If you’re a fan of Warhammer legend and MTG card artist Ian Miller, check out the ‘Here Be Dragons’ Kickstarter, currently raising funds to turn one of his dragon illustrations into a baroque miniature. Miller created iconic artwork for the Warhammer Old World, notably illustrations for the first edition of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay line, and has contributed to many MtG sets; this dragon first appeared as book cover art.
The Kickstarter is open until July 3, 8pm UTC, and pledging for the dragon costs about $200 (£155). With such a high price tag and an extremely delicate model, this will probably only appeal to people whose main hobby is painting miniatures, not someone looking for a centrepiece for their Age of Sigmar army.
The dragon first appeared on the cover of There and Back Again, a book about the creation of The Hobbit. Full-time sculptor John Robertson converted the dragon into a miniature using Beesputty and superfine milliput. The sculpture has been broken into 21 parts for molding, and backer copies will be cast in resin and metal.
Here Be Dragons is the second collaboration between Robertson and Miller under the banner ‘OSMOTICMELD’. The first successful OSMOTICMELD Kickstarter created minis based on Miller’s fine art and his graphic novel The City. Imagine a hybrid of Necromunda and the Realm of Chaos, add more Skaven, and you’ve got the gist of the book and the models based on it.
If cost were no object, it would be really tempting painting up one of these gorgeously OTT dragons for the release of Warhammer: The Old World, or for some retro games of third edition Warhammer Fantasy. For the time being team Wargamer has a backlog of plastic to deal with…