Fantasy Miniatures diorama part 1.

When we think of fantasy miniatures from the 80s I imagine many of us will have images from the Fantasy Miniatures series of books in mind.

These three volumes (1988, 1989 and 1990) are packed full of photos of Golden Demon miniatures and staff offerings from those years and exhibit the very best in that era of modelling. There are extensive conversions, vivid and chaotic paint schemes, texture galore and that sense of humour that seems to have been so absent from the hobby since. Anyone who looks through the books will spot a common thread running through them... Nick Bibby's Great Spined Dragon! 

This model (born the same year as me) is the perfect example of an anatomically-plausible creature sculpted by someone who really knew their wildlife anatomy. It will surprise nobody that Nick is an incredible animal sculptor. It's by a long stretch my favourite dragon model and judging by the number of them that appear in Fantasy Miniatures that love seems to have been widespread.

Greg Sparks' amazing diorama

Of course being a large model with rather fragile wings the best function for this dragon is as the focal point of a diorama rather than fielding in an army. Dioramas are something I love making but they just take up so much space that I feel if I am going to make one it's going to have to be special, and they don't get much more special than working on a Spiny. 

David Chauvel's ragged monstrosity

Now a Great Spined Dragon is something of a holy grail miniature these days. They regularly command £100+ on eBay and with the rise in all vintage miniature prices over the last couple of years I wouldn't be surprised to see people paying £200 for one in good condition. I had resigned to not having one in my collection and instead opted to sculpt a tribute model to fill the hole in my own (any anyone else's) collection.

The Aedwyrm from Oakbound Studio

As has proven to be the way sculpting a tribute calls to the original miniature and shortly after receiving the first castings I was contacted by a friend in the Oldhammer Community who had 'brokered' a deal with another contact of his to get me a genuine Spiny for a very reasonable sum. I immediately set about cleaning it up (I actually quite liked the paint scheme, but this was a model I needed to work on from the lead up, so in the dip it went!), made fabric wings and got it primed ready for painting... and then we moved house and it sat in a cabinet for three years during which time lead fatigue claimed one of the wings. But no more! Definitely time to get it the love it deserves!

Aghast's incredible Heroes of the Known World taking on a Great Spined.

(source: Oldhammer Forum)

I've had in mind for a few years what I want to do with the diorama. In addition to the actual Spiny and my tribute I want to have the "Horned Young Dragon" (which looks far more like a young spined dragon to me, perhaps they got the labels the wrong way around) as a baby, making a family outing. The parents will be teaching the youngster to hunt, boiling a pool of water and forcing out a Waterleaper (from Oakbound) for its dinner. The title will be "A Family Picnic". Inspired by Aghast's diorama I also want to have some human adventurers creeping up inadvisably... I'd love to use the Heroes of the Known World for this but they seem to be a rather elusive and expensive set at the moment so I will be using three other Citadel adventurers that I already have and don't have another use for. I think they'll represent a gung-ho but not terribly bright band pretty well. Ideally they'll be positioned creeping up on baby, thinking that the little dragon is all they will have to worry about!

Horned Young Dragon looks much more like a young Spined Dragon 

than the Spined Young Dragon if you ask me...

So that's my plan for Easter this year, make some good progress on this diorama and take a break from armies. Of course I will have my RoC army to finish, but that's just a couple of units of beastmen so should be able to get them done alongside. Stay tuned for groundwork...