Games Day 1989 - Fantasy Miniatures

[Legiocustodes]

I don't know if any of you guys knew about this book already... But I have just managed to get ahold of a copy of a rather beautiful publication entitled 'Fantasy Miniatures'.

It is a wonderful hardback published by Citadel/GW to showcase Games Day 1989 and is absolutely jam packed full of photos of amazing old school miniatures painted in amazing old school style!

This has proved to be the inspiration I need to get back on the Oldhammer bandwagon and I have spent ages just lovingly gazing at is pages!

I have a load more photos of it and a lot more information over on my blog:
https://classicastartes.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/fantasy-miniatures-1989.html

 

[LilBroGrendel]

What a coincidence - I actually found out that this book existed as late as yesterday and am now considering buying it (if I can find it at a reasonable price).

So now I am looking forward to read your description of the book - and check out all the nice pictures. I too can spend hours looking at pictures of miniatures. If only I spent as much time actually painting miniatures, I would soon have a finished army...

 

[Fimm McCool]

I've got all of them, great books and lots of inspiration.

 

[Legiocustodes]

Really Fimm? How many were there in total? And what years did they cover?

 

[Kafka]

There's the 1988, 1989 and 1990 Fantasy Miniatures books.

Also there's the Golden Demon Winners magazines 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006

 

[LilBroGrendel]

Phreedh did a review of the three original books here:
http://ministuff.godzilla.se/?p=293

 

[dieselmonkey]

I was a finalist in '88 and '89, and I was gutted that my models never made the books. Don't have the models, but still got the T-shirt somewhere though, lol.

 

[symphonicpoet]

I was a finalist in '88 and '89, and I was gutted that my models never made the books. Don't have the models, but still got the T-shirt somewhere though, lol.

That would be a big letdown, to get so close. But you know? That's still incredibly stinking awesome, to make it into such company. I suspect you'd make it these days.

 

[phreedh]

Phreedh did a review of the three original books here:
http://ministuff.godzilla.se/?p=293

Awesome linkage LilBro! =)

 

[Fimm McCool]

There's also a 2002 book, but it's not as awesome as the original ones.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

There's also Heroes For Wargames

Which is more studio paintjobs than competition entries, but much more my cup of tea.

 

[dieselmonkey]

I was a finalist in '88 and '89, and I was gutted that my models never made the books. Don't have the models, but still got the T-shirt somewhere though, lol.

That would be a big letdown, to get so close. But you know? That's still incredibly stinking awesome, to make it into such company. I suspect you'd make it these days.

Ha, not a chance these days. My painting style hasn't really advanced since then, and everyone else's has!

It was doubly annoying as one of the entries got 'stolen' from a locked display cabinet in the Nottingham store.

 

[Legiocustodes]

Diesel that's terrible! Both about not getting in the book and having the model stolen!!

How about you post any pictures you have on here of them so we can see them first hand!!!

 

[dieselmonkey]

How about you post any pictures you have on here of them so we can see them first hand!!!

Mate, it was nearly 30 years ago. I don't even have any photos of myself* from back then, let alone anything I painted!


*Actually, this is a lie, there's a tiny and terrible photo of me in an issue of WD.

*EDIT* In fact, I've found it.

This is the only photo of me that I know of from that era, showing me working GD, either '90 or '91. I'm the potato in the red shirt, behind the guy leaning over.

 

[Legiocustodes]

That is literally amazing! Immortalised in print forever!!

 

[Fimm McCool]

There's also Heroes For Wargames

Which is a stunning book.

 

[symphonicpoet]

Ha, not a chance these days. My painting style hasn't really advanced since then, and everyone else's has!

It was doubly annoying as one of the entries got 'stolen' from a locked display cabinet in the Nottingham store.

I think perhaps you should have put "advanced" in quotes. And I may have been thinking Golden Gobbo not Golden Demon. Oldhammer head. There's not a lot of current GW that sparks my interest, so I was probably pitting you against myself and others on this forum. (We're a good lot, but many of us have defied the "advances" of the day. Not all, but many.)

 

[LilBroGrendel]

Phreedh did a review of the three original books here:
http://ministuff.godzilla.se/?p=293

Awesome linkage LilBro! =)

Inga problem. Din hemsida är grymt bra

We're a good lot, but many of us have defied the "advances" of the day. Not all, but many.

Agreed. Even though some modern painters have excellent technical painting skills, I think that their paintjobs lack the charm and soul which was often seen in the paintjobs from the 80s and 90s.

 

[Legiocustodes]

I tend to bounce between the two! I like giving old models retro paint jobs, but I also like technical challenge on some modern minis!

 

[symphonicpoet]

It's a big beautiful world out there. I think there's room for both. I'm not actually opposed to new techniques myself, though I'm sometimes a little slow to adopt them. But I think a lot of it boils down to style or fashion. Object Source Lighting, for instance, might have as much to do with the influence of video games on our visual vocabulary as anything else. There don't appear to be any really new techniques to it, just new ways of using old techniques. And airbrushes have been around forever. I was using one to do large scale block work on plastic scale models in the early eighties and they weren't new then. But they only seem to have become popular for human scale wargames figures in the last ten years or so. Paint chemistry has changed some, and consequently our palettes, but even that might be more reducing toxicity than anything else. But then I tend to see art history as more a thing of changing style than technical advancement. Technical advancements can help to inspire or even allow new styles, but that doesn't automatically make the new artistically better. Just different. (And as a somewhat professional composer I do have skin in the game, as it were. I really really want people to like new music. Seriously. Not that you can necessarily tell from listening to my stuff.)

Buddanyway . . . as I said before. It's a big world. There's room for lots of stuff.