Well over 20 years and thousands of miniatures later, I have decided to give something back to the hobby I truly love by producing a line of premium miniatures for both gamers and collectors. I am sure that everyone has heard people in the hobby stores criticizing miniatures or complaining about this, that, and the other thing. Or you have overheard people talking about how cool it would be if a miniatures company would do this or if a miniatures company would do that.

Well, I guess you could say this company was inspired by my frustration that no one stepped up to the plate to start producing fantasy miniatures based on the artwork of my favorite artist of all time: Larry Elmore. Larry Elmore is one of the coolest dudes in the industry and I really wanted to see some new miniature lines based off of his phenomenal artwork.

In addition, there were a number of other fantasy miniature sets that I wanted to see produced. So instead of waiting until someone came out with the miniature sets I wanted to see produced, I decided to form a miniatures company and just go ahead and start producing them in order to address the pressing global issue of: WE NEED MORE TOP-NOTCH MINIATURES!

Dennis Mize and Larry Elmore were my two must-haves to make this venture worthwhile in terms of us all investing our time and energy. This would be a team effort and every team member needed to be up for the task. Well to make a long story short, I presented the concept to Larry and Dennis (along with a number other industry members) and we decided to green light the miniature line. We finalized the Dream Team in terms of artist, sculptors, mold making, casting, painters, packaging, graphic design, etc. and it was off to the proverbial miniature races.

Dark Sword Miniatures Inc. was born….

10/25/2003 update:
After we got rocking and rolling, it was time to bring on another artist I have been itching to see cool miniatures done for - Keith Parkinson. Keith (like Larry) is another cool cat, that I really wanted to work with. I sent Keith a sample set of our first Elmore Masterworks boxed set and he really liked what he saw, and was ready to see some premium miniatures based on his artwork as well. But Dennis Mize is only a single man and most of his time is slotted for the Elmore Masterworks line.

Who in the world could we possible get to make their mark with a Dark Sword line that would showcase Keith Parkinson's artwork? Well, how about one of the guys that Dennis started sculpting with in the late 1970's? How about Tom Meier??!?!? The one and only Tom Meier you say?!? Well, yes, that Tom Meier. Tom was very intrigued by the possibility of a more realisitc miniatures line which has seemed to fall out of favor these past 5 years as miniature companies have gotten more and more off the wall with wild weapons that are the size of small trees, pumpkin sized heads, and hands the size of large baseball gloves. Tom and Dennis were the first two sculptors at a small company that forever changed the standards of 25mm miniatures back in the late 1970's. It was a natural fit for all parties and it was all a matter of free time for Tom.

Tom is quite busy with his other sculpting ventures and his free time is at a premium. Add to the equation a new Meier in the household and we have one very busy man. But Tom made the time to get the first Parkinson Masterworks set completed and when he gets another free minute, we will get rolling on Set # 2. If only Tom and Dennis could be cloned.....hehe...The reaction from industry sculptors on the new Tom Meier pieces was quite a site to behold at Gen Con 2003. We only had one master and one green completed for viewing, but miniature fans really got a treat to see that Tom was back sculpting the fantasy miniatures that got him started. Keith Parkinson was blown away with the detail Tom lavished on his first two pieces.

FYI - Tom is working on a new line of 30mm Elves for his own company: Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures. Be sure to check them out at: www.Thunderboltmountain.com . You can also get some of his classic pieces at an excellent price via their Web site.

What lies ahead for Dark Sword Miniatures, Inc.? Large Dragon sets you say? More miniature lines you say? What the heck is going on here? Who is spilling the beans? Ahhh ok, I admit that they are all in the works my friends...

02/05/2006 update:
Wow, time has flown by (over 27 months to be exact) and lots of events have happened here at Dark Sword for those of you checking out our company for the first time. I will continue with the update from where we left off above. Lets see here - where to start (I will blurt it all out to get it down and then fill you in with the details)......

The short version for those who have no time - We were nominated for Best Miniature Line awards, won an award, we signed on Clyde Caldwell and Jeff Easley, Dave Summers is our main Dragon sculptor from here on out, Top painters are painting up Dark Sword Miniatures for competitions, Jeff Easley and Slider have finally expressed their love for each other and now like to put on their cowboy hats and re-enact scenes from Brokeback Mountain, and Keith Parkinson left a gaping hole in the world of gaming with his passing in October 2005....

Ok, onto the long version...

Dark Sword Miniatures was nominated at the Origins Awards for Best Miniature Line of 2004 with our Elmore Masterworks Line. We were super excited about this but we lost out to Privateer Press on Best Miniature line of 2004 (but everyone tells me that their game is smokin hot and crazy cool so it is all good). It was exciting to be at the Awards Ceremony though...But we kept at it and...

We dominated the Origins Awards for Best Miniature Line of 2005 with three nods out of the five open slots (picture the academy awards for Best Picture and you will know why this is impressive) and got the win with our Elmore Dragons line which makes me scratch my head as the Elmore Dragons line was going toe to toe with the Parkinson Masterworks line that Tom Meier sculpted. The reason I scratch my head is, the Parkinson Masterworks line was heads and shoulders above the other nominees in terms of initial votes to cull the field to the final 5. But when it was crunch time, the awards commitee chose the Elmore Dragons line that Dennis Mize and Dave Summers sculpted up. It was an honor that we hope to continue this year with either our Caldwell Masterworks line or our Visions in Fantasy line. And next year we have Easley Dragons and Parkinson Dragons on tap...Also, it was very cool to have Reaper Ron offer up his congrats to Dark Sword on this award. Reaper Miniatures has really raised the bar for classy companies in the industry. With the likes of Ed, Ron and Anne - such nice people - they are just great members of the gaming industry.

We signed on Clyde Caldwell and Jeff Easley to complete the "Fab Four" goal we have had from the begining in terms of artists we wanted to work with as our tribute to their ground-breaking artwork that really put D&D on the map in the mid 1980's to mid 1990's. Essentially, the artwork I grew up with playing AD&D with my good friends and getting taken off to far away lands in the Dragonlance Saga that a couple of unknown authors wrote (which shot them into Super Stardom and New York Times Best Sellers which they still enjoy 20 years later) and Larry Elmore did the covers for. Their new artwork still continues to blow me away to this day. I could not let everyone in on this sinister plot from the beginning as we had to get our ducks in a row and show that we could produce top-notch realistic miniatures with excellent packaging and production standards before we over-committed like I have seen happen in the gaming industry many times. But those close to the company knew the plan all along...

The artwork of Clyde and Jeff offer up different approaches for Dark Sword to work with. Clyde of course loves to draw sexy women in all manner of outfits (skimpy and fully armored alike) - which offers up edgier source material than Larry Elmore or Keith Parkinson in terms of half-nudes and such. Do not get me wrong - all four of the Fab Four can do sexy women - but they all have their different take on how they approach it. Jeff on the other hand is Mr. Dragon. No, not the Red Dragon from the Hannibal Lechter films, but Mr. Dragon in terms of his artwork. Jeff does some very interesting Dragon and monster types that just screamed for miniatures. Plus Mr. Easley can do up adventurer types all day long. So the circle was now complete with artists that Dark Sword wanted to work with in Phase 1.

We tried out a very well known sculptor for the Clyde Caldwell line as Dennis and Tom are busy cats. Clyde reviewed the test pieces and did not care for them compared to the Elmore pieces he had samples of. Clyde insisted we go with Dennis Mize or Tom Meier on his line, so we set Dennis Mize up on the Caldwell line of miniatures. So Dennis is splitting time between the two lines (Elmore and Caldwell) with a Visions in Fantasy Miniature thrown in for good measure when we feel the need. One day I will post the test Greens of the mystery sculptor who tried out for the Caldwell line.

Dave Summers is now our full time Dragon sculptor. He has sculpted two Elmore Dragons, one Parkinson Dragon and one Easley Dragon thus far. Dave is without a doubt about as good as it gets when it comes to Dragons in my opinion and we are so happy he can do all of our dragons from here on out. We looked at bringing on another very well known Dragon Sculptor who is a just a cool cat too boot, but once we learned that Dave could do all of our Dragons and we could keep a consistent look and feel between everything - it was a no-brainer to stick with Dave and have him do everything up. So now we are sitting with Dennis Mize, Tom Meier and Dave Summers on the sculpting front.

Dave Summers sculpted up the first Easley Dragon off of some work Jeff and I did at Origins one year. We wanted the first couple of dragons to be different than the Elmore Dragons but still look like they came from the same world. Jeff is more of a "beefier dragon" type artist as opposed to the other artists from the Fab Four. It turned out great. Now onto the next one...

In 2005, we introduced singles to our ranges as hobby stores and some people were really vocal about having singles and not having to pick up an entire boxed set to get 2 or 3 miniatures. I was really torn on this as Reaper dominates the singles market and there is just something cool about boxed sets. Alot of effort goes into selecting a good cross-section of artwork for each boxed set to ensure a nice balance of all types of miniatures. Plus, you can have the artwork and painted mini pics for inspiration. But in the end, we want to keep Dark Sword evolving and not get stuck in a rut so we did it. The big reason we went with this is the fact that people can actually see the miniature in the blister pack vs. the box where they can only see the painted pics and the artwork. Our thought was that having the singles and the boxed sets would help each other and the market with more sales because those gamers/collectors that only wanted one mini can now pick up one, but there will be people that like 4-5 of the minis that simply pick up the boxed set because it is a better deal. The singles opened up a new market - no question about it. We will continue to do both boxed sets and singles. I notice our hardcore collectors snap up the boxed sets and will maybe double up on certain singles as needed. But boxed sets sell much better on our Web site than singles.

Speaking of singles, we started a line of generic adventurer type miniatures called Visions in Fantasy. This was to fill in the gaps of the artist-specific lines that tend to lean more towards the females from their artwork. The first six were male adventurer types with all the trappings needed by adventurer types such as bedrolls, backpacks, belt pouches, scroll tubes, potions, lanterns, daggers/sheaths on belts and in boots, 50' rope coils, thieves tools, everthing except a henchman lacky to lug everything else around. Nodwick anyone? Excellent comic by the way. There are still no Dwarven Bartenders in our lines, but ya never know what crazy minis we will do in the future. Ya know what? I bet a Dwarven Bartender is right up the alley of Chris from Mag Egos. Ah never mind, it would have to be a Dwarven/Dragon hybrid bartender with wings to make it into his line this year...hehe...Long story on the Dwarven Bartender folks....Our first year at Gen Con we got hit with that question and it is still burned into my brain because the person was so angry that Reaper only did Human Bartenders and serving wenches and was ignoring the demi-human bartender types. Talk about a niche within a niche within a niche! But it takes all types to make our world go round so it is all good at the end of the day.

Speaking of Gen Con - I have had the good pleasure of getting to know some of the great folks that really put a good deal of time and effort into this hobby for the Gen Con Paint and Take and the Gen Con Painting Competition. Susan Wachowski (yes THE Susan Wachowski who painted up the first 3 Elmore Dragons for Dark Sword) and her crew of IMMPS does a spectacular job of putting on the Paint and Take and judging the painting competition. He husband Art runs security when he is not getting dragged into a game of WarMachine with Greg. He smacks me up from time to time, when I try to get too close to the minis when being judged. I then scurry away and plot my next attempt. Gen Con Indy 2004 saw the first Dark Sword Manufacturer Award winner at the hands of an up and coming competion painter by the name of Amy Brehm. You can see pics of her winning Green Witch piece here. It turns out that Amy was working on her skills under the watchful eye of someone who you all know - Marike Reimer from Crocodile Games fame. Amy was just such a little sweetie. This young girl comes up to our booth and is like "Hi, I'm Amy and I won the Dark Sword Mfr. Award". She was so happy with her prizes! Marike comes back into the picture at Gen Con 2005. So read on....

A big highlight of Gen Con Indy 2005 was the outstanding turn-out for the painting competition for Dark Sword Minaitures. The Best Single Mini and Best Diorama and Best Overall Show Winner were all Dark Sword pieces. You know your company has arrived when the likes of Marike Reimer and Anne Foerster free up precious time from their normal painting duties to honor your miniatures with some of the best paintjobs in the industry. Keith Parkinson (while in the hospital) was blown away by the paintjob that Marike did on the Good King Ploogak. Click here for pics. He was so pleased. Larry of course tried to steal the phenominal Ravenstone Diorama that Anne painted up. But I had Slider keep him at bay. Marike makes it her job to pretty much take 1st place and Best of Show where-ever she goes these days. Marike reminds me of River from the cult classic Firefly TV series and the Serenity movie. This kind of shy, painting genius who can open up a can of "painting WHOOP-ASS" whenever it strikes her fancy. The reason I say this is, she has only really been painting for like 3-4 years now and she is one of the top painters in the world. Anne on the other hand is Miss Social Butterfly and just so dang helpful! Reaper Miniatures is so luckly to have her on their full time staff heading up all painting related efforts. Anne can also shoot a mean game of pool - which helps when you are fighting for your life in a pool game against Mr. Super Fan # 99 from the U.K. and his soon-to-be wife. Other top painters such as Deane Goodwin and Heather O'Neil (and many others) also painted up Dark Sword entries. So cool to admire their talented work on our minis! It is important to note that Matt Verzani and Susan Wachowski have spoiled Dark Sword with their top-notch paint jobs for the Web sit, advertising, and our boxed sets. So when I mention how fun it is to see these other top painters doing up our minis in their visions, you can really appreciate what I am benchmarking this against.

Gen Con So Cal 2005 was a pleasant surprise on multiple levels for me as an up and coming painter by the name of Alison Scheirman took first place in the single miniatures catagory with a Parkinson Masterworks piece. Well it turns out Ali keeps getting better and better with her painting, and her work on Elmore Masterworks Set # 7 for a commission job is getting into the upper levels of competition painting in my opinion. She is going to be at Gen Con Indy to give Anne, Marike, Deane and the others a run for their money on the Dark Sword front. You can see an example of what I am talking about here.

Speaking of Gen Con Indy. Get ready for Gen Con Indy 2006 and the painting competition. Prizes, Swag and Trophies will be on deck this year folks.

Now, the hard part -

The year 2005 was the best of times and it was the worst of times. Keith Parkinson had been battling Leukemia for the past 16 months as of October. A month earlier, Keith and I were on the phone jabbering and we were talking next miniatures and he got very serious with me and made a special request for Tom Meier to not do the Ploogak Court Jester for 2006, but do the Gringe Commander instead as this was one of his all time favorite pieces. Something about his voice just made my snap to attention and agree to it right away. I did bluff and tell him that it would take a few months to get some free time on Tom's schedule, but I secretly was planning on begging Tom to slot this in ASAP to surprise Keith. I figured it would be a fun piece that would lift his spirits in the hospital in the fall/winter months. We would simply knock down the Ploogak Toadie Court Jester for 2007. Dave was putting the finishing touches on the Parkinson Northwatch Dragon as well at this time. I phoned Tom, brought him up to speed and told him about the vibe I had on the phone with Keith, and Tom just (calm as ever) told me no problemo, he would sculpt it up straight away. Tom just nailed the Gringe Commander to a T and rather than send Keith email pics, we figured it would be best to surprise him with an actual metal copy along with the Northwatch Dragon metal copy as well. Well about this time, Keith has taken a couple turns for the worse and was in bad condition. Larry Elmore flew out there to see Keith in ICU and the Saturday he was there, the two Metal Master Copies showed up at their door. Keith's friends and family all really liked the pieces, but Keith was not conscious during the visit as he was not doing well. Well, it turns out that Keith would not get to see these two pieces from Dave and Tom while he was on this earth as he passed away shortly after 4:00pm PST on Wednesday October 26th. This is still so damn tough to write as it really hits home with me on how real it all is and what a talent the world has lost. Keith left behind a loving family and they are going to continue to share his artwork with the world so his spirit lives on in all of us who have been touched by his art or touched by his whicked sense of humor and love of a good meal & good drink (a fine wine or a dark beer). I will always fondly remember the 2003 Gen Con Indy (his last Gen Con and Dark Sword's first Gen Con) and the most excellent dinner (at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Indy) he shared with myself, Slider, Larry Elmore, Betty Elmore, Matt Verzani, Brian Hitsman and Dennis Mize. If you know me, you know that I like to enjoy the finer things in life. It does not get any finer than sharing an excellent meal with people I admire and respect so much. The tradition continues at every Gen Con as the boys from Harbinger drag me out for Steaks and Tom Meier & crew partake in some excelleent Sushi. Then of course the drinking - lets not even talk about the drinking - and the Croc Party....Not enough nights during the show to do everything we want to do, but we enjoy the time we have together.

The thing about the gaming industry is it is such a young industry that almost all of our icons are still around. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Ed Greenwood, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, Margarete Weis, Tracey Hickman, R.A. Salvatore, George R.R. Martin & Jolly Blackburn - this was just to name a few. Keith was so young and this was so unexpected, it just makes it hurt even more.

Luke Peterschmidt said it best in terms of Keith and his passing: In industry, you have titans. In business, you have giants. In fantasy, we have dragons, and there is one less of those majestic beasts in the world today.

In terms of looking to the future - Dark Sword is approaching our 100th miniature. So with this event, we looked to our collectors to offer up their opinions on improving our lines. A couple things of note.

1. We will no longer dot our eyes.
2. Our sculpted bases will be seperate pieces so you will now plug the miniature into the base via small pegs on the bottom of the miniatures feet. Same effect for those of you who prefer the larger bases, but for those whol want to do custome bases with certain miniatures, it will now be mucho easier.

Lots of fun stuff in the works for 2006 so stay tuned as we continue our methodical march onwards!

Ok, that was almost 3,200 words (6 pages in Word - lots of catching up to do!) and tomorrow is the Big Game (Go Steelers!). I think Seattle will win, but I am pulling for The Steelers as they have really taken the hard road to get to the Big Show.

Talk to you all soon.

P.S. Who is missing new installments of the Lord of the Rings about now? Narnia was solid, but lets get Mr. Jackson working on the Hobbit! I sooooo dig those movies...

February 5th 2006 Update:
Updated the Odds and Ends section with our running history and random thoughts. We have taken size comparison pics of the Easley Dragon Set # 1 for those of you who wanted to see some indication of scale. This is a mid-sized dragon like our first two Elmore Dragons sets with the exception that this is a "beefier dragon" as that is the way Jeff typically does his dragons. Dennis is working on the 2006 Elmore Amazon and this will be the first Dark Sword human-sized piece that will see two big changes for our lines that were requested by those who collect our miniatures: first, we will no longer dot the eyes on our miniatures, secondly, we will be having the miniatures seperate from the sculpted bases for those of you who prefer to do your own custom basing. There will be plugs on bottom of the feet to plug into the sculpted bases. This way, our lines can keep the same look and feel but also allow those of you who prefer doing something extra the option to do so easily. We do listen to those of you who collect our miniatures!

February 20th 2006 Update:
We have the final painted pics for Elmore Set # 8 in. We have also posted more pics in the Elmore Fan Gallery (Set # 7 from Ali and Elmore Dragons Set # 3 from Eric Louchard). Matt Verzani is putting the finishing touches on the Easley Dragons Set # 1 and Dennis is almost done with the Elmore 2006 Amazon (our first new fig with the seperate base and no dots on the eyes). Be sure to check out Eric Louchard's new miniatures company called Dragonblood Miniatures. Very nice stuff... My favorite is The Hunter piece (Mean Dino with Rider).

March 4, 2008 Update: The passing of a legend - Ernest Gary Gygax: July 27, 1938 - March 4, 2008 - Rest in Peace Gary
Another Majestic Dragon leaves the world he made such an impact on. He will be joining the thousands of gamers including Keith Parkinson and Dennis Mize who have gone before him. God Speed Gary - your legacy will live on through us all as we celebrate the fellowship of gaming and good times with friends. A lone glass will be raised tonight in his honor while I pull out my first ever Christmas present Red D&D Basic Set with the Erol Otus cover and give it a look through. The fond memories and the good friends I owe to D&D are many...Dark Sword Miniatures exists because of this wonderful game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

I cannot imagine my life without growing up with Dungeons and Dragons along with the lovely little lead miniatures we played the game with. My friends and I used to live for our gaming sessions. So many fond memories of sitting around a table in a friends basement weaving wonderful tales (and kicking each others asses in PVP team tournaments) and rolling dice. My love of novels and pewter miniatures sprung from Dungeons and Dragons. I had "the chance" to personally meet Gary at Gen Con Indy this year and I ran over to the Troll Lord Games booth with my camera ready to catch this moment. But as fate would have it, the line to meet Gary wrapped around the booth. Even though I was advised I could move to the front of the line for a quick picture because I was "in the industry and no one would mind", I just did not feel right about moving to the front of the line that other people waited in, even though I only had 10 minutes to get away from the Dark Sword booth. So I hung out and watched Gary from about 10 feet away for 60 seconds and ran back to the Dark Sword booth with a big smile on my face at simply being able to see him in person at such a close distance. He seemed very happy shaking hands and letting people praise him for the impact he had on their lives. I would have loved to shake his hand as well...

Jim