Miniatures and the characters they represented.

A dungeoncrawl isn't a dungeoncrawl without miniatures, you could get away with counters or tokens I suppose but it doesn't really cut it. One of the eye openers for me as a callow youth was the realisation that someone out there made miniatures to represent the characters that you were creating, perusing the racks of Citadel/ Ral Partha miniatures in our local model shop made the 10 mile cycle ride into town seem far less onerous.

Pictured above is my first effort at painting white metal miniatures, using the Humbrol enamels. Considering he's thirty years old this year he hasn't weathered too badly. Although he's a Citadel Evil Cleric ( mounted) he was used to represent a lawful fighter going by the name of Beorn who was by far my longest running D&D character eventually making it all the way to 12th level when he retired and presumably had a long and prosperous old age.
He was replaced by the two reprobates depicted below:

 A dwarf fighter known as Alfred and the alarmingly titled Obnoxious a human illusionist. These fellows marked a departure from D&D into the heady world of AD&D where they both made it up to 4th level. They also marked a steady albeit temporary decline in my roleplaying activities as a new group of friends  garnered at sixth form college drew me into the world of wargaming.

Now obviously these ne'erdowells need opponents to fight, this role was admirably performed by the citadel C17 skeletons above. They also proxied for any number of other foes which I lacked the resources to acquire plus I've always liked skeletons.

Now moving forward to the present here is my current take on the same subjects.
Firstly the current adventuring party created for D&D.

These are all Darksword miniatures, all very new but based on the AD&D artwork produced in the 1980s.

Some of their intended opponents:

These are Denizen Miniatures Legion of the Damned undead, produced in the eighties but three decades later still the best undead ever made.
Thats all for now, next up some set dressing for the dungeon and hopefully some progress getting a group of players together for a dose of nostalgia.