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How do?

Just a nice chit-chat-chin-wag-we-ask-the-questions topic.

No set parameters as to who would and wouldn't qualify, because such parameters are boring, and I also can't be bothered to make some up.

For me? It has to be Owen Patton, GW's scenery designer in chief. You know how it's quite mind bogglingly modular? That's down to him.

Check out his Twitter feed - https://twitter.com/Owen_Patten?fbclid=IwAR2uwYA7unHAsH2mBpbaArGy2IfPfawcbUuKKu-iEEwrKIc9uqp7dQwJR5w

Why GW don't let him do videos, or make videos inspired by his Twitter posts I genuinely do not know. The man is an engineering genius (engingenius?). Just look at the thought and clevers he pours into these kits.

OK, your turn.

GW not letting on who designed models is a bit of a problem. I agree about Owen, but there's also Ray Dranfield doing a load of their scenery. He's also done a few StormCast Podcasts - Aug 9, 2018 & Nov 4, 2019.

For non-GW produced stuff I like Taro Modelmaker (even if most of it is GW derived), and David Lewis for Dropfleet & Dropzone Commander.

As many of us feel Jes Goodwin is the super star of GW. His designs have made GW what it is today.

But I agree there is people behind the scenes that need to get attention. Who ever does the "cutting"
on the figures deciding how the go together and where the mold lines are.

I don't know who this person is but they do magic with the sprue planning and makes the model that much better.

Got to be one of the Perry twins right? Both for standard and volume of output!

Perry's for me.

Perry's are up there, but I also have a soft spot for Werner Klocke and his work for Reaper.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do?

Just a nice chit-chat-chin-wag-we-ask-the-questions topic.

No set parameters as to who would and wouldn't qualify, because such parameters are boring, and I also can't be bothered to make some up.

For me? It has to be Owen Patton, GW's scenery designer in chief. You know how it's quite mind bogglingly modular? That's down to him.

Check out his Twitter feed - https://twitter.com/Owen_Patten?fbclid=IwAR2uwYA7unHAsH2mBpbaArGy2IfPfawcbUuKKu-iEEwrKIc9uqp7dQwJR5w

Why GW don't let him do videos, or make videos inspired by his Twitter posts I genuinely do not know. The man is an engineering genius (engingenius?). Just look at the thought and clevers he pours into these kits.

OK, your turn.

Hahaha. This is indeed a small world. Owen is a friend of mine.

Myself, Owen and a guy called Matt were all known as the "Three Jokaero" at GW Lincoln (where we all used to be regulars at the same time) due to our ability to kitbash and convert anything out of almost anything. He was like made for that role he is in though. Dude went to uni initially to do stage production then ended up with GW.

Those terrain designers are absolutely fantastic.

For me... I have to go with Jes Goodwin. He's pretty much been the guy that's made the Grim Dark tangible.

Don't know their names but Confrontation was te best sculpted game of all time in my opinion.

hard to tell what design is associated with whom, so I'll go with designs themselves:
among best: Bret green knight-withstood test of time and tech

among worst: Chaos marauder mutants during end times release, it was literally some marauders and bits thrown in a blender; FW 30k space wolves-yuck

there are a lot more, but these comes to mind first hand.

Jes Goodwin is number one. My surname is also Goodwin, though we are not related, and it helps make him my favourite. I own every single one of his Chaos Champion models, some of which were stunningly expensive!

Probably my second favourite is Joel Pitt, of Anvil Industry. Not for the Regiments stuff, which is fine, but not really my kinda thing, but for the Afterlife range, which is probably my favourite model range of all time.

For me the two greatest, even though the Perry Twins did more and in an earlier era, would be Jes and Juan. Jes for general good work and dynamic models and Juan for making models that seemed to have a frozen moment of action which no one else at GW ever really matched. It was his thing, a sense of action and motion.

From Juan that stand out to me would be:
Hellions Kit,
The Juan Metal Demonettes which I still need to collect because.. they are still the best. The new ones are alright but there was just something about the Juan Diaz ones... the closest we have in the modern lineup is the new keeper of secrets.

I think it would depend heavily on what you look for in a miniature, as to what you consider good design.

My personal preference is a solid attractive design, not too much extraneous nonsense, clean and heavy cut lines (which aid immeasurably in painting), and designed for good function and transport as a gaming miniature. I don't give two gaks about intricate details and fine lacework and tiny pieces to make a stunning diorama. I want a good looking robust miniature intended for consistent gaming use and transport.

Companies like Reaper and Wargames Foundry make it easy to find what you do and don't like, as they feature a load of miniatures from a variety of sculptors. Some miniatures which are well sculpted (yes with exaggerated features often) almost paint themselves they're so well done. Goodwin was pretty solid on this front, but so are numerous other sculptors all over the place. Other sculptors do very fine, thinly detailed and shallow-cut sculpts that look "nice" on greenstuff but become really poor in metal/plastic, etc.

Whoever the guy was at Wargames Factory who make Kingdom Death and Maulifaux plastics possible. Either him or Dropfleet's Dave for the space station and Remnant kits, the best modular kits for kitbashing spaceships ever.

I’m torn on it.
The perry twins are both insanely good and have such a high output of quality models.

But then I love Juan Diaz sculpts also.
He was one of the only sculptors at GW that could actually sculpt a female miniature without it looking weird.
He also had the knack of getting detail levels just right.
To me, a model is killed when they fill every available space with detail for no reason.
He had the perfect balance between enough detail to look good but not to clutter the model at the same time.

Jes Goodwin for sci fi/fantasy. Anthony Barton (AB figures) for ww2/Napoleonic.

Plastic Dark Eldar range is probably my favorite of all time.

 Elbows wrote:
My personal preference is a solid attractive design, not too much extraneous nonsense, clean and heavy cut lines (which aid immeasurably in painting), and designed for good function and transport as a gaming miniature. I don't give two gaks about intricate details and fine lacework and tiny pieces to make a stunning diorama. I want a good looking robust miniature intended for consistent gaming use and transport.

Can't agree more. I'm very much a "less is more" kinda guy. Some of my favourite miniatures to paint are GW's Rohirrim. They have plenty of simple detail, chainmail/belts/etc, but lots of large clean areas that are easily delineated by solid lines. I've never got to a point in painting them where i've gotten bored and needed to switch it up.
I also find space marines much the same. Full of nice clean lines and large flat areas. But the beauty of space marines is you can also knock the detail level up a notch if you want by adding pouches, grenades, seals, etc. Make them as how you want them!


My top sculptors would be the Perry twins. They utterly nailed the Lord of the Rings model range. Every miniature is a joy to paint.
Jes Goodwin is worthy of a mention purely because he helped define 40k and his sculpts have been consistent across decades.
Juan Diaz has put out some absolute corker minis over the years.

 Fifty wrote:
Probably my second favourite is Joel Pitt, of Anvil Industry. Not for the Regiments stuff, which is fine, but not really my kinda thing, but for the Afterlife range, which is probably my favourite model range of all time.

You're not wrong there, Fifty. Afterlife has some amazing minis available to it.

Another vote for Jes Goodwin. Every elf and elf-adjacent model he ever sculpted fits in with every other one-- I use his wood elves, high elves and melniboneans side by side, and they go together perfectly.

To vary things up a bit, what's the opinion on Julie Guthrie's work? Rather like a lot of the dragons, animal people, and other stuff she's done for reaper over the years.

Juan Diaz is great but I also really like Brian Nelson's work on the Orcs/Orks. He really helped define the aesthetic of the army very well and managed to inject just the right amount of humour into the models while still making them look suitably savage and dangerous.

For pure technical genius, Tom Meier. Man can put detail on 15mm models that you'd be hard-pressed to find on 28mm models before digital sculpting became a thing.

Jes Goodwin gets my vote.

Could do so much with basically flat (due to the casting process of the time) metal models.

Cheers,

CB

Ral Partha

Huge fan since I was a kid

GW obviously did not get to where they are without some excellent designers on their staff. Brian Nelson and Juan Diaz are two of the best in my opinion.

Non GW, I don't think Tre Manor has ever sculpted a miniature I did not like the look of.

Aside from some of the popular GW sculptors, I really like Werner Klocke, who sculpts a ton of stuff for Reaper. His women, Dwarves and Elves are really sweet looking, especially his well-proportioned dwarves.

Jes Goodwin, of course.

Julie Guthire and her husband Bob Ridolfi over at Reaper

Whomever among us is responsible for creating MEDGe minis

I could've sworn i commented?

Tom Meier is absolutely brilliant, he packs so much fine detail and realism into his sculpts.

Juan Diaz, Perry Twins, Jew Goodwin. In that order for me. Juan is just incredible.

I love the mentions of Werner Klocke. He is still one of my top sculptors of all time.

I enjoy a great deal of Jes Goodwin models as well though, so makes it a hard decision for me.

Does anyone know who sculpted the 6th ed metal dark elf executioners and black guard? Those are some of my favorite GW miniature designs. Otherwise Tom Meier would be my favorite model sculptor.