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| Art or miniature? Which do you prefer? | |||
Regular visitors to Talisman Island may have seen the Alternate Figures page for Talisman 3rd Edition which details the mystery of the figures shown on the back of the boxes for the Dungeon of Doom and City of Adventure expansions.
It has been proposed that the use of proxies for marketing, and the subsequent use of Wayne England‘s artwork on the character cards instead of painted miniatures, was due to the fact that the plastic figures that would be packed in the expansion boxes were not actually available when the game went to press.
It should be noted that the back of the Dragon’s Tower expansion and the French Royaumes du Mal expansion, which were printed later, actually feature the correct miniatures.
This has been discussed at length with Stuart Thomas, ex-GW ‘eavy Metal painter, who was tasked with painting all of the new plastic figures at the time.
All of the miniatures featured on the character cards in the base game of Talisman were painted by Stuart during his time at Games Workshop, and he also painted the miniatures seen in the expansions and several Warhammer Quest figures.
Stuart, who now paints under the banner of Sublime Brushwork, shared some images of figures from his collection including some of those from the base game.
A bit more digging and a fair amount of supposition later, I had managed to find the majority of his creations in various White Dwarf magazines from that time and am now posting images for you to use as references should you wish to paint up your collection.
It was noticed recently that the painted miniatures for the Dragon’s Tower were actually used, but not featured on the expansion’s character cards. Instead they were shown on the outside of the bottom of the box, alongside the artwork produced by Wayne England.
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Sadly, I was not able to find pictures for all of the miniatures, but have taken a couple of images from the boxed sets available at the time for bulking out your Warhammer armies. The Black Orcs and Chaos Warriors boxed sets actually feature miniatures painted by Stuart, but the Chaos Beastmen and Chaos Dwarfs boxed sets were painted up by another ‘eavy Metal legend, Paul Muller.
Try as I might I still could not find images of the Assassin and Halfling characters, but as luck would have it these were still in Stuart’s collection of figures, so I have mocked up ‘eavy Metal-style images for those two.
The only “miniature” that is not represented here is the awesome Dragon from the Dragon’s Tower expansion. In a showcase article in White Dwarf #190 it was said that this would be shown in a future issue, but it seems that this was overlooked, though I am sure there must be a picture somewhere if you can help out!
The images below are sized at 50% for ease of display, so if you save an image it should be large enough for a painting reference.
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| White Dwarf #186 | Sublime Brushwork | White Dwarf #186 | White Dwarf #177 |
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| White Dwarf #186 | Chaos Dwarfs Boxed Set | White Dwarf #186 | Chaos Warriors Boxed Set |
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| White Dwarf #191 | White Dwarf #186 | White Dwarf #186 | Sublime Brushwork |
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| White Dwarf #186 | White Dwarf #186 | White Dwarf #186 | White Dwarf #190 |
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As a bonus, I was able to find an image of the “Minotaur with club” variant that appeared in some copies of the game, and now you have a correct reference if you happen to have that miniature.
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