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Juan Diaz has left GW and is now working for Zenit Miniatures in Spain.

From the Kensei Indiegogo campaign:

Zenit Miniatures wrote:The sculptor Juan Diaz will work for us, making some of our new miniatures for Kensei and Nemesis. He will also do some of the creatures of the indiegogo campaign. Thanks to all of you!

Juan Diaz (on the right):

Here his personal statement as translated by a friend:
http://www.spanish-team.com/foro/viewtopic.php?p=308707#308707

Juan Diaz wrote:Hello

Now it’s official, today I have stopped working for GW . After 16 years of hard struggle for the Emperor, I’ve decided to try new horizons. Hatsetsut (nickname of his wife/girlfriend) and me will soldier on at Tiny Tales Studio (their own brand), and Zenit / Kensei gets a new sculptor. Thais (again, his w/GF) and me are thinking about giving sculpting courses in the future. (...)

There are still some of my Citadel models due to be released, the Games Day exclusive model being one of them. I hope you’ll like them.

Lots of love to all whom have followed my work in this company, especially to Hatsetsut for being an advisory/sculptor “behind the scene”, and without her help many of the models from recent years wouldn't be what they have become.

The sculptor formerly known as “Juan Díaz”

(annotations added in italics)

Maybe Zenit Miniatures has some use for cute scantly clad dancing female daemons with claws

There was a time I knew the whole GW sculpting team like the back of my hand. Not personally of course, but I could tell who did any given miniature at a glance.

But that was 10 years ago. Now I'm surprised Juan still worked for them up until now.

GW's loss is everyone else's gain. Hopefully, he'll start doing a bit of freelance and start spreading his talent around

Definitely a big loss, I thought he was one of their best sculptors.

Fantastic sculptor. Sorry to see him leave GW but look forward to what he does next.

Good luck, Mr Diaz.

Is there a particular reason his fiancee's nickname is of an Ancient Egyptian despot/ruler?

It truly is GW's loss.

I hope we see him go on to do a similar thing to Studio McVey, he has the talent to add some excellent models to the community.

So glad he left GW! I haven't wanted to buy anything of theirs for a while except for things he did. Now I am safe on that front!

Of course it means Zenit will once again threaten my wallet's integrity

I was happy to hear this news, I backed the Kensei project and I'm sure it will turn out great.

I've never really followed individual sculptors at GW, what are some of his models?

I wasn't even aware he still worked with them. Then again, maybe we can get some third party not-Daemonettes from Diaz.

Any hopes of decent female models from GW have just severely diminished it seems.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I've never really followed individual sculptors at GW, what are some of his models?

For plastic kits, its often multiple sculptors. He worked on Hellions and Scourges, for example, but not exclusively him. He also did a lot of the old (now Finecast) Eldar Aspect Warriors (Banshees, Fire Dragons, Scorpions) back in the day.

Here are some characters that seem to be his work alone.

Wow yes.. those are some cracking sculpts..

Bad news for GW I suppose (they all leave in the end though.. except for Jervis! ) although at least he is staying in the industry, and fans of his work will be able to get it from elsewhere.

He likes humans with their mouths open

I am quite shocked with the news, I would think they would keep him with any means necessary.

So that leaves only Jes in GW.....


Ok, I do not want him to leave from his really great position, but I can only imagine what Jes could do outside GW.

The fact that a spanish company is able to pull in some talent when our economy is doing the exact opposite speaks volumes of Zenit Miniatures. I wish the best for Diaz in his new endeavor

 Zweischneid wrote:


For plastic kits, its often multiple sculptors. He worked on Hellions and Scourges, for example, but not exclusively him. He also did a lot of the old (now Finecast) Eldar Aspect Warriors (Banshees, Fire Dragons, Scorpions) back in the day.

You sure about that? I thought they were still using all 2nd Edition Goodwin sculpts.

~Eric

 Zweischneid wrote:

Spoiler:

This is my favorite GW model.

Best of luck to him and his family.

That is a real loss to GW.The termie chaplain is one of the most iconic mini's i have ever seen and was the first mini i ever purchased.As for colonel Straken well Catachans are ace imo.
I wonder If seb or a couple of the others will be able to fill Juans mighty big shoes.

He did some fabulous work no doubt about it. Sorry to see him go, but GW has been a revolving door of employee's over the past few years.

To be fair it's always been this way.. not just sculptors, but artists, games-makers, even authors.

Eventually bigger $ or more creative freedoms lure them away, although we shouldn't discount that (like the gaming stores themselves) GW has always served as a great gateway into the industry for a lot of talented people.

 oni wrote:
GW has been a revolving door of employee's over the past few years.

It also seems that it's becoming much harder to get hired by GW as a sculptor, but that might be just the experience a couple of sculptors I know had. I know what your going to say, that they weren't good enough, but they seemed to be good enough for companies like PP and others.

I hesitate to name them since I don't want to spoil their chances if they ever reapply at GW, or any other company, but from their description they felt like they were getting jerked around by a recruiter and never even got to talk to someone at the studio level.

 Pacific wrote:
GW has always served as a great gateway into the industry for a lot of talented people.

Sort of like Saturday Night Live. Not as good as the rest of the industry, but it's mainstream and everybody knows about it.

 prplehippo wrote:
I hesitate to name them since I don't want to spoil their chances if they ever reapply at GW, or any other company, but from their description they felt like they were getting jerked around by a recruiter and never even got to talk to someone at the studio level.

This is the chosen modus operandi for pretty much all big companies that deal in creative aspects, with very few exceptions. I bounced off HR people after getting a direct invite from a creative director to discuss a project or employment multiple times. Okay, once the HR person turned out to be pretty awesome, but more often than not it's some penpusher with no idea. Just the way of things...

 Taarnak wrote:


You sure about that? I thought they were still using all 2nd Edition Goodwin sculpts.

~Eric

2006 releases by Games Workshop. "JD" is Juan Diaz. "JG" is Goodwin. A few others as well.

December 2006
*Eldar - Wraithlord (JG & MF)
*Eldar - Howling Banshees (JD)
*Eldar - Fire Dragons (JD)
*Eldar - Autarch (JG)

November 2006: Eldar (4th edition) (PK)
*Eldar - War Walkers (JG & MF)
*Eldar - Dire Avengers (MH)
*Eldar - Prince Yriel (JG)
*Eldar - Autarch (JG)
*Eldar - Farseers (3) (MF)
*Eldar - Striking Scorpions (JD)
*Eldar - Dark Reapers (MH)
*Eldar - Ranger (MF)
*Eldar - Bonesinger

2006 Aspect Warriors and the old 2nd Edition stuff is close. So arguably they are JG sculpts, as JD stuck close to the original. But GW is not actually using the old sculpts.

Fire Dragons for example are a bit beefier since 2006, have a cloth-thing between their legs etc.. . Scorpions are also notably different. All have more detail now, etc...

Eldar sculpts are old. But they are not THAT old.

Old Fire Dragons and Scorpions


"New" Fire Dragons


"New" Scorpions

Well that's a shame he's sculpted some of my favourite pieces in the GW line including most of my slaanesh army, as has been mentioned I'm not holding out high hopes for any decent female sculpts from GW now. Never heard of the company he's now moving too so I'll have to see what he makes for them now I guess.

 Zweischneid wrote:

A whole bunch of useful information.

Interesting. Thanks for taking the time to dig all that up. I didn't realize that much had been redone. Which, I suppose, is a testament to Mr. Diaz's skill.

~Eric

There have actually been two different Aspect releases since the 2nd Ed Jes sculpts.

There was a set released with the 3rd edition codex, that was mostly pretty bad. These were amongst Diaz's first sculpts with GW, done during his 'training' period with Gary Morley and as a result they looked so much like Gary Morley odd-week sculpts that most people thought they were done by him instead. (Morley had a bit of a hit-and-miss track record with his sculpts... he would turn out something absolutely spectacular, and then the next sculpt would be something really nasty, and he had a fondness for peculiar, awkward poses, which was really evident in the first Diaz Aspects).

Pretty much everything Diaz sculpted after that has been awesome.

 Ignatius-Grulgor wrote:
Never heard of the company he's now moving too so I'll have to see what he makes for them now I guess.

It is this company from Spain: http://www.zenitminiatures.es/
They make two tabletop games.
Nemesis is a Fantasy skirmish game with unusual teams. http://nemesis.zenitminiatures.es/en/
(Orphans on stilts faction)


Kensei is a 28mm historical Japan tabletop http://kensei.zenitminiatures.es/en/
Recently, an Indiegogo campaign ended to add Fantasy monsters to Kensei. http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kensei-fantasy-creatures--2





Juan Diaz will work on both games, but in the near future all the new Kensei monsters will certainly be the focus of the company and Juan.