What is this?
I am starting a new video series, which will focus on minis which I own that I use to represent creatures from Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. I have been collecting miniatures for years to represent creatures on battle mats. While it is easy to find miniatures for certain creatures, I found that other creatures were very difficult, if not impossible, to find miniatures for. While searching online for minis, I also sometimes would find certain minis that looked promising, but for which there would be no way to gauge the size of the mini, or to see more than a front view of the miniature. There is little more frustrating than ordering a mini and finding out that it is the wrong size when it arrives, especially when it was shipped from the other side of the planet. I was often saved from that fate as a result of fans publishing images or videos of the minis online. Now it’s time for me to pay it forward.
This series of miniature videos will showcase the minis that I use for a variety of different creatures from D&D 5E. Each video will include the mini rotating so it can be seen from all angles, with photos of all angles as well, and photos on a 1 inch grid next to a 1 inch/25 mm tall figure (Inchie McTwentyfivemillimeterson the European stork from Mirliton SG) as well as a standard human-sized figure (a Summer eladrin from the WizKids Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures range) for scale. In addition, I will provide links to where to purchase each miniature.
My aim is to provide some guidance on the sizing of various miniatures while giving a good look at each. It’s also to provide people who are looking for a miniature for a particular creature an option that will work well. Once I have a few videos under way, I also plan to create playlists for each type of creature (beasts, aberrations, undead, etc.) as well as playlists for the different official Dungeons & Dragons 5E books where I will add all of the creatures needed/covered in each book for convenience. Big plans, but I am starting small and will slowly work my way up as more videos get made.
Thomas and apes
I have worked with quite a few apes over the years, both lesser and great apes. As a result, when it came time to choose an ape mini, it was very personal for me. I already owned a giant ape mini which was a gorilla, so I decided I wanted a different species for the ‘normal’ ape. There was a dearth of orangutan minis (which is a shame, as I do love orangs), so I ran with a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) mini instead. I liked what I saw with the chimp in Reaper Miniatures’ Lord of the Jungle #50237 pack. I was not disappointed when it arrived. Watch the video to see if you like it as well.
While the video isn’t a good place to tell stories about apes, this format is fine for it, since you can just skip over it if it annoys you. Tallulah was a chimp which I worked with, and she was an absolute delight to be around. Supposedly, when the creators of the original Star Wars trilogy were looking for inspiration, they chose Tallulah’s face for Yoda. Is this true? Who knows. She certainly had a very Yoda-like face. They certainly got a lot of inspiration from things in the area, including using the zoo for other things. Regardless of whether or not it is true, Tallulah was wonderful. She was always interested in everything, and was always happy to see me, as I was always happy to see her. I never once saw her in a bad mood, which is as rare among chimpanzees as it is among humans.
I was told a story about Tallulah by another zoo keeper relating when she escaped from her enclosure one day. Apparently she first went over to the pay phone and checked the coin return. For those of you old enough to remember pay phones, you will also remember that checking the coin return would occasionally result in free coins. Tallulah had apparently been watching people check the coin return for years and absolutely needed to know what they were looking for. After that she went into the cafe and got a hamburger. Again, she had seen so many people eating these over the years, and she wanted to see what the excitement was all about. At this point one of her keepers arrived to walk her back to her enclosure, which she did happily with her hamburger and her newly acquired knowledge.
Special thanks
I also want to provide special thanks to Sherrie York, the queen of the reduction linocut, for allowing me to use her art as the backdrop for the minis. Shavano Sunset is the name of the backdrop piece from Sherrie, one of the greatest wildlife artists of our time, and who is the best reductive linocut artist I have seen. If you’re a fan of wildlife art you should check out her work. I’ve been buying her art since the early 1990’s and I’m still buying more today even though I am running out of walls to hang it on! Some of them are species that I have worked with (or even individuals I have worked with), so they hold a special place in my heart, including the piece she is working on currently. Check her work out, as there’s a little something for everyone!