How to Paint Fantasy Miniatures This tutorial will show you techniques for painting miniatures. I paint a Spartan warrior (shown below) and it is for the 300 Diorama.
I was going to correct the name of the Ezoghoul, but then I saw it had been done already! I was also quite involved with Warzone in the beginning, as I worked for Target Games at the main office in Stockholm as an editor up until 1993 – just at the beginning of the whole Mutant Chronicles period. I still have my plastic Ezoghoul from the Siege game and didn’t know it had been turned into a metal model – it sure is ugly, though! The plastic model was somewhat ok, though, considering the comparable stuff GW put out at that time – just think of the original Space Hulk Terminators!
Well, the collection of entries is a result of what candidates were entered to the discussion on the forum. We didn’t judge or verify them at the moment -that’s what the poll is for. That is how we want to go from subjective (all candidates entered) to more objective (we have well over 100 votes now and they keep coming still) – I think it is pretty obvious that some entries are more “solid” than others and will most likely be leading in the voting. If you feel something important is missing from the list – feel free to submit your own candidate. If there are enough of them we will make another poll, and then choose the overall winner from winners of all previous polls.
Don’t treat it too seriously though, as you can see the entries here are very varied, and some people actually like what others consider a bad mini. So to put it in a different way: It’s a collection of miniatures that people considered bad for any reasons, with a poll to decide which ones are really considered bad by majority of readers. In analyzing these minis, I think we should consider whether the mini fails at what it is attempting, rather than judge the goal of the sculptor. A good example of this is the “Wet Nurse” vs. The clear winner “Nagash.” Its pretty clear that the designer and the sculptor of the “Wet Nurse” wanted to create a hentai-inspired sick&twisted horror-torture-porn monster, and in this I don’t think anyone can dispute that he succeeded.
While many of us would question why anyone would want to own such a thing, you can’t dispute that the creators of this mini got what they wanted. “Nagash” on the other hand is the poster boy for “epic fail” on all levels. He is supposed to be a super-lich, the greatest undead lord of the entire setting of Warhammer, and the GW sculptor made something that looks like a hand puppet. I am glad many of you got the idea that the list is not 100% serious approach to our hobby and how subjective the choices are. Bear in mind that the choices were not made by one person, but were submitted by various people at our forum, facebook page, etc. And while some sculpts are just technically bad, some are poor translations of concept art into miniatures, some are bad at the very concept stage.
And don’t forget they weren’t judged yet – the voting is going on all the time ? Remember that the definition of “worst miniatures” may differ for different people. Even if one doesn’t consider the Wet Nun a bad mini, somebody else could Voting will reveal what most people think about it, won’t it? But if you have your own candidates – you can always add them. ? Thanks for the information, Mohand!
I appreciate it. In fact I was looking at the Eden range to find the name and couldn’t find the miniature there at all. I am glad to know you like the concept of this list and that you can make some fun of our common hobby.
I added some more corrections and information from your comments to the article. Thanks a lot!
Good list so far, clearly there are thousands more that could be on here. Some of the minis on this list though are sort of out of place from a quality standpoint, yet from the subject matter I understand “worst” takes on a different meaning (Kingdom Death, the quality of the sculpts are extremely good and they are basically works of art yet umm ya they are pretty bad. Hehe) and you hit some ranges that easily could have any of their figs on the list like Ramshackle Games. One mini I think should have made the first list was more from Acheson Creations they have a living ear of corn its poorly sculpted no less (seriously they didn’t just cast an actual ear of corn but they had to sculpt it. Good stuff though not surprised to see the clown o’ doom on the top of the list with A) everyone hating GW so much and B) that is just an epic level of craptastic ?. Many of these are bad but not nearly on par with some of the sculpts that came out of the 70’s and 80’s, particularly the figures that TSR put out in 1983 ( ).
I’d like to see a little more scope and diversity on the roster, rather than half the list being what new releases people didn’t like in the past three months. I strongly disagree with the nominations for #4 and #5. If Nagash is a top contender for worst on account of the sculptor failing to capture the elan of the concept art then, judged by the same standard, the Kingdom Death sculpts don’t belong on the same list. The exceptional sculpts convey everything laid down by the concept artist.
Not everyone wants H.R. Geigers cock-faced alien mounted over the mantle, but that he incorporates naughty bits into his work doesn’t disqualify him as a capable artist. That said, the Wet Nurse model sells out in less than 24 hours every time the guy releases a run of them, which shows a market for it. I consider Curtis at Ramshackle a friend, so I’ve got to defend the Dungers. Go look at Games Workshops’ Squigs. The Goblin squigs. Really look at them.
Then go back and look at the dungers. Notice something?
Dungers are furry squigs! They’re also ridden by orks.
Field an army of orks on dungers and goblins on squids and you’ll have a very unified looking army, a heck of lot more unified than one with GW’s squigs and Forgeworld’s squiggoths (which entirely lack the humor of GW’s squigs). And the mega-dunger (“forklift with idiots on top”) is an awesomely hilarious model. Mmh I too find this topic strange. I am not sure but in my oppinion there is no bad miniature.
Sure there are maybe some where the creator has not yet enough experience to make a perfect miniature at all, but he is collecting experience and that is something good. This is the only way it works. Imagine where our hobby would be without figures like Nagash (I don’t like him too, but i have already painted one to pay tribute to history). Without the way of learning things and motivating others the passion of our hobby is senseless.
This post is in my eyes pretty senseless. This is just my point of view – I am not interested in choosing the worst miniature ever, there are better things to do with the time we have here on this planet – Just my 50 Cent to the topic and totally my personal view – no offence. Happy painting is about Motivation and joy – I still feel like a rookie to the figure scene when I look at all the history of it and communication between painters and sculpters should always be with respect, no matter what level of experience they have at the moment. And it is not only about painters or sculptors – it is a thought that should be everywhere to every person you will meet in your life Ough!
Roman, no offense taken. I just think you didn’t quite get the idea of this list. To give you a wider picture, let me tell that I am known for liking odd and old minis that many people find ugly or even worthless.
Just take a look at my latest paintjobs – the models I chose are far form what most people consider cool. Yet some people still think I was all serious in my criticism. Man, you are known for the ability to have fun with the hobby and treat it in a light-hearted manner, with humor. Can’t you see that somebody with my approach to “odd” minis would only make the list for people to take with a pinch of salt? And just like people make light hearted discussions about how bad the last movie they’ve seen was, we started a funny discussion about “bad minis”. And just like one person would consider a movie bad for poor acting, another one for boring story and another because of low budget and cheap special effects, people chose their favorite “worst minis” based on various criteria. Now think – is Nagash commonly considered a poor sculpt?
Yeah, but I would still like to have it in my collection! Did I make fun of dungers? Would I be happy to have or paint them?
Let’s not pretend, we all like to make fun or joke sometimes. And I am sure this article will do much good to listed manufacturers, whose websites will be visited by people who will be curious to see more. Let’s just not be deadly serious about our hobby.
Would you really feel offended if I joked that your mini looks like ham? But maybe it’s because I treat it as a hobby, fun that is not life-and-death thing to me. You say you see no sense in choosing the worst minis? But you surely know about Golden Raspberry awards for worst movies, don’t you? And artists don’t take offense from them I hope you get the idea and if you feel like discussing with me – I am always happy to talk with you and enjoy it! Thanks, Roman!
And I appreciate your comment. Don’t you think that often most valuable things are said in comments? I do think so Yes, you’re right – it’s great that we’re different, like different things, and have different opinions.
How boring it would be if we were all the same? ? The very fact this article caused so many comments and discussion is a great thing. It only shows that one man’s meat is another one’s poison. What one considered one of the worst minis (and he is ready to defend his point of view) is a great model for another one (and he can also stand for his opinion). It may just be because I’m a reaper fangirl, but both the reapers in the list are not even close to the level of terrible as a lot of the others. I wouldn’t even call them bad at all. Niche, maybe, but not bad.
The Brain thing is based off one of the lesser known DnD monsters, something Reaper does quite a bit. It’s the kind of thing that there’s someone out there who lives that monster and wishes that they could find a mini of it. The Tiki monster, while I’m not entirely certain of where they got the idea, has a lot of possibilities for use in a tabletop rpg. Perhaps it’s an animated homunculus to some tiki witch doctor type? Maybe it’s a totem statue built to defend an island village? I think it’s quite flavorful, especially with the notches between the limbs that give it a ‘constructed’ look.
What a great post. Kinda surprised me that folks would get personally offended on behalf of the Wet Nurse and toss out a lil’ nerd rage, but then again that model has had people riffin’ since the day it released. No love fer the Sunstalker though, huh? ? I’ll just go ahead and nominate Kingdom Death’s Nightmare Ram right naow: I don’t care how nice the resin is, how high the production value, how detailed the sculpt- some of KD’s figs are deliberately hideous. They took a shot at gross disgusting and disturbingand nailed it. They’ve earned a few spots on this list.