now on pre-order (as it looks very, very tempting) :)

EDIT:
@ Wouter Wolput, the Lan-Shark it a big chunky piece.58mm long - 42mm high - and quickly made this comparison for you:

OW Goblin, Citadel Dwarf, Land-Shark, Crusuader Gladiator, Foundry Viking, WWW2 Red Skull (all 3 true scale 28mm)

Collecting John Pickford: Yes, you can call me a Nerd

A few days ago I stopped by the local "post shop" for picking up this 9kg box and brought it home with me.

I've been pretty excited about getting this, and think me wife felt the excitement too - as she came into the kitchen when I opened it. Will show you what's inside, but please promise me, you won't laugh as much as she did.

So, here we go:

Have you stopped laughing? 

Now, your next question would probably be, what's that? So just like I told her, I'll tell you all now. This box holds the two black rubber master moulds John Pickford had made in the very youth of his sculpting career. Most of his early sculpts are found in these two moulds. Sculpts that would late convince people that he was qualified for more professional work at Foundry Miniatures.

John was moving house and when packing he came cross these. So, rather than put it all into a moving box with a clear "Man Cave"-label on it, he offered sending them over to me including the 15-20 master spins from each mould. But that's not all, no! John even handed over the rights so I can now use them as I might see fit. Extremely generous of him and I'm deeply honoured by getting these old gems and I'm pretty sure that parts of this collection will be made available through my little "the Old Bag" side project.

But lets look more into the two moulds, shall we? 

Like said, its all pieces from John's early career, and most of them have been in my collection for a long time - and can be found on the Collecting John Pickford Wiki. Hey, you'll even find some of them painted on this very blog.

Mould on the left is nearly an all goblins one and in this mould you'll find the fantastic Goblin Jesters (the Commandos), the goblin shield bearers, Lance-a-little, the goblin Santa and Mom with the kid goblin holding a balloon. 

The little hooded familiar holding an orb (second row, first from left) is however an unseen/unknown piece. And so are the facial shield piece (bottom row, first from the left).

The mould on the right is also filled with goblins like the burdened goblin, the female warrior, Kings Guard, the King himself and the voodoo-doctor (called Papa) but there is also a throne (for the goblin king), a squig, a four-legged creature, Blip, Snork and the King's cat.

Again all pieces I'd shown before, but again a few "new" pieces as there's another little facial shield and a tiny Viking doll, I haven't come cross before.

Once again it's been such a great pleasure getting insight into John's early works - but seeing the black rubber moulds has been probably been an even greater experience. We all know how miniature castings is done but we don't usually see the process up this close. Next big wish would be to actually see these mould spun.