Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have noticed a trend in the miniatures world since the 1980's, which has been that what originally started off, with Ral Partha pretty much dominating the field with Tom Meier, that Fantasy miniatures began as a very hard Medieval/Dark Ages feel to it, and then with the advent of Warhammer began to drift into a more Swords and Sorcery style.

Yet, Warhammer itself departed the fields of Swords and Sorcery, and took on a life of its own, becoming its own Genre.

And the selection of miniatures today seems to be divided into the style of Warhammer, dominated by cartoonish depictions and outlandish weapons and ornate armor, OR toward the Conanesque Sword and Sorcery (still with ornate decoration, but with the figures having a more realistically proportioned appearance).

Even the GW Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit miniatures have become leaning more toward these two genres, as Peter Jackson surrendered to the impulse to go toward over-the-top, and more cartoonish depictions of the different factions of Middle-earth.

Yet there remain a tiny few sculptors who remain more true to Tolkien's vision (which Jackson definitely did NOT do). Tom Meier remains the archetypical sculptor cleaving closely to Tolkien's vision of Middle-earth as being a world that was visually more Dark Ages, with rather plain and unadorned soldiers and warriors.

Is there just no demand for simpler fantasy figures that are obviously not simply a historical proxy?

Or is it that no one has made them (in sufficient quantity), and thus there has never been the opportunity for anyone to even use them? Would people, were a simpler line of Fantasy miniatures available, have any interest in them, or is it just that the other genres are that much more appealing?

And, is there an actual difference between the Swords and Sorcery genre and that of Warhammer?

MB

Dark Sword Miniatures has very realistic proportions and designs in its A Song of Ice and Fire line, but I suppose the source material demands it.

orkybenji wrote:
Dark Sword Miniatures has very realistic proportions and designs in its A Song of Ice and Fire line, but I suppose the source material demands it.

Yes, but Dark Sword miniatures are technically not gaming pieces, and are aimed more at collectors.

A fine hair to split, I know.... But yes....

GRRM is a bit outside of the typical genre.... He is sort of like D&D with only humans...

MB

We have a terribly over-used saying in my gaming group: "It's what the fans wanna see!"

I think sculpting styles are indicative of the state of fantasy art as a whole. Take painting as an example. Put a more technically well executed painting of a historically accurate battle scene next to loincloths and boob armour, and expose them to a mass market. The former will be well received by some, but my money's on the latter for which one gets more attention.

I am certainly more in favour of lower key less cartoony sculpts these days. I have been switching to Historicals and less goofy looking fantasy miniatures for a couple of years.

I don't know if I'm really very representative of the market though, I am very fussy and I don't really play much any more, so I am completely unattached to any one company's figures.

A lot of the shift in style the late 90's was probably influenced by american comics. A lot of the style you see today is rather influenced when french and spanish sculptors made their version of that comic book style fantasy.

Red Box Games makes brilliant fantasy miniatures in a more "realistic" style.

BeAfraid wrote:

orkybenji wrote:
Dark Sword Miniatures has very realistic proportions and designs in its A Song of Ice and Fire line, but I suppose the source material demands it.

Yes, but Dark Sword miniatures are technically not gaming pieces, and are aimed more at collectors.

A fine hair to split, I know.... But yes....
MB

A bunch of points you're making.. My thoughts..

-I don't think I agree with you entirely regarding Dark Sword minis are priced comparably (or a bit higher than) many of the other miniature ranges which are targeted at collectors, RPG'ers and skirmish wargamers. Plus, they have alot of lines besides the Ice and Fire figures.

-As to the Tolkein'esque view of Fantasy, Mithril Miniatures still produces a large and growing line of minis for those interested in gaming or collecting an older style of middle earth. And of course there's always Tom Meir's own company "Thunderbolt Miniatures" which has historical and Arthurian figures in extremely realistic style and proportion. Sargent Major Miniatures also carries the "Bloody day" line of figures (formerly Vendel) that are a bit dated, but reflect the older version of Tolkien.

-I do agree though that Fantasy gaming has for the most part left the more plain medieval/Dark Ages style behind. There's not much reason to bother anymore with such high quality historical miniatures now available. Further many historical figs are now available in the more dynamic poses that used to be purvey of fantasy figures. Ebob and Red Box are two examples of this.

-As for Swords and Sorcery and Warhammer, the difference now seems to be one of proportions rather than style. The uber-detailed and filigreed style seems to cut across most wargames now and can be seen in GW, PP, Reaper and others. It seems to be what the market is asking for. New products have to distinguish themselves somehow and since less detail has been done already, more detail seems to be the way to go.

All this said, there are still a wide variety of high quality miniatures being made in a variety of styles. You may have to look out side the big names and big games, but they're there for those willing to look.

 Eilif wrote:


-As for Swords and Sorcery and Warhammer, the difference now seems to be one of proportions rather than style. The uber-detailed and filigreed style seems to cut across most wargames now and can be seen in GW, PP, Reaper and others. It seems to be what the market is asking for. New products have to distinguish themselves somehow and since less detail has been done already, more detail seems to be the way to go.

Dwarves, Goblins and Orcs...

Well a bit more than that. Swords and Sorcery - the D&D inspired and influenced settings have a take on what these fantasy creatures should look like.

Warhammer has a different take - they aren't really very close. Even with the uber-detailed and over the top armor (particularly shoulder pads) and weapons (swords that look a bit like a 2x12 with a handle...) - the D&D works share common traits, when you get down to the core elements. You can take recent dwarf artwork based off from modern interpretations and compare it to illustrations from the old school D&D books - and see the similarities. Warhammer however is significantly differs. Compare a recent orc from any of the North American companies with a GW ork... Do the same with goblins, dwarves, dragons...even elves and what not are significantly different (both in design and application).

That makes sense. I wasn't familiar with S&S as a game. I thought it was just a general moniker for a style of fantasy figures.

D&D styled figs do have a different aesthetic than Warhammer which is very much it's own thing.

 jorny wrote:
A lot of the shift in style the late 90's was probably influenced by american comics. A lot of the style you see today is rather influenced when french and spanish sculptors made their version of that comic book style fantasy.

Red Box Games makes brilliant fantasy miniatures in a more "realistic" style.

Most the fantasy work from the US was following D&D and their artists like Easley, Parkinson, Caldwell and Elmore. In the later 1990s - Magic became a huge player, due to the nature of the product being primarily graphical. More recent fantasy work tends to take more from Japanese sword and sworcery than European. They were the originators of fencing with framing timbers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eilif wrote:
That makes sense. I wasn't familiar with S&S as a game. I thought it was just a general moniker for a style of fantasy figures.

D&D styled figs do have a different aesthetic than Warhammer which is very much it's own thing.

Both a game, a company and a genre...though, they all tend to be about the same. The company made the game. The game was the paragon of the genre. They all follow D&D in large part (yes, there was sword and sorcery before D&D - but TSR really codified it).

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 jorny wrote:
A lot of the shift in style the late 90's was probably influenced by american comics. A lot of the style you see today is rather influenced when french and spanish sculptors made their version of that comic book style fantasy.

Red Box Games makes brilliant fantasy miniatures in a more "realistic" style.

Most the fantasy work from the US was following D&D and their artists like Easley, Parkinson, Caldwell and Elmore. In the later 1990s - Magic became a huge player, due to the nature of the product being primarily graphical. More recent fantasy work tends to take more from Japanese sword and sworcery than European. They were the originators of fencing with framing timbers.

True. Does anyone know if there is a good history of fantasy art?

There have been several essays and what not done over the years (many are available online) but I can't recall a particular book that focused on it.

One of the issues though goes to the medium. Most fantasy art wasn't done for its own purpose, instead they were illustrations for a product. Either interior illustrations for books and magazines, covers or packaging. Those tend to be highly regionalized - and things which might be popular in Europe wouldn't necessarily show up or have the same reception in the US. For books, local publishers would often have new cover art done as well.

Artists like Boris Valejo and Frank Frazetta were are legends in their own right, and most people who have an interest in fantasy know their work, even if they don't know the name (even these young whipper snappers...). Others like Brom and Royo have a pretty high status, but tended to be somewhat more niche due to their choice of subject matter. You have prolific artists like Chris Achilleos - who many have seen their work, but not many people know his name too. Most of those artists works were global in nature.

The UK had their own, and their own style for the time. Roger Dean for example was well known for his album art during the 1970s. If you look at the broader picture, European artists tended to be more influenced by their high brow counter parts following various trends in traditional art. It matured from there, but the roots held.

The savages in the colonies were put towards their tasks by their editors and publishers...generally to bring a fantasy world to life with realistic illustrations (to varying degrees of success). This lead to what is sometimes called pop surrealism.

In the last 20 years or so, as the interwebs have broken down a lot of the barriers to information - it has become a lot more muddled. Someone in Jakarta is just as likely to be inspired by Caldwell as someone in Chicago might be inspired by Rackham (the artist...not the company).

One interesting bit of interesting bits is to take a look at the stable of artists and their scope of work (and hence, influence...). If you don't play GW games or read their books, you will likely never see anything done by more GW artists (including their top tier). Outside of GW, the artists tend to be free lancers - so you see their artwork in many more places (sometimes surprising places...I saw a tattoo based on a Caldwell sketch on a local in Singapore a couple years ago).

Thanks for the info. Clearly there's alot I don't know about fantays art history. I'm somewhat familiar with Valejo and Brom. What sub-genre would they be?

Hard to really peg them with a sub genre in general art...within the realm of fantasy artists, Boris made most of his money from advertisements (though that is not what he is most well known for among gamers, RPG players and people who like fantasy stuff). In particular, everyone from my generation is familiar with the National Lampoons Vacation series - and he did the movie posters for those films.

Brom came from TSR's stable of artists - he really defined Dark Sun for them (they actually rewrote much of the Dark Sun setting in order to fit with the paintings he did). He did a lot of the concept and design work with Blizzard for Diablo II and III as well as various other illustration gigs (a lot of the Deadlands stuff, various other mainstream books as well). Based off from his broader appeal, he was able to focus on his art for the sake of art - which eventually lead to the Dark Age miniatures game (based on his artwork).

Vallejo almost does photo real artwork. He doesn't want to change his models much at all - and as a result, many athletes and fitness professionals can be identified in his paintings (he was big in the body building circuit himself for many years).

Brom is probably closer to the pop surreal. You can definitely see where he stretches reality - though it is grounded in the world we live in and he doesn't get too far into any sort of abstract or impressionist modern or other techniques. You can see the Frazetta influences in much of his earlier work.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
There have been several essays and what not done over the years (many are available online) but I can't recall a particular book that focused on it.

One of the issues though goes to the medium. Most fantasy art wasn't done for its own purpose, instead they were illustrations for a product. Either interior illustrations for books and magazines, covers or packaging. Those tend to be highly regionalized - and things which might be popular in Europe wouldn't necessarily show up or have the same reception in the US. For books, local publishers would often have new cover art done as well.

Artists like Boris Valejo and Frank Frazetta were are legends in their own right, and most people who have an interest in fantasy know their work, even if they don't know the name (even these young whipper snappers...). Others like Brom and Royo have a pretty high status, but tended to be somewhat more niche due to their choice of subject matter. You have prolific artists like Chris Achilleos - who many have seen their work, but not many people know his name too. Most of those artists works were global in nature.

The UK had their own, and their own style for the time. Roger Dean for example was well known for his album art during the 1970s. If you look at the broader picture, European artists tended to be more influenced by their high brow counter parts following various trends in traditional art. It matured from there, but the roots held.

The savages in the colonies were put towards their tasks by their editors and publishers...generally to bring a fantasy world to life with realistic illustrations (to varying degrees of success). This lead to what is sometimes called pop surrealism.

In the last 20 years or so, as the interwebs have broken down a lot of the barriers to information - it has become a lot more muddled. Someone in Jakarta is just as likely to be inspired by Caldwell as someone in Chicago might be inspired by Rackham (the artist...not the company).

One interesting bit of interesting bits is to take a look at the stable of artists and their scope of work (and hence, influence...). If you don't play GW games or read their books, you will likely never see anything done by more GW artists (including their top tier). Outside of GW, the artists tend to be free lancers - so you see their artwork in many more places (sometimes surprising places...I saw a tattoo based on a Caldwell sketch on a local in Singapore a couple years ago).

And I think this centers on a lot of my own ignorance of the current state of the gaming miniatures industry.

I have been out of the loop for so long that I no longer recognize any of the artists. And previously my range was pretty narrow given my aesthetics in the 1980's being so specific.

And that artists have such a higher degree of difficulty in making money from their art these days does not help with their exposure.

It is insidious.

My own interest in this subject at present was purely selfish, in that I am producing a line of miniatures that is more simplistic:

No hugely ornate armor decorations, weapons that are realistic in size and appearance, and a feel that is not quite so "High Medeival Fantasy" that is so prevalent these days.

But given the feedback I have got to this question, and the range of work and artists mentioned... It makes me think that, even with my objective not really changing, that I might benefit from looking into today's talent, while. I try to shake the dust and cobwebs off of my own.

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta ARE Swords and Sorcery incarnate with their artwork.

They pretty much defined that genre for the generations who came of age from the mid-60's to the mid-80's, when Vallejo's and Frazetta's popularity was at its peak, and nearly everyone wanted to be the next Vallejo or Frazetta.

I was one of those who wanted to be the next Frazetta until I very literally tripped over Hans Rudolph Giger at a convention in Europe in the early 1980's.... And my world was never the same.

In fact, between he and a girl who walked across the street on Ealing Common in London, my life would be VERY different, and VERY plain (to date I still have dreams of that girl. She was the first real "Punk" - although she would be what we now call a "Goth," that term would not exist for another six months to describe what would eventually be not just her sub-cultural genre, but my own - which I dominated in the states up till 1991, when all hell broke loose).

Most of the early Fantasy Sculptors:

Tom Meier (predominantly)
Bryan Ansell
Dennis Mize
Julie Guthrie
The Perrys
Bob Olley

And so on....

All tended to use Frazetta and Vallejo as their reference for what Fantasy Miniatures should look like.

Bryan and the English crowd also had the addition of Heavy Metal and 2000AD to add to their influences, which we would not have in the states until past the middle of the 1980's decade. And you can see this in the look of the Citadel miniatures beginning in 1982/83, and ESPECIALLY post-84, when Warhammer 40K/Rogue Trader became such a hit.

Steve Jackson (The American One) told me at the Earl's Court Toy Fair in early '84, when Rogue Trader/40K made its debut to the world (officially) that "This game is going to be huge." Just looking at the few diorama's that were displayed at the Citadel/GW booth.

And that was due to their influence from 2000AD that was absent in the USA.... Had the US a production like 2000AD, it is very likely that we would have had a US company that rivaled GW around the same time.

Technically, we still do not. Some US companies are huge, but they focus on very different markets.

MB

A lot of the type the thing is these days is rather motivated when france as well as spanish language sculptors produced their form of in which comic strip type dream.

I think Hasslefree are making some of the best minis in any genre at the moment. Well worth a look. You pay for their quality though...

BeAfraid wrote:I have noticed a trend in the miniatures world since the 1980's, which has been that what originally started off, with Ral Partha pretty much dominating the field with Tom Meier, that Fantasy miniatures began as a very hard Medieval/Dark Ages feel to it, and then with the advent of Warhammer began to drift into a more Swords and Sorcery style...

Yet there remain a tiny few sculptors who remain more true to Tolkien's vision (which Jackson definitely did NOT do). Tom Meier remains the archetypical sculptor cleaving closely to Tolkien's vision of Middle-earth as being a world that was visually more Dark Ages, with rather plain and unadorned soldiers and warriors.

Is there just no demand for simpler fantasy figures that are obviously not simply a historical proxy?

Or is it that no one has made them (in sufficient quantity), and thus there has never been the opportunity for anyone to even use them? Would people, were a simpler line of Fantasy miniatures available, have any interest in them, or is it just that the other genres are that much more appealing?

I feel much the same way. Reading about Tolkien's Dark Age/Old English intent for Middle Earth, and the anglo-saxon/goth influence on the Rohirrim, made me jump into Dark Age gaming when I moved into historicals. (Northumbrian saxons with lots of cav, natch) Combined with the sight of Ted Nasmith's Silmarillion illustrations, Victor Ambrus' celto-norman elves, and some Gondorians converted from Ebob normans, I'm well up for the idea of Dark Age fantasy.
I've even done a few tentative designs of different races - in a style that most fantasy gamers might consider completely boring - and the world they inhabit, and I was gearing up to start some sculpting (especially with some, ah... fiscal inactivity in the near future) when I saw your own goblin plans. Gotta say I'm a little intimidated, but I might carry on anyway. Especially as my initial idea was for 10mm Battle For Five armies proxies.

And not to belittle anyone, but I don't think I'm the only one who'd go for such a thing. It's that we might be just a little thin on the ground in a forum full of GW (and ex-GW) gamers...

Eilif wrote:-As to the Tolkein'esque view of Fantasy, Mithril Miniatures still produces a large and growing line of minis for those interested in gaming or collecting an older style of middle earth. And of course there's always Tom Meir's own company "Thunderbolt Miniatures" which has historical and Arthurian figures in extremely realistic style and proportion. Sargent Major Miniatures also carries the "Bloody day" line of figures (formerly Vendel) that are a bit dated, but reflect the older version of Tolkien.

-I do agree though that Fantasy gaming has for the most part left the more plain medieval/Dark Ages style behind. There's not much reason to bother anymore with such high quality historical miniatures now available. Further many historical figs are now available in the more dynamic poses that used to be purvey of fantasy figures. Ebob and Red Box are two examples of this.

Point about historical minis - I'm eyeing up Footsore's goths for Rohan, meself, and if I ever start up some little shop I don't know if I'd bother too much with humans, unless pressed. But as mentioned, they aren't going to fill in for fantasy non-humans too well!

The other problem with most of those other ranges, as MB mentioned elsewhere, is that they're small, and aren't likely to get very much bigger anytime soon. (I mentioned Ebob's normans - he's only got one unit of heavy infantry, and his mounted normans have been 'coming soon' for months. Now it seems he's dropped off the radar...) Very nicely sculpted, but not entirely complete, or designed and priced for mass battles, which is where my interest mostly lies.

And Vendel... well, yeah. Dated. They seem to have that peculiar 'Foundry' style of historical sculpts, with sausage limbs, dinner-plate pecs, mitten hands (complete with broken wrists), bland faces, squat proportions, and some details that ironically look like a crude Dark Age wood carving. (The beard on one of their trollmen is a blob of putty with a few careless slits poked into it for 'texture'. Bloody disgraceful if I may say so.) Meself, I don't think I'd go nuts with a hyperdynamic collection of individual characters for a single unit block (like RBG, though Tre isn't sculpting for unit blocks; and GW, who unfortunately are), but I like to think I'd be able to inject a little more modernity and care into the theme than that. As well as a decent giant bear and more imaginative mountain trolls, dare I say.

BeAfraid wrote:
Most of the early Fantasy Sculptors:

Tom Meier (predominantly)
Bryan Ansell
Dennis Mize
Julie Guthrie
The Perrys
Bob Olley

And so on....

I only got into wargaming after the turn of the millenium, but when I discovered there was more to it than GW I started looking about, especially for a few of my other peculiar interests. So some of those names ended up near the top of my 'favourite sculptors' list for work they did decades before! Dennis Mize and Julie Guthrie especially - both produced excellent dragon miniatures, and no other mini sculptor I've seen could turn out dinosaurs as well as Dennis. (Though unfortunately few) The '80's Grenadier dragons by Julie and John Dennett have rarely been surpassed since, IMO, and few others had even a hope of coming close.
Talk about trends in fantasy art - most dragons I see these days, in any medium, tend to be spikezillas with little idea about convincing anatomy. But that's another story. Suffice to say that's another reason I've been thinking of getting into the fantasy mini biz: turn out a few dragons of my own, see if they impress.

Vermis,

I am surprised that you were "daunted" by my Goblins. They are a mountain of stress for me, as I am working with a sub-par computer that does not allow me to work very quickly, due to a lack of RAM.

And I hope that I can eventually get Tom Meier himself to take the project more seriously, as one of my hopes is that having a set of Goblins which will complete the small line he has will see the sales of his stuff go up (as many people do not buy many of them, because they cannot really get a complete army, and Tom's miniatures are so distinctive that they do not mix well with others).

I have plans for an entire line of Dark Ages Fantasy, based upon Middle-earth as the Tolkiens (both JRR and Christopher, to say nothing of secondary authors such as Shippey).

But, to many people's surprise, and possible disappointment, "Normans" do not figure into Tolkien's vision (To Tolkien, Normans were almost as bad as the Third Reich - Normans were/are French. Tolkien's world focused upon the Anglos and Saxons, where the "French" were just another variety of Easterling). But if you read. Tom Shippey's The Road to Middle-earth, you will discover that Goths and Saxons are really what the Rohirrim are supposed to look like... And they are what I am using as a model (chain and lamellar armor more than scale). In fact, the languages of the Goths and Saxons show a HUGE overlap in number of words and phonemes.

But even with this desire to see a complete line of more basic Dark Ages Fantasy figures, I still have a thing for both the Conanesque Sword and Sorcery styles and the GW/Warhammer styles (at least the older ones). And I would like to eventually produce some miniatures along those lines.

MB

I had a long reply typed out here, eaten by my computer because some combination of key strokes meaning 'get rid of all this' is too close to 'ctrl+c'. So to boil it down in a matter-of-fact way:

I hadn't heard of Tolkien's dislike of Normans! But I think Middle-Earth had grown beyond the days of the cottage of lost play on the lonely isle, and I have read about his comparison of Gondor to ancient Egypt, Byzantium, and Venice. More a comparison of cultural and geographic themes, but good enough to visualise Gondor as somewhat east-Mediterranean, especially Byzantine. (Many have) Also that he declared the styles featured in the Bayeux tapestry as 'good enough' for the Rohirrim, making no distinction between Anglo-Saxon/Danes and Normans, in which the armour styles had largely converged by 1066 anyway. I prefer to see the Rohirrim as more earlier Saxons, but I see it as the next best thing to an official thumbs-up from the Professor himself, to adapt Norman-style armour in some way. To say nothing about my mentioned influences of Ted Nasmith and Victor Ambrus, and that I'm having a little fun injecting historical influences into my own humble attempts at a fantasy setting. (The western 'wood' elves are Norman-themed. The eastern elves have a touch more Byzantium or near-east about them. Currently wondering what dinosaur cataphracts would look like...)

I am surprised that you were "daunted" by my Goblins. They are a mountain of stress for me, as I am working with a sub-par computer that does not allow me to work very quickly, due to a lack of RAM.

Nevertheless! I might have had a collection of fairly small nits to pick, but unfortunately I think that might've downplayed how impressive I think they are. (Especially after trying sculptris and a few others - I can't get my own head round them. Nowhere near as intuitive as plain putty to me, despite the advantages.)

As for the Rohirrim.

He makes the one statement about the Bayeux Tapestry in relation to them.

But counter to that stand a published comment in "Letters" that equates them to the Goths. Several unpublished letters to the same person discuss this where he goes into more detail.

Also, the language he invents for them is almost wholly a derivation of Gothic, and the language he uses to represent them (Old English) is the closest language existing to Gothic.

Plus, on his later notes, in the margins he often had scribbled drawings and doodles, some of which show mounted men in spangenhelms, with plumes (one with a horse on the crest).

These features tend to suggest that their appearance is further from both Norman and Saxon on the Bayeux Tapestry, and closer to the Goth's appearances, for which there was some work done, of which Tolkien would probably have been aware, at Oxford in the early 20th century (mostly helmet pieces recovered from digs, and Gothic Poetry which described warriors).

Also, Tolkien is rather explicit about their shields being round. One of the few statements to that effect (another being about the "Tall shields of the Númenóreans," or those of the elves (indicating they might have had oblong, or kite shields.... Hard to tell at this point).

As for the Goblins... If you have any suggestions... By all means, please.

I have got all of the base-meshes completed for the entire line now (20 different poses: 6 warrior, 6 Archer, and 4 2-handed weapon armed warriors, and 4 command figures). And I have three of the Warriors almost finished.

If I could find a way to do chainmail that worked with the limited RAM I am working with, finishing the figures would go a lot faster.