Big thanks for the comments and encouragement all! There are many dozens more I need to get up on the web to justify their existence.
It's funny, I know sculpts are technically far better now but I love seeing the old-school minis painted up and I think on the whole I do prefer them. Great thread and great paintjobs - thanks for your efforts.
That said, one exception might be Otherworld Miniatures, your WIP shot of some of their Bugbears a few pages back has inspired me to make another purchase from them.
Cheers and thanks! I'm tempted to start scheming up another Otherworld order myself and pick up a voucher in the meantime while the going is good. Gotta ask, though, how is it you know figures are technically better these days? I just ask because I hear it so often even from the best fans of old school around and I don't really follow.
I was going to post this anyway, but... one of these figs is 35 years old and the others, Otherworld hotness (and click through for huge size on flickr):
<soapbox>As I see it the myth of progress has been dispelled pretty much everywhere except the tabletop. I would argue there have always been figs born of a talented hand released right alongside cack-handed ones. And likewise there just as many figs today that are artless but endearing as before, and ones that are technically good but sterile, again just as many then as now. And figs of zero merit both then and now.
The frost giant above is from the teenage hand of Tom Meier, and I'm setting it next to the work of one of the top sculptors in our little industry from his polished, veteran years. You could say Meier is the outlier, but other examples spring to mind. Ray Lamb of Superior for instance. Put an armored knight of his next to a Reaper fig and the latter looks like a child made it. And sculptors these days have the crutches of better molding and sculpting technology and working in a scale of fig that is literally twice the size (mass) if not more.
On the flip side you can point to an old company like Castle Creations or the Dungeon Dwellers line or Archive and there's no denying they are crude and their charm is a matter of taste. The appeal is a kind of loud and loose exuberance. They aren't an early expression of the hobby that died out at some point, though. There are companies like this throughout the years up until today, just like there are always people wanting to jump fully into something before they have the skills to fully hack it. In the nineties you had Grim Reaper, Enigma, and Fenryll. Ramshackle seems to fit the description today.
Sometimes you have someone whose skills are a little crude to begin but after a few years they become great. Andrew Chernak is a key example. Ed (I think?) from Troll Forged. Some guys just rock out the whole time doing their thing in the same way, like Nick Lund in the eighties. Some guys just get looser and, er, more "charming" over the years, like Bob Naismith.
And today more than ever you see this immense gulf between the art house micro brew stuff: pit the Smog figs against companies like, well, like Foundry. Like this:
http://www.foundryfantasy.com/coming_soon/?utm_source=Foundry+Miniatures+Ltd+List&utm_campaign=a30ddcac18-COMING_SOON_FROM_FOUNDRY_1_26_2012&utm_medium=emailPeople say they look like they are from twenty years ago as a pejorative, but I assure you figs have never been as bad as this until right this second.
</soapbox>
Love all three of those giants above, btw, all three some of my favorites of all time. The stone giant might be my favorite OW fig. Man I'd love to have more poses of giants. Even if they were just conversions of these. I'm tempted to offer my service at the task.
It would almost be criminal to slay that Rust Monster, he ALMOST looks cute with that expression on its face!
I admit cute was a goal. Gotta watch out for the cute ones.
01 August 2010, 09:41:54 AM
