1. Which is the best hero? Barbarian, Elf, Wizard or Dwarf?
I liked the barbarian and dwarf the best, probably as sculpts though!
2. Where did you draw inspiration from, for the model designs you did on Heroquest?
They were drawn from the core fantasy stereotypes that abounded especially within the citadel range
3. Which minis did you sculpt for the set? Or did the sculpt gang share sculpts in collaboration?
We nominally shared the sculpting but from memory the Perry twins did most of the Demon and I think Aly did a lot of the Wizard. I did a lot of the Barbarian Dwarf and Skeleton . As the person responsible for managing all the sculpting at GW at that time, I basically had to finish all of the sculpts prior to release.
4. Do you know anything about the proposed sculpts for the never published expansion Wizard and Dwarf Quest packs?
Well, not too long after the Heroquest release the game became the design province of MB and that's where those developments came from I believe.
5. How much input did either Game Workshop or Milton Bradley have while you were sculpting? Did they just let you do your thing or were they strict on the design?
Well as GW sculptors we were pretty much given our head – we had a set of metal minis that the management thought were core concepts and we used them – for instance we had been working on realm of chaos, so the demon and chaos warrior were already done, if you like!
6. Were there any of the range that you would have liked to have sculpted but did not get the chance?
No not in particular – as manager I was just glad to complete the project!!!
7. Why the unusual choice of shape for the bases, instead of the beloved slottabases?
That was a function of the game board – they had to fit!
8. Do you remember if there were any other heroes or monsters planned that didn’t make it through development?
Not really – for the first game the set was settled right from the start
9. The Orcs and Goblins have a variety of weapons. Was that the sculptor’s idea or were the weapons part of the game system design, indicating a possible use in the rules?
We wanted to maximise the sculpts but at the lowest cost = so we hit upon the idea of sculpting the orcs and goblins with no weapon but the ‘plane ‘ of the weapon being absolutely flat. Then we supplied the toolmaker with sculpts for all the different weapons which were added to the models during tooling. Not at all like today!!
10. Would you sign any HeroQuest monster cards, for some of the models you have made?
Of course id be glad to!
11. Is there anything about the original Heroquest game which you think the world needs to know?
There was a funny thing about the furniture. Again we had a tight budget on tooling so we stole the idea of plastic and card components from Adeptus Titanicus. With this in mind we (I and Dave Andrews) started work on the bits. In those days we made everything out of tool wax – notoriously hard to work with and very vulnerable to damage in untrained hands. So we made the parts to a tight schedule after which we asked to make a silicone mould and send castings instead. All went well until the mould was poured. We had got the ratio wrong and the rubber never cured! We had to spend a tense few days cleaning the uncured rubber from the masters before carrying on. I think my hair started to gray just about then!!
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I have been working with sculptor Bob Naismith on various miniature projects over the last few years. But due to my huge oversight, it was only a few days ago that I put 1+1 together in my head and realised Bob actually sculpted some of the Heroquest miniatures which we all treasure in their retro glory!
And was one of the key fellas in designing and working out the process behind GW's first plastic miniaturesI thought it would be great to gather up a few HQ model design/sculpting questions from the Ye Olde Inn here and put them to Bob. He's kindly agreed to answer some of the best ones so we can do an online i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶r̶o̶g̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶ interview!
If you have any questions about the design, art style, sculpting or behind the scenes of the HQ miniature making process, post up a question here and I'll forward them onto Bob in a weeks time for him to answer.
I hope he remembers all the details as he has sculpted a hell of a lot of models in the last 30 years! xD
