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Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I have a quick(ish) update for you today – I’ve been plugging away at my unfinished pile of Eru-Kin, and managed to get these two chaps finished:
They are lovely minis, and really look like some kind of ceremonial honour guard to me, so I’ll probably have them looking after one of the leading characters in the army:
A strange thing happened while I was painting these guys – I kept having the irrepressible urge to do something like this with them:
After some pondering, I realised that there was a huge amount of similarity with this piece of classic Dragon Lance art:
This (and many other) Larry Elmore paintings are etched deep in my memory… cue wobbly flash-back video effect, a la Wayne’s World… (yes, you can make the noise if you like)…
Many moons ago, I wandered into a small bookshop in my local town, and I stumbled across a book called ‘The Art of the Dragonlance Saga’. I spent at least an hour flicking through the pages, and it blew my mind… I was reading Fantasy novels by this point, but this was before I had encountered any genre art, and way before I discovered Warhammer. I knew I needed this book in my life, so I saved up for weeks and weeks to be able to buy it, (pocket money was slim in 80’s South Wales). I think it is telling that this is one of the few books I can actually remember buying… It had everything my juvenile brain could ever want to see – mighty barbarians, elven babes, knights, dwarfs, floating castles, monsters, undead, dragons, wizards… The list goes on and on, and many of the pictures were slavishly studied & copied by my amateur hand.
I moved on from this style of sword & sorcery art as my tastes matured and I discovered the grim-dark insanity of Warhammer, but for a brief time, this book was like a magic portal for me, and was one of my favourite things. In fact, I still had this on my bookshelf up until last year, relatively unloved and rarely opened. That changed when my young niece, who is showing a lot of artistic talent, started drawing dragons. The book was duly passed on, and is now one of her favourite things – I absolutely love it when I go to visit & she shows me the paintings that were inspired by her exploration of it.
Anyway, that’s it for this post – what do you guys think? Do you reckon this painting was the inspiration for these particular miniatures? Was there a favourite book/magazine/film that got you hooked into geekdom back in the day? Drop a comment below & let me know dudes!
Leadballoony - It's a lead thing 
Nice post Alex and I like the fact your niece is picking up on the art stuff. Great to see the kids getting involved. Nice job on the figures too but then I have come to expect that! 😊 As early inspiration I would have to go with the Airfix catologues of the 60’s. They had great images of 1/72nd figures all painted up. From there on I was hooked and the rest as they say is history!
Thanks dude, and yeah, she’s just so good at drawing that it would be a shame not to support it! I’ll be seeing her over Christmas, so no doubt I’ll be getting a full portfolio update :-)
60’s Airfix catalogues?? Now THAT’S Oldschool… ;-)
I love the colors that you used and love the story about the book. I can’t wait to pass down books to my niece and nephew, however I don’t have any cool art books. As much as I appreciate them, I’ve actually never bought any.
Cheers C&M – it is nice to be able to pass things along to the younglings, but only if you think they’ll appreciate it properly! (nothing worse than passing on a treasured possession & have it dismissed)
I must admit, I’m surprised you don’t have any art books yourself – I would’ve thought they would be right up your street!
I know! You would think I would but it might be because Ignited Moth and her mom always had them so I could look at them anytime we hung out. But yeah, thinking about it, I literally don’t own a single one.
It would be awful to pass down something treasured and have it tossed aside!
A mate of mine had three of those Dragonlance posters up on his bedroom wall. When we’d pay wargames at his place I’d always find myself looking at them, wondering what was going to happen next, like it was a still shot from a movie scene. He had the one that you’ve pictured, the curse of the azure bonds, death of Sturm and the flying citadel. They were all very evocative, especially for our teenage minds.
I was actually talking to him on the weekend and asked him what had happened to them all, as he now has his room filled with Simon Bisley posters instead, he regretfully replied that they’d all been thrown out when he moved out of home.
Might have to see if they’re still available :)
Cheers Alex.
Really nice read. Cool job on these, it’s encouraging, I need to paint mine!
Nice art and touching story about the book. The honour guard frogs looks great. The details on these sculpts are really cool and the vivid colours you’ve gone with do them justice.
Thanks man, they are cracking sculpts & very nice to paint 😉
Cool story, bro (and I actually mean that sincerely in this case!). I enjoy reading about what inspired fellow nerds, particularly in the early years when there was a lot more magic (and fewer utility bills) in the world.
Somehow Dragonlance passed me by completely, but I think I’ll have to do a little research now, because I’m all about the old school fantasy art (Frank Frazetta is my bag).
Oh yeh, and boss painting as usual mate!
Cheers dude, the books are meh and the art is a bit cheesy & formulaic, but all grist for the mill mate 😊
Lovely minis and a really heartwarming story! Feels really relatable – as a kid I devoured Dragonlance books and my big brother had Larry Elmore posters on his wall. I also have a 14 year old niece, who has just discovered D&D and is getting a set of polyhedral dice and a Heroforge gift card for Christmas from an anonymous uncle :D
Ah, cheers mate, and cool!! DL & Elmore were very much ‘of their time’ of course, but a great springboard to geekdome :-) Good Uncling dude!
Beautiful painting on these, the colors pop. Love the story and hope that your holidays give you plenty of memories and joy. I have to say my geeky interests started in the 70’s with the old Avalon Hill Wargames and the brilliant series from the BBC “The World at War”. I also had (and wish I still had) a “Weapons and Warfare” encyclopedia with around 25 volumes that had every weapon or system from pistols to tanks to battleships. Add that to discovering Tolkien in 1974, and the book covers, and I was on my way!
Cheers mate, it is funny looking back and looking at all those defining moments – you know, the ones that stopped us being rock stars or gazillionair business moguls or astronauts… :-)
Sweet! They do look like they were born (spawned?) to be guards flanking something. The last one with the SMGs doesn’t look like she needs a lot of guarding though, at least not from a couple of giant frogs with pointy sticks.
Cheers dude, and no, she doesn’t need much in the way of protection – I think it was the posing relative to the painting that made me think of it ;-)
Those are looking great, the bright colours really suit them. You must have built up quite a collection of them by now?
Oddly I was never really into fantasy of any kind as a kid, it all passed me by until I was well into my teens (I’m making up for lost time now though!). There were some older kids at my school who were really into it (in fact I think I remember them having dragonlance books lying around. They were definitely mad about D&D and Blood Bowl). It was quite a small school so instead of being the “nerds” and shoved to the outside of the social hierarchy they were very much the cool kids (they were also into the best music). On the one hand, because they were older and cooler than us, we looked up to them and wanted to ape the things we were into, but on the other hand, because they were older and cooler than us, we were scared to go and ask. One of them gave me my first ever Skaven model though (which I still have in pride of place) and then I watched Star Wars (all three of them back to back) with some boys in my class so it all came good in the end! Much like you passing on that book to your niece that Skaven model really unlocked a whole world for me.
Cheers mate, and man, I think I would’ve liked your school! The nerds in my school got beats, so we had to fly under the radar… :-/
Yeah, it was pretty good there (I realise with hindsight). Mind you, by the time I’d really started to get into this kind of thing I’d moved to a different school where the reaction to nerds was a bit more standard issue. ;-)
Great work! I like your vibrant frog colours. What size bases are these on, I’d love to know how compatible they are with the C32 Slann of old.
Cheers mate, glad you like ’em :-) The guards are both on standard 25mm, while the leader type is on a 32. I reckon they are about right with the C32s – a bit more stocky & more reptilian perhaps, but I don’t have any originals to do a side-by-side for you I’m afraid :-/