Thursday, March 20, 2014

Grenadier AD&D "Solid Gold" Line Box Art and Insert Scans

For posterity and the good of the community I scanned my Grenadier AD&D box sets and inserts. Art by Ray Rubin and figures by Andrew Chernak.





















I also made some cropped shots of a view of these sans lettering in case they prove useful.





These are on flickr where you can download high res copies (trickier now since the latest flickr facelift but still possible, don't give up!).

If you have other sets, would you consider scanning them at 300dpi or above as well and would you let me know if you do? I don't need a full collection of figures but I'd love to have a full collection of decent pics. And if you don't want to go to the trouble to host them I'd love to put them on Flickr and credit you in whatever way you want.

I also contributed these where appropriate to the Lost Minis Wiki, which has mostly fairly poor copies of the box art so far:

Finally, I'd love to hear what you think of these! For me they rank high among the reasons I started an American style 25mm fantasy collection in the first place and my sense of nostalgia viewing these is pure and strong. I love the graphic design, the painting technique and the degree of unintentional camp. The magic user explorer is a classic, the demon's fur pants are out of control, the female thief third from right is expressing what is hands down the height of fashion in my campaign world, and seeing the renditions of the lizardman and shambling mound make me wish Rubin had had the chance to put his hand to every monster in the books.

7 comments:

  1. Agreed. Demon seems to be embodiment of "Haters gonna hate." Looking fierce.
    I assume you were referring to the 3rd from the right thief on the "Females" cover, and not the "Dungeon Explorers" cover. While both are rather fashionable, only one rises above adolescent gamer fantasy.

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  2. Sweet! I haven't seen that dwarfs box in 30 years!

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  3. Thanks for posting these! Always nice to see the non-lead part of our obsession get some love.

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  4. Cool stuff. Very nostalgic for me as well as these are the boxes and figures we started playing D&D with. I'll check through my collection of boxes and see if I have anything additional I can scan for you.

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  5. I have the following pieces that you don't show above that I can scan for you if you'd like.

    - 2005 Fighting Men, box and insert.
    - 2006 Specialists, box and insert.
    - 2012 Dwellers Below, box
    - 8001 Action Art Explorers, box and insert, plus the painting guide book.
    - 5009 Dragon's Lair, insert.
    - 5003 Woodland Adventurers, insert
    - 8002 Action Art Monsters, insert
    - Also alternate inserts for 5001, 5002 and 5004 if you are interested in those.

    So far, I scanned the inserts at 400dpi and they don't look as crisp as your scans. If you know what setting you scanned yours at, I can look at matching those settings.

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    1. Hey, sorry I let your comments slip by me and awesome, you have quite a trove! I did them at 300dpi with 24bit color as a photograph (my scanner also has an "illustration" setting which is a poor gimmick). I don't think the color depth is incredibly important, not important for crispness, anyway. Try saving them as a TIFF and not a jpeg, I did that and that might help, I think.

      Would you like me to host them on Flickr? You can catch up with me either through LAF or at my handle at yahoo.

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  6. am looking for a big scan of the black dragon next to a scantily clad woman (sorceress with dragon looking crown) - do you have a scan of this? -hopeinlove44@gmail.com

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