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There is a Dragon Miniature produced for 2 years in the early-1980s by Citadel Miniatures (prior to the acquisition of GW by Citadel) that was known by a rather unflattering name.

Bryan Ansell sold the Molds/Rights to the miniature in 1984, and it was produced for a few years in Texas.

The molds, along with a great many other things, were stolen in the early-1990s.

Thanks to an unethical mold-maker, the molds have been recovered after that theft.

There is currently an effort underway to put it back into production.

Behold an image of a portion of one of the recovered molds (out of many for the one model).

MB

Sorry, what? Surely not the Imperial Dragon (aka the Chicken Dragon)?

From what I remember, this wasn't a spin cast miniature but some other casting method was used that escapes me and moulds wore out pretty quickly. Do you have a link to the news anywhere?

Tiny bit of googling found more info - also updates in the comments relating to this

http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/2013/12/imperial-dragon-aka-chicken-dragon-for.html

BeAfraid wrote:

There is currently an effort underway to put it back into production.

Why tho

What's so unflattering about ''Imperial Dragon''?

 lord_blackfang wrote:

BeAfraid wrote:
There is currently an effort underway to put it back into production.

Why tho

Some people will pay good money for nostalgia.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

BeAfraid wrote:

There is currently an effort underway to put it back into production.

Why tho

Because old hammer is a thing. there's a proportion of the population that absolutely goes bananas for old models. Especially the funky ones

It also happens to be a really good dragon model.

Well, a bit vague, but if the molds turn out to be legit, and actually viable, that'd be quite something.

It's a great looking model for sure. Interested to see if it becomes available!

 Overread wrote:
Tiny bit of googling found more info - also updates in the comments relating to this

http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/2013/12/imperial-dragon-aka-chicken-dragon-for.html

I don't quite get this.

It's a miniature that in the 80s someone bought the rights to and produced them until the original molds were stolen, but it turns out the "mold maker" (which seems to have been Richard Halliwell who made the original?), also made a second mold of it for themselves (when he shouldn't have really) and for some reason suddenly contacted the person who bought the mold 30+ years ago, so now the buyer of that original mold that was stolen is going to use that copied mold to make more?

The original mold seems to have been made in the UK, was then sold to someone in Texas, so if original mold maker has another wouldn't that also be in the UK?

And why are there comments there that use third person to refer to the owner but then switch to first person only in another comment after going back to just saying "the owner" as if it's someone else?

Not implying there's anything strange going on here, just not sure if i'm mis-understanding something?

Can the OP please rewrite this post and include a link?
I don't know about anyone else, but this nugget doesn't tell well in the post here.

Please give some info here.

Huh. I'd love to own one of these, I'd given up hope a lot time ago since there really weren't very many ever cast. It also wasn't a model compatible with the metal casting technology of the time and by all accounts was a real pain to put together.

If they could cast some copies in resin, that'd be lovely. Doubly so if they resculpted the wings to add the flappy bits which they didn't have the resources to do back in the 80s.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
If they could cast some copies in resin, that'd be lovely. Doubly so if they resculpted the wings to add the flappy bits which they didn't have the resources to do back in the 80s.

If in any way possible, resin does sound absolutely sensible. I don't think I like it quite enough to buy a copy at the likely prices it'd sell for (and I don't think I'd want to paint it unless also purchasing an airbrush), but I do rather like the design and style of the ol' chicken dragon. Sculpt quality has held up rather well, and I can't think of (m)any similar designs going around.

I would imagine resin is the only material they'd try. It was originally made in resin and it sounds like the mould that survived is designed for resin as well. Metal or plastic would likely be unaffordable for different reasons - metal being too costly a base material for sale (and likely having issues with weight); whilst plastic would be too costly in mould production.

 Overread wrote:
I would imagine resin is the only material they'd try. It was originally made in resin and it sounds like the mould that survived is designed for resin as well. Metal or plastic would likely be unaffordable for different reasons - metal being too costly a base material for sale (and likely having issues with weight); whilst plastic would be too costly in mould production.

I'm pretty sure the original was in metal, and given buyers would be mostly the nostalgic sort, I'd assume that is what they will produce it in again should it come to market.

http://www.solegends.com/citdragon/thedragon/index.htm

If it was me, I'd offer it in metal and do a modern resin remake, best of both worlds.

But to whoever is doing it I wish them the best of luck.

Surely at some point the need for nostalgia must be balanced by pure practicality? In resin that model is far more practical than in metal.

It also does look a lot like a fat chicken ngl.

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Sculpt quality has held up rather well, and I can't think of (m)any similar designs going around.

It's got this kind of... storybook illustration quality to it, I guess, that you don't get with many modern dragon miniatures. Plus I like the alligator jaw.

Stuff of Legends has this fun scale shot of the ID next to Smaug and the two Forge World big lad dragons.



It really was a hubristically large model to attempt to make back in 1982. Considering almost all Citadel minis of that time were still human-sized.

If these become available, I'm in!!!

 Agamemnon2 wrote:


Stuff of Legends has this fun scale shot of the ID next to Smaug and the two Forge World big lad dragons.



It really was a hubristically large model to attempt to make back in 1982. Considering almost all Citadel minis of that time were still human-sized.

Wow, 1982? Lead?

That thing must have been insanely expensive, like, I dunno, $12 or something!

£49.50 in the 1983 catalogue.

50 quid in the 80s, damn

Still cheaper than Smaug™ if the equivalency calculator is accurate.

 Robert Facepalmer wrote:
Still cheaper than Smaug™ if the equivalency calculator is accurate.

Yeah, but it didn't come with a massive sculpted base and wing membranes. The wings were just spines, you had to basically create the wings from scratch.

 Robert Facepalmer wrote:
£49.50 in the 1983 catalogue.

Looks like GBP144 today. Not horrible, but not walking around money either. I'm interested in seeing what a reissued dragon will cost.

Talk about aged well.

 zedmeister wrote:

From what I remember, this wasn't a spin cast miniature but some other casting method was used that escapes me and moulds wore out pretty quickly. Do you have a link to the news anywhere?

I seem to recall (I worked at GW a loooooong time ago) that the smaller parts were spin cast, and the larger body parts were gravity moulds. We tried to make one back in the late 80s, but by that point we couldn't find all of the moulds.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Tiny bit of googling found more info - also updates in the comments relating to this

http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/2013/12/imperial-dragon-aka-chicken-dragon-for.html

I don't quite get this.

It's a miniature that in the 80s someone bought the rights to and produced them until the original molds were stolen, but it turns out the "mold maker" (which seems to have been Richard Halliwell who made the original?), also made a second mold of it for themselves (when he shouldn't have really) and for some reason suddenly contacted the person who bought the mold 30+ years ago, so now the buyer of that original mold that was stolen is going to use that copied mold to make more?

The original mold seems to have been made in the UK, was then sold to someone in Texas, so if original mold maker has another wouldn't that also be in the UK?

And why are there comments there that use third person to refer to the owner but then switch to first person only in another comment after going back to just saying "the owner" as if it's someone else?

Not implying there's anything strange going on here, just not sure if i'm mis-understanding something?

I am the person from Texas who bought this when I was in School in the UK in the 1980s.

I bought the Molds from Citadel Miniatures in February or March of 1984, shortly after the Earls Court Toy Fair where I was hanging-out with the US Steve Jackson (whom I have been friends with since I was even younger than that).

I had just set-up a deal to help keep the Heritage USA miniatures Fantasy Lines in Production (which technically involved some other motives that got derailed by one of the former owners of Heritage).

But Bryan Ansell was talking about Licensing the old Heritage Dungeon Dwellers, LotR, and Conan Lines (two of which were my primary interest).

During a talk at Citadel Miniatures I had expressed my fondness for the Dragon. And he mentioned it was an enormous pain-in-the-ass to produce and it didn’t sell well.

I said something like “If you don’t want to produce it, I sure do.” He offered to sell it, and I accepted.

The Molds went back to the USA, with the Masters having been largely destroyed in the process of making the Molds.

They were first produced and sold by Texas Miniatures and then Genesis Gaming Products in the 1984 to Summer of 1986 Periods.

I got distracted by some other things that took me away from gaming and into the fun world of Music Production and Movies, among other things, and wasn’t paying attention to what was going on with the Miniature, and the assigned Rights at the time.



The Molds were thought lost due to a Buglary of where they were stored.

I cannot yet create a link to anything, because the freaking COVID epidemic keeps interfering with the resolution of a lot of red tape (such as getting COVID at the end of the year), some of which requires a FOIA request from NARA to be completed, which is ongoing. And the company who will be producing it has said it will make itself known when we get to the point of resolving the issues involved.

But there WILL eventually be one to add to this. Including some shots of the first Miniatures produced from the molds.

And the Molds weren’t Gravity-Cast. They were the regular round spin-cast molds. There were between 6 and 10 of them, most of them being 12” with a couple being 9”.

Fortunately… There will hopefully be a resolution of the bureaucratic obstacles sooner now, given that I didn’t die of COVID (it is a freaking horrible disease).

dieselmonkey wrote:

 zedmeister wrote:

From what I remember, this wasn't a spin cast miniature but some other casting method was used that escapes me and moulds wore out pretty quickly. Do you have a link to the news anywhere?

I seem to recall (I worked at GW a loooooong time ago) that the smaller parts were spin cast, and the larger body parts were gravity moulds. We tried to make one back in the late 80s, but by that point we couldn't find all of the moulds.

And you couldn’t find all the Molds because they were in Dallas, TX at the time. I should have received all of them, if you had any at all.



MB

I'm glad for an update and glad you're still kicking! I'll keep waiting patiently