A Dwarf question

Golgfag1

Moderator
I've been told this Dwarf is interesting, by those who know about these things (Harry Howells & Geoff Solomon-Sims), but that's all they've told me! Can anybody tell me anything about it, or are they just pulling my leg?
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Paul / Golgfag1
 
This specific dwarf is a metal version of the dwarf from Advanced Heroquest.

As I mentioned on the FB post, it's basically a 28mm version of the 3-up (a 3x scale model used to create the steel injection mould for plastics production) that was made so that the 'Eavy Metal painters could get it painted up. It basicaly sped up the release of the final product as it could be photographed and the boxes printed up before the completed plastics were available. A few metal versions of all of the plastics from this era were made for this purpose, they were never released, I had some of the Space Crusade ones at one point.
 
yeah. That is the Metal release of the AHQ plastic. Very nice

They did release the AHQ heroes as metal for a limited run more then just the protos but Dieselly is right ^_^ Also, Fimm is a nice one to talk about HQ/AHQ Prototype metals.. he has most of them now. So when he said it's interesting, yep. very right
 
AHQmetals1.jpg
AHQmetals2.jpg

There was a blister release of the henchman, warrior, dwarf and wizard so they are less rare. The elf and the skaven are the really hard ones to get, though of course recasters have got hold of most of these sculpts by now. The henchman is an interesting sculpt. If you look at my two here you'll see they are not the same. Both from reputable sources. I took both up to Foundry to compare with the originals in their cabinet and both types are represented there, though the smaller one on the right is more frequent. My initial thought was that the one on the right was a production casting and the one on the left from a master mould. Each level of moulding can shrink a figure by up to 10% and given that there is a promotional shot of loads of henchmen and skaven together it's possible a production mould was made to save time spinning singles from a master mould. BUT I don't think that's the case. Close inspection shows features like little refinements on the shoulders, flaring on the jacket, different leg spacing, a change in buckle style and differences in studs on the jerkin which would be difficult to account for with just mould shrinkage. I think it's likely there were two sculpts done, both very similar. Not sure why that might be, possible explanations might be-
The small one is the original and they decided the plastics would need to be bulkier so resculpted a bit chunkier.
The big one is the original and they wanted more refined features.
Given the eventual plastics are closer to the one on the left I suspect the former order.
 
Pretty sure these were used as a guide for the sculptors of the 3-ups and not the other way around. At least that's how it went for the HQ figures.
 
The young chaps found it in my spares box, when we met up for the other BOYL, back in 2019/20. I don't play AHQ or Dwaefs, hence it ended up in the box and I've just found it again amongst my unpainted greenskin stuff. hence the question/

Paul / Golgfag1
I play Dwaefs( ;) )… Will it be a prisoner/antagonist for the bad greenies?
 
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