Gandalf remains an archetypal wizard character and the miniature has a life in both RPG and wargaming, so is a prime candidate for a Tabletop Heroes photoshoot. Here we have Gandalf the Sky-blue, painted by Stuart Parkinson with some wicked-cool drybrushing on his big bushy beard. It's a nice sculpt that captures a lot of Tolkiens descriptions - the bushy eyebrows, Glamdring at his side. The pose is reasonably neutral, he could be admonishing a fool of a Took, deciding which route to the nearest pub in the Shire, or about to fire lightning down on some Nazgûl, which makes it very useful for gaming.
Interestingly the Citadel sculptor has given Gandalf the pointy 80s shoulder-pads of magic, supported by the likes of the Emperor Ming and a whole range of Dark Elves and Chaos Sorcerers, and almost any wizard drawn by Tony Ackland. Slightly strange because pointy-shoulder-pads tend to signify evil, perhaps Gandalf has a dark-side we never quite uncovered.
Gandalf must be an essential miniature in any collection.
ReplyDeleteNot just for the Citadel collector, but for Mithril, Archive Miniatures or The Kriegspielers Fantastiques.
At least one of these or another old designer.
Ah yes, Gandalf appears in many ranges, all similar. The Archive Middle Earth range http://www.dndlead.com/Archive/Archive-500s.htm range is especially interesting, not for Gandalf, but for the Renaissance stylings and the Treebeard which is very obviously based on the Hildebrandt painting. http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/hildebrandt/treebeard.jpg
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