Men In Boxes

Anne McCaffrey, creator of the Dragonriders of Pern and The Ship Who Sang,  passed away this November at the age of 85. I was first introduced to her work through a paperback copy of Dragonsong. I was lured to the book by the fantastic cover illustration and the fiction inside captured my imagination. Since then, I've hunted down other books written by her and have enjoyed them immensely. R.I.P. Ms. McCaffrey and thank you for the dragons. Art by  David Fairbrother Roe. Read more here . 

Here's another dragon I plan to use for 28mm gaming. It's made with a different rubber from the previous two dragons I featured and its card does not show any branding save for a stylized title " Dragon Fantasy" and just the place of manufacture -- "China." The rubber is softer and more jelly-like though not too bad that it wont stand on its legs. Its the biggest among the three and the longest. Detail is good and the painting seems better with some shading work evident. I labeled this dragon red because most of its neck, torso and legs have that dominant hue but the back has a long shiny black stripe that blends to the red which then blends to orange then yellow on the sides. The underside of the wings are in beige and some of the horn/claw details are in an off-white. Over-all, the model is a very nice  addition to my wargaming collection of behemoths. “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him....

Found these cute buggers in a blister of toys. They'll be perfect as objective markers. These toys came with a pack of dragon figures most of which seem to scale well with 1/72 figures. Two or three "medieval-looking" dragons also seem to scale well with 28mm figures. "Medieval-looking" because they remind me of the way dragons were drawn by medieval artists. Pictures of these soon. Meanwhile, here are the hatchlings! (pictures are clickable for bigger versions)

Dragons in Earthsea are neither good nor evil by human standards, but always extremely dangerous. --Wikipedia entry for Earthsea (Click the pictures for a bigger version) This dragon is from Safari Ltd. Its size is 5.5" L x 4" H (14 x 10 cm) and is still available in toy stores that carry the Safari brand as well as at their web store here. The large green dragon is 6.5" L x 5.5" H (16.5 x 14 cm) in size. shown below is the dragon together with a 28mm LOTR Man of Gondor from Games Workshop. The sculpting here is very nice and sinuous with very prominent textures. The dragon has a frill on the top of its head instead of horns and the webbed look gives it a sinister, reptilian aspect. As compared to the smaller red dragon previously featured, the green one is better painted save for the eyes which "as-is" looks like a pair of beady lights. These could do with some repainting. The dragon's jaws are agape and parts of its reddish tongue extend from the m...

(Click the pictures for a bigger version) This dragon is from Safari Ltd. Its size is 5.5" L x 4" H (14 x 10 cm) and is still available in toy stores that carry the Safari brand as well as at their web store here. Overall, the sculpting is very nice, with the textures all crisply done. It reminds me of the artwork of Rankin-Bass' Flight of Dragons, especially the character design for Gorbash -- from the horns swept back with frills to the avian-like beak. The dragon's mouth is closed and its neck slightly curved. The eyes can also do with some repositioning of the iris because it seems to be looking straight ahead at something at the same level as its head. Some of the detail is very nice. I really liked the irregularity of the teeth. The hide is well marked with scales and this really comes out as visibly reptilian, armored and impervious. The claws are well sculpted but the paint job is rudimentary and can really benefit from washes. The dragon is on all fours but w...

I've been collecting dragon toys and figurines for some time now and using them for wargaming seemed so obvious. As a kid, I got Peter Dickinson's speculative natural history book "flight of Dragons" that theorized how dragons may have actually lived and participated in our world. Then I was the Rankin Bass cartoon based on the book as well as Gordon Dickson's "The Dragon and the George." Needless to say, I was a big fan of Gorbash and Smrgol. From card and paper models to block toys and resin statuettes, I've managed to amass a veritable "flight." Here are the first three I plan to use. Two are from Safari Ltd. and another from an unnamed China manufacturer. All are of a semi-rigid plastic and came prepainted. So, here be dragons!