Saturday, February 4, 2012

Comparing Goblins Miniatures

I scrounged up a bunch of goblins this morning and lined them up for you. Click for big.

Goblins Comparison

BTW, I love coming across comparison pics like these—they can be incredibly helpful. They do take some work but I have a mind to keep going with these. I even have some more goblins tucked away I could do a sequel to this one. Let me know if you like these!

20 comments:

  1. An interesting comparison, some of those older goblins are quite decent figures. Personally I always rather liked Nick Lund's various takes on the subject, much better than the ludicrous "Gobbo's" from games workshop.
    Certainly more in the same vein would be of interest
    Regards HGA.

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    1. Cheers! Kev Adams and Ally Morrison Citadel ones are actually favorites of mine, though I would never mix them on the tabletop with my D&D stuff. Speaking of which I have quite a few painted I need to share. Lund's are favorites as well. Have been kind of saving them for a metal-inspired dark ages sword & sorcery universe I've been scheming about for awhile.

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  2. I'm a big fan of the Asgard orcs and have nearly a complete set of them. The other goblin figures I use (and that are easily found on ebay for minimal outaly) are Games Workshop's Moria Goblins in plastic.

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    1. Re Asgard, likewise and I do too. :) Awesome that they're still available though Viking Forge, too.

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  3. Interesting. It would be interesting to see Heartbreaker Tim Prow and Kev Adams goblins in there as well as some of the Confrontation Goblins.

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    1. Thanks for the suggestions... I can do most of these for the sequel pic. Got some early Confrontation ones, at least one Heartbreaker Kev Adams, and I can do Adams Harlequin as well. No Tim Prow, though, that guy is not for me. All the Heartbreaker ones are big, though, I can tell you.

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  4. That is super-cool. An old issue of Dragon had a column called something like 'Fantasy smith's notebook' and he did a comparison of the orcs available -- maybe 1980 or 81. His article only had line drawings(!).

    So anyway, yes, more of this sort of thing. I am afraid my collection is far too limited to do anything like this (almost all Grenadier, Partha, Citadel & Heritage, not a lot of the smaller companies, and generally only hitting one period for each manufacturer!)

    I do however have a handful of goblins from Heritage, Minifigs, and maybe Reaper...you?

    Anyway I think Kev Adams and Tom Meier would be my favorites. Lund's are too big and I just don't care for most of Olley's humanoids (he's done some great monsters though).

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    1. Cheers, I'll try to track down that article. Really like the minifigs D&D goblins, but don't have any. Have some Custom Cast Der Kriegspielers and one or two really old Partha Ones as well... these and the ones I mention above all remaining I can think of atm. Although I have some various hobgoblins....

      Yeah, the Lund ones are big... I was going to have them in the same universe as the Asgard goblins so maybe the Lund ones won't be called goblins but some ogrish/trollish species of some kind. Originally said world was going to have just Lund orcs and Asgard goblins, but then I just wound up with Lund goblins more or less on accident. As of last week I have the Lund hobgoblins too. Not too worried, though, I can find room for all of them I'm sure.

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    2. dragon #25, p.18. Not "Fantasysmith" after all.

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    3. Thanks, I tracked it down. The drawing of the various lines is great! It felt strange reading the article and imagining I was back in the day trying to make my purchasing decisions based on the opinions put forward (rather from on high as well). We sure are spoiled for having an internet so full of pics of figures to base decisions on. Also interesting the way he assumes you're playing a blend of D&D and LotR mythos and his rejection of pig-faced orcs (though he admits he'll buy some anyway to use as were-boars--spoken like a true lead junkie).

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  5. Excellent resource and well worth the time to put together the police-dept style line-up. Thanks for putting the shot together.

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  6. Thank you, thank you! Are the Asgard figures those currently being sold by Viking Forge? I love those figures and want to order some. After finding some old and very worn Asgard adventurer figures at a thrift shop a couple weeks ago, my love of old school miniatures has been rekindled. I wish I had my old Partha, Grenadier, and Citadel minis from the early 1980s. Sadly, they all got lead rot during storage. 15 years ago they had to go. :-( Plus, my wife worried they might "influence" our young son, who just happens to love fantasy gaming 15 years later! That showed her! LoL! Looks like I have something new to blog about! :-) Keep up the awesome work.

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    1. YW! Yes, Asgard from Viking Forge. I got the whole range of orcs from them and got great service (sending a check is a little weird in the 21st century, but everythign arrived all good.) Plus, they've just added great new pics of everything to their site. A friend of mine and I just put in an order and he's going to swing by Sat. with the Jess Goodwin dwarves and viking characters and that stonking cool storm giant that have arrived.

      Sorry to hear of the lead rot, that's a sad story! You do live in the golden age of collecting figs, though, if you decide to go for some old stuff again, as the whole 35+ year gammit of fantasy figs are yours for the bidding on ebay. Plus try local con fleamarkets for real bargains. And then of there are fantastic companies like Viking Forge and Denizen who keep making the golden oldies.

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  7. Off topic, but I really liked the pj on the Paladin with winged helm and sword from 1980. Could you talk a little about it somewhere?

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    1. oops, late reply here but yeah, I'll post up the paladin... thought I had already, actually. I'm gearing up to post all the miniatures of the PCs in my party and he's one of them. Cheers!

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  8. Brilliant! I love comparison shots like this! How'd you keep them all in such good focus? Very little perspective distortion, too!

    More, please! I'd really love to see a line-up of old school elves (among others...)!

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    1. Thanks! My camera, a Canon g3 that's in middle age now, is pretty good with macro stuff. I always use the biggest f-stop (smallest aperature) for the deepest focal plane. This means I need to keep the lens open longer to let enough light in to expose properly, so a tripod and timer or remote control are musts. I'm also keep the camera about 10 inches away or more as I get some fisheye distortion if too close.

      Thanks for the elves suggestion--I'll see what I've got here. :) I'm going with Grenadier elves of the Sylvain Forest for my main elves encounter group, but have a number of others including some ancient Ral Partha ones and Heritage D&D ones. Sadly, none of the iconic Tom Meier late seventies ones with the feathers, though. Any proper line up should have those.

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  9. mi faves of all time - theres a few painted versions of mine floating around various collections here in the lead belt - some of the best painting i ever did and all enamels to - jes likes the fact that they are available these days .....

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    1. Yeah, I know of yr takes on the Asgard goblins as they're in Ratspike--love 'em... got out the book today to see them again. I had Ratspike for many years actually before I knew about Asgard at all and had wondered where those goblins were from. Might be part of the reason that when I learned they were still available I grabbed them up!

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