"Worst sculpted figures ever???" Topic

Hmm??? Any thoughts, pictures? 28mm?

I had some 15mm Mike's Models medievals of some kind from the late 70s that certainly have to be up there. Some of the 70s vintage Heritage I believe) fantasy figs were little more than blobs with bows and swords.

I sculpted a Jabba the Hutt figures before the official one was available when I was younger. I made it out of clay. It sucked royally. I can say that there has never been a figure intended for any type of play that has been sculpted worse so there is no need to continue with this thread.

I don't care for the computer generated figures. Not bad sculpts but then again not really sculpts at all.

Then again I like a lot of the 70s Heritage stuff so what do I know.

I think the Bob Naismith stuff post Greed Workshop was bad. I was very disapointed in the Gladiator Wars figures.

Peter Laing 15mm were not good--cavalry appeared to be riding dogs.Scruby had a lot of bad 25 and 20 mm although many of his 30s had a certain charm.

Lamming Napoleonics?

Sorry, there are just too many answers to that question to get any sort of reasonable response.

I have some Blood Axe cataphracts that look like two guys dancing in a horse costume. The helmet mask looks like a happy face! Even better: I have a dozen of them!

Some of the navwar modern naval models from the 80s and 90s were truly horrible!

I'm not going to pick on old ranges – many were as good as anything around at the time.

The one that came to mind straight off was GW's LOTR Ruffians – link just awful figures from a company that should have known better.

And the Hobbit heroes. link Poor old Fatty looks like the undead !

There are some eyesores on Black Orc.
But then again, there are some really good ones too.
Its kind of a crap shoot.

I have Napoleonettes (Heritage?) 15mm French Napoleonic Carabiniers that are dreadful.

The metal Possessed Chaos Space Marines released around the time of the Cities of Death book – truly appalling.

Some of the Flintloque is bizarre with a few frightening sculpts but .I must admit to a liking of the Bog orc / orc infantrymen.Some of the dwarves are cool but others sets are let down by an odd figure in each set.

Still a great idea though link

Guinny – those are awful !!

Flintloque – yup some really bad sculpts in there, I was never much of a fan of the Orcs. Quite liked the Elves and the Hobbits.

Peter Laing 15mm.
They turned me against all 15mm figures for decades. So much that I am still surprised to find a well sculpted 15mm figure.

Early sculpted Brotherhood minis for Warzone

Blood Moon dracophant and jabberwock.

Reaper brood dragon.

Polar bear for that kickstarter thing… Darkmyre Damsels or something?

Mike's Models were pretty bad. Those crappy Heritage were mostly due to the molds being old and worn.

I love the old Mike's Models figures. They have…character. The majority of my 2,000+ figure Colonial collection is Mikes; the balance filled out by Gallia figures which are a great match in height for the stumpy MM's (but are admittedly nicer sculpts). I've also got hundreds and hundreds of Mike's from their old Fuedal line: Teutonic knights, Novgorodian Rus, Lithuanians, etc. The cavalry for all their lines looked like ponies.

Mikes models ACW and Nappys

anything tim prow sculpted prior to 2000. all of his warzone minis were attrocious! (and I still bought and painted them because I loved the game so much)

Back in the late 80s or early 90s, I bought some 28mm Mycenaean Greeks. They came in the mail, and I opened them, and was shocked by how horrible they were. I had to run into town, though, and during the trip, I convinced myself they couldn't have been as bad as I thought. I came home and looked again. They were.
A couple years ago, I was able to unload most of them at an auction, suggesting they be used as orcs or other deformed, vaguely human types.
And I had been so sold on Mycenaeans by Michael Wood's TV series on the Trojan War. <Sigh>

Grelber

My vote is on those GW possessed. Bleargh.

Peter Laing

Ral Partha 15mm Napoleonics. Saw these at the Black Forest hobby shop in Dayton back in the day, and really thought they were very bad. At the time I had MiniFigs and Empire (Heritage) to compare them to.

Atempting to recall,but the 15mm figs tended to break very easy at the ankles

Many of the Warzone figs would qualify.

I leave out many early figures I owned like Scruby etc. as paths were being blazed back then and all that but Target should have known better.

Back in the Usenet days Blood Angels Chaplain Lemartes caught a lot of flack for being incredibly ugly:

link

And then there's always Nagash:

link

Scott

Yes, Peter Laing were absurdly bad. Featureless blobs. But there wasn't much in the way of 15mm back then.

For "modern" figures, I'd like to nominate Battlefront (FOW) North Vietnamese Infantry.

They're truly bad, and in this day and age there's really no excuse for it, especially from a large company like that.

Peter Laings 15s actually could be used in any era,as you had no idea sometimes what the figure was supposed to be. I remember a drummer model i had of his. My mate thought it was a pregnant woman.

Probably the Ork I sculpted and casted at home in the mid 90's. My one and only attempt.

Atlantic plastic figures. There's almost nothing good on any of them.

Don't remember the brand but I purchased a few of their Alamo figures in 25mm. I recall that Davy didn't have femurs. The width of the figures were greater than their height. If melted down it would have been possible to pour two or three actual 25's out of one of those figures. And the sculpting was atrocious.

And we haven't mentioned bizarre Airfix poses yet…

I upset an opponent back in the 80s during a WGRG Ancients game by my inability to control my reaction to one of his 70s cavalry units. The mounts' legs were so small and stumpy, the riders were actually standing on the ground. Still makes me laugh.

I think the sculpting work on many of the figures mentioned is awesome and very detailed, I just don't like the figures. Mainly GW oversized armour which is the most impractical and stupid thing ever. Like the photo posted by Guinny, excellent sculpting, just terrible figures. I guess that's my issue with all that kind of stuff, the sculpting ability is impressive, it's just a shame its wasted on those type of figures.

Also, when things are "sculpted" using computer technology you can't call it sculpting. It becomes graphical design or CAD as you are not physically sculpting, the computer does it for you, you're just designing it. So any computer sculpted things lose my respect. It's just like me saying I can play football really well on the computer, so I'm footballer. ok… rant over :D

Scruby miniatures. Used to have lots but boy were they poor sculpts.

anything by Essex.
Case in point their 15mm Zulu dismounted Natal Light Horse.
seriously.
and then there's their horses…..

Yup, got to agree with Rovanite on the computer CAD designed "sculpts" which aren't really sculpts. Some of those designs really suck big time.

Peter Laing allegedly employed a novel sculpting technique: he would toss a small lump of molten metal into the air, and after it landed on the work bench and cooled, he would look at it pensively and decide what it most resembled.

I once made the mistake of mentioning this rumour in correspondence with John Mitchell during the period when he owned the complete range. Strangely, he didn't reply to my letter.