Favorite sculptor?

[Decado]

I know this has probably been done before but I thought I would start it again. Who is your favorite sculptor. Mine has to be W. Klocke. I have painted #2463 Boris the Black and #14015 Niriodel, Elven Archer and am currently working on #2558 Anduriel, Elf Warrior. The first two are probably my best pieces of work to date (I have been painting for about 1.5 years) and #2558 is shaping up to be the best of the three. There is something about these minis that they paint up really nice.

 

I just thumbed through my saved Reaper blister cards and realized I have quite a few W. Klocke miniatures. I am really looking forward to painting them.

 

Decado

[Kheprera]

I've been a Garrity fan since her days at Ral Partha. I've got more mini's of hers than I care to count. I like Klocke's work as well, but Sandra holds a special place in my heart.

 

Julie Guthrie is also a favorite of mine. I have a lot of her stuff from Grenadier in my collection.

[haldir]

Mine is also Sandra, due to I have always love what she does, no matter what company she's working for. I will say Werner K is comin up thou in my favs (probably 2nd fav).

 

Sculptor's I'm not too fond of are Mize & Guthrie (Julies stuff would be ok if it weren't for they are smaller than normal scale, at least in my eyes). Mize I like the details but some of the poses are a tad bit ughhh (the arm up in the air with clenched fist look UGHHHHH)

 

 

Randy M

[Steven Page]

This question causes pain, distress and mental feedback problems...

 

Sandra Garrity does the best female characters,full of grace and detail. Jason Weibe does the best monsters, wild and menacing. Bobby Jackson does great male warriors, like his highlanders and knights. Werner does everything well.

 

But wait a minute...Dennis Mize (who is often criticized here) did an awesome Shield Maiden. No one has ever done a better troll than Ben Seins. Bob Olley's demons are....DEMONIC! And Bob Ridolfi has snuck in some amazing work.....

 

Answer...D)All of the above.

 

And I've sent in the Proof of Purchases to prove it`.

[Jerry Trapspringer]

OK, let me place my neck on the chopping block here...

 

Recently looking though all my stuff, even with the knock-kneed, hands-in-the-air, pinch-faced, nekkid look my favorite sculpter has got to be Dennis Mize......  :oo:

 

Runners up would have to be Sandra Garrity and Julie Guthie.

 

Werner Knocke, well I like some of his stuff, some of it leaves me cold. Can't say I'm too crazy about his elves- they all look the same to me  :(

[Gergle]

Julie Guthrie.  Hands down.  Her 25mm minis are 25mm scale.  Have you actually measured most of the "25mm" minis that are coming out lately from other people?   There are 5' 10" tall Dwarves walkin' around out there folks.  Armed with weapons that weigh more than they do. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[Neartea]

I like Garrity and Klocke.  But Weibe is also from my hometown area so he also gets a plug.    :unclesam:

[smokingwreckage]

I like variety of style. All the sculptors have done at least one miniature I'd like to own and most have done a lot more; all have also done at least one I'd avoid. Scale, well I'd assumed we were all OK with the 28mm scale, 25mm especially TRUE 25mm is getting too small for me to see very well; but then, I can appreciate the beauty of uniform scale too. I've talked about what I percieve as the sculptor's strengths and weaknesses many times before; I don't PERSONALLY  :)  consider a bit of visual continuity in Klocke's elves to be a weakness.

 

Thing is regardless of artist all the Reaper figures I've got hold of so far (I'm new at it, I only have 8 on my painting desk, and 13 on order) have been even better than they looked online, with a few reservations regarding Bobby Jackson's faces which don't live up to the rest of the sculpt in his earlier pieces. I've been getting mostly female figs to get my wife (talented lady) into the hobby, when my next batch come in I'll still only have 7 males in 21 minis. I'm starting to run out of decently clad miniature women to buy....

[Decado]

My number of W. Klocke sculpts are in the minority of my collection of Reaper minis and my enthusiasim for his work stems from the fact that I seem to paint them the best. Probably the majority of my Reaper collection is from Garrity and Wiebe (I love his monsters).

 

My feelings are much the same as Smokingwreckage, that there is probably a mini from all the sculptors that I would like to own (Garrity's Deathsleet is toping the list at the moment) and ones from each I have no desire to buy.

 

Looking through my list of blister cards I have found that I do not have any minis sculpted by Guthrie. Time to dig out the catalog and see if I can correct that situation. :)

 

Decado

[TKD]

Right now, my favorite is probably Jason Wiebe. I love his ape minis - the Carnivorous Ape, his stuff for Black Orc's Hundred Kingdoms Simian Empire, his Hackmaster Ape Warrior Shaman. All I need is for him to do a Reaper Dragon-sized Giant Ape and I am set.

 

I am also very fond of Julie Guthrie (the first sculptor I ever knew by name), Sandra Garrity (love her orcs), and I have a lot of Mize and Olley and Ridolfi minis around here.

[Drakkin2001]

Hi, I love Garritis pegasus and unicorns. Her dragons are grear and i will buy all the halflings she care to sculpt.

Second place in my mind comes Ben Siens, for his trolls and gnolls, and lizards. :) And the egiptian work he is doing somewhere else. :)

Mr. Klocke makes some of the best looking elves I have seen in a long time. I will buy some, someday. Right now i got something against elves (to many battles lost against them :P)

Jason Wiebe has my fourth place.

Ms. Guthrie used to be my number one, but now Sandra's work is over everybody else. :D

Denis Mize latest work I dont like much, but back then, when I was younger, I drooled over his Silver & Steel series.

There they are, the reason i'm changing all my hard earned gold coins into pewter.

 

Drakkin, the alien

[Thumpernicus]

By far Sandra Garrity is the best sculptor in the Knowne World.  Her attention to detail is superior, proportion and scale are always a consistant feature and not many people know how much research of costume, weapons, equipment etc. she puts into her work.  She makes sculptures that suspend my disbelief and I look at them and am always able to say, "That very well 'could' be real!".   She is MY hero for creating such spectacular miniatures for me to collect, paint and help immerse me into the games I play, thus making the whole gaming experience more fun.

 

-Sir Mathias St. George, Royal Dragonslayer

[Greentuft]

Only after I had about 15 minis (months ago) did I realize that all but two were Sandra Garrity sculpts.  While I like her style, the faces on both men and women seem to be pretty uniform, especially in Reapers earlier years.  While true that a some of her sculpts are not always acurate in that 25mm is the standard (her sculpt of Fitch Coincatcher 2545 is about the same size as the a normal human.  Not that I mind, haflings are small enough already.)

 

I also really like Bob Olley's sculpts of undead and I still think that he has the best wraiths.  Garrity's sculpts in this area are alright, but they seem too flat and two dimensional.  I guess Olley's poses are just more dramatic.

 

Rob Ridolfi also has good sculpts and I'm just getting into Klocke.  I really like what Klocke's done with the Dwarves; he's made them more 'Dwarvish' and less like squaty humans.

[Kamui K]

It's hard to say that I have ONE favorite sculptor, they all have strengths and weaknesses.

 

But there is one sculptor I always thought should join Reaper's ranks is Chris Fintzpatrick.  All of his sculpts always turns heads.  His works on the Basti (cat folk) from Crocodile Games are just beautiful.  And I think he worked on a few dark elves from GW.  Did he sculpt the Lilith Hexperax mini?  I'd say that is my all time favorite mini ever from anyone.

 

But I suppose if there were any sculptor from Reaper I always drool over are Klocke's elves.  I personally believe most male elves are androgynous and these are the type I like to stare at for hours.     :love:

But Klocke can improve on his capes.  They are clean and smooth, but sometimes, you can blantantly see how it was constructed from a piece of rectangular putty.

 

Rob Ridolfi also has a nice clean look to his techniques.  But because of this, I'd say stay away from the dreary undead look like his earlier works.  They look too cartoony cause of it.  But since his works are clean and round, his females look wonderful.  It would be nice to see more females like the 2248: Alyscia of the Forest and 14017: Naomi, Vampire.  Though his were-creatures are wonderful as well.  Lots of texture in the fur and wings.

 

Garrity does nearly everything well.  Her monsters are really top notch.  I love her dragons.  And her wings are one of the best in the industry.  Alot of other sculptors makes wings look so clean they can look almost, cartoony or sculpted mechanically (if you know what I mean).  Nearly every mini she makes looks unique (expecially faces).  I'd say her main weakness is that her style tries to be so realistic, but her work on anatomy and muscle under alot of detailed armor 'n trinkets, are not that defined.  

 

 

Dennis Mize has a nice clean look I like, but he has to improve on trying to make the mini's look less static in their positions.  Sometimes he achieves it, sometimes he doesn't.  I wonder if he's working from a concept art to help, or that the drawing itself is static.

 

 

Bob Olley makes the best undead and dwarves around.  What really strikes me from his work is his amount of texture on his capes.  They are NEVER static and when he pushes those capes in dramatic poses, you can clearly see how tattered the capes are with their irregular, torn shapes with holes.  

 

Ben Siens is wonderful cause of his great grasp of demi-humanoid anatomy.  I'd say that's why alot of his monster mini's are top notch.  He tends not to cover up his monsters with armor, and that's great.  I'd like to see his work on those muscles!

 

Julie Guthrie is making a comback and her few sculpts are wonderful so far.  Her monsters are striking to look at.  I just wonder how her non-monster mini's would look like now.

 

 

Jason Wiebe does great fur.  And I think he only made one dwarf mini (2503: Norrin Silverbeard, Dwarf King).  I'd say lets see more dwarves from him!  

 

Bobby Jackson's style is also very clean and round.  His stuff is so easy to paint.  If reaper is releasing a 2nd box on how to paint with layering, I'd say throw in a few Jackson mini's.  His main weakness is cause of his round style, it tends too look too cartoony when it comes to muscles, so I shy away from those bare chested mini he has.  

 

Did I miss anyone?  Yea, long reply here, most of you won't even read it cause of it.  lol.  sorry.

[Okkar]

I believe you expressed the feeling of a lot of peope here: all Reaper sculptors are producing amazing minis. Since preference is by definition a personnal thing, each person will have his/her favorites, but you can appreciate good work, no matter who did it.

 

Looking through my Proochases, I realized that while a lot of my models are Klocke figures, I have at least one mini from each sculptor, and I like them all since I picked them up! And that's the only impact I can have on the business.