Mini nostalgia

I thought i'd try something a bit different with this post and write about when I first got into minis. It's inspired by Punktaku's thread over on the Yaktribe forum - 'When did you fall?'.  For me, it was when first seeing the box art for the original RTB01 plastic Space Marines, drawn by a chap named John Sibbick.

This is going back 30 something years - I was around 9 - while shopping with my dad. I was bored and when we passed by a model shop he took us in to check out the tanks and planes we were into at the time. And there they were, three boxes of:

RTB01 Space Marines

This was before GW existed anywhere nearby and I had no idea what Space Marines were - other than that they were goddamn awesome! The picture in particular blew my mind and he must have seen the longing in me as he bought a box there and then, no questions asked, and that night we started painting them with the Humbrol paints we used for model aeroplanes. This is one of my fondest memories.

Pretty soon after my tastes changed. There'll always be a soft spot for beakies, but it was all about Orcs, then Blood Bowl, and then I found my calling with Necromunda. John's picture stayed with me, though, and about a year ago I tried to source an original ..

Look at it - it's glorious

.. with no luck at all. Which isn't surprising given they were printed back in 1987. I did manage to get an anniversary reprint from a nice guy on the Oldhammer Community page, which is cool and will be framed as soon as the new hobby room is finished, but I thought i'd give it one last shot and contacted John Sibbick via email. As expected, they were all long gone. He did, however, have an early sketch that he passed on for nothing and said he had no trouble with it being shared. So here it is. What a dude!

Where it all began (note the Ork head was present)  ..

Of course, and most significantly, this image also went one to become the front cover for the first 40k rulebook and the rest is history ..

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

So that's it - a bit of history about the picture that started it all for me and probably a bunch people. BTW - if you have an original for sale, or know of someone that does, let me know. You'll get a good price and and a life time's worth of gratitude!