Gary Morley

Ti Pouchon

Member
Yes, he is a much better sculptor than I will ever be. His work has probably made a lot of people very happy and he deserves to have a legion of admirers.

It's just that I've never met even one of that legion. Nobody seems to really appreciate his work. He made this list of the 25 worst minis ever http://chestofcolors.com/25-worst-miniatures-ever-made/ three times and nabbed the "first place" for the worst among the worst.
I would be hard pressed to come up with even one Morley sculpt that I really, really like. On the other hand, I can name at least three that I don't care about at all in an instant. And they wouldn't even be the same every time. There are just so many.
That's because he's been so very, very busy churning out range after range after range. Jack of all trades, master of none. Seriously, this guy is the reason why I've never felt compelled to start a "catch 'em all every Blood Bowl mini" collection - because then I'd have to pay for a bucketload of Morley sculpts that I will never want to paint nor use in a game.

Or is it just me? Who likes Gary Morley's sculpts?
 

bug16

Member
Gary was interviewed for, IIRC, a webzine a few years ago and he admitted that his early GW Undead stuff was pretty average. He was being paid per sculpt so he knocked out sculpts as fast as he could meaning that we got lots of very boring two dimensional sculpts from him. Personally I really hated most of his Undead range, especially his rather tame looking zombies, but I do use some of the standard bearers and musicians from that range in my army.

I don't believe he's a bad sculptor, far from it, it's just that we tend to remember the bad models more than the good ones. Both Nagash and Ariel are legendarily horrible models, even with his intended head Nagash looks stupid. I've seen some stunning paintjobs on both Nagash and Ariel and, again, Nagash always looks crap and Ariel always looks like a man in drag. They're both just horrible sculpts.

Skimming the list it was interesting to see the 4th/5th edition Witch Elves as I quite liked those models. I liked that they were ugly hair metal hags because they looked frenzied and dangerous.
 

phreedh

Member
Morley isn't too bad. I used to bash him quite fervently, but he is after all a guy who seems to be a rather nice chap.

I think he's done plenty of great miniatures, but a lot of dross too. Remember that most of the stuff you bash him for is GW art direction in the mid 90s. His biggest style flaw is the way he does oversized hands and feet, and weapons (thought I'm not sure that is his fault).

I quite like some of his Blood Bowl range. The halflings are all rather good, as are his orcs (the blitzers in particular). The wights and skeletons are cool, while the mummies and ghouls are not so good... The gobbos from 3rd were ace too, and the Ripper Bolgrot (the troll, not the 2nd edition orc) was pretty cool too.

Look at Kev Adams' sculpts from the same period and compare them to stuff he did prior to that and after that. You'll find many of the same flaws as in Morley's work. For instance, the guy with the hammer in the rock lobber crew. Meh!

I used to hate the WHFB zombies, but after I painted a few up they sort of grew on me. Nearly painted themselves!
phreedh_03.jpg
 

Chico

Member
I have to say im one of his fans, i love the WHFB Zombies.. if everyone liked the same minis it would be a boring world.
 

bug16

Member
phreedh":3abttgz8 said:

Love the paint job on the zombies but they're just not gory enough for me like the old 2nd/3rd edition ones were and the YMCA poses on that Undead range just turn me off once you rank the models up, I painted 80 of the buggers up then sold them. :(

It's interesting that you mention GW's art direction from back then, I definitely feel that his Black Knights suffered immensely from that. I kindof got what they were trying to do but as models they just looked wrong.

But as Chico says, it'd be boring if we all liked the same models!
 

Ti Pouchon

Member
The zombies are OK - if you're willing to ignore that the entire arms holding the weapons are oversized. And I'm not fond of them all waving their weaponry above their heads. (very nice paint job btw, love the shields).

The BB 'flings - touché. They're quite alright. Except for the one with the colander on its head.
The orcs - not so much, but I guess that's a matter of taste. I just prefer the 2nd Ed Kev Adams ones. Morley Blitzers look like they all try to walk like an Egyptian; the fits pointed down are a huge flaw imo.
The ghouls have to be the worst sculpts ever.

Chico, it's nice to meet a Morley fan! Good to know that they exist, after all.

What "Black Knights" are y'all talking about?

Edit: I think I found the interview: http://www.flamesofwar.com/Portals/0/Do ... ry-One.pdf
 

phreedh

Member
Zhu Bajie":33zed1x1 said:
Never heard of him. When did he join Citadel?
Really?

He did ALL of the 3rd edition Blood Bowl miniatures. Also did an awful lot of WHFB undead models in the 4th edition range reboot.
 

Ti Pouchon

Member
Also, all of the "rebooted" Wood Elves - which simply cannot hold a candle to the previous JG ones.
What about the BB 3rd Ed Chaos Dwarves, though? Are those Morely's as well?
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
phreedh":2bcfd2w9 said:
Zhu Bajie":2bcfd2w9 said:
Never heard of him. When did he join Citadel?
Really?

He did ALL of the 3rd edition Blood Bowl miniatures. Also did an awful lot of WHFB undead models in the 4th edition range reboot.

Yeah. Anything past 1990 isn't really on my radar - I still think of Jes Goodwin as "the new boy" and his Chaos Ratmen as innovative addition to the fantasy milieu :?

Showing my age I think.
 

phreedh

Member
Ti Pouchon":25ptqesy said:
What about the BB 3rd Ed Chaos Dwarves, though? Are those Morely's as well?
Yep, and I think they (and most other BB models) show his strength as a sculptor. He can emulate other sculptors' work quite well. The chaos dwarfs are very similar to the WHFB range (sculpted by the Perry Bros) and the orcs look like they could have been sculpted by Kev Adams.

Seriously, he's not a poor sculptor. Look at the teams done after the initial 3rd edition wave (counting from the Amazons and forward). There's not a single team measuring up to the original batch. Granted, most of the 3rd edition stuff is dwarfed in character by the 2nd edt minis, but they are still rather good. Man-boobs or not, those ghouls are well sculpted even if oddly proportioned.
 

Ti Pouchon

Member
Well, the latest human team is better than all three human teams done by Morley.
Zara, Ramtut, Zug with helmet - all very good sculpts, way better than 3rd Ed.

Have you looked at those ghouls recently?
Besides the ridiculous tagged-on manboobs, here's a list:
- hands are way too big
- hands have different sizes
- legs have different lengths
- thickest part of the leg is the calf
- one is missing pants, is that supposed to be funny?
- poor level of texture/detail
- even though there's only two, their proportions are very dissimilar
- required "number plate" is tagged on to both sculpts in a way that just screams "Oh gosh darnit, I forgot to add the number plates"

I honestly cannot call these ghouls "well sculpted".
Nothing wrong with the Chaos Dwarfs, though.
Good at copying others? Granted. I just prefer original, creative designs and sculptors whose work is instantly recognizable (like Goodwin, Olley etc.)
 

bug16

Member
Fight! Fight! :grin:

I wasn't a huge fan of his Ghouls either because they just looked a bit tame in terms of what they were meant to be representing. Mind you the 2nd/3rd edition sculpts weren't exactly amazing either, imo, so maybe it had more to do with GW's direction with the models.
 
Ti Pouchon":ghu1k6az said:
It's just that I've never met even one of that legion. Nobody seems to really appreciate his work. He made this list of the 25 worst minis ever http://chestofcolors.com/25-worst-miniatures-ever-made/ three times and nabbed the "first place" for the worst among the worst.
Well let's be frank: Nagash is just a fail... Epic fail if you compare it to the brilliant artwork Mark Gibbons made for this character :roll:
I know some of his works are pretty poor but I cannot say this is bad sculptor:
right now I am working on old zombie dragon and while I still think the raider is really ugly model the beast itself just rocks.
The same is for the zombies shown in the topic - sweet models, really regret from whole like of these I have only 3-4 models.
 

Chico

Member
I repainted my old Naggy a few months back, i have to say with a dark paint job (Read not bright purple) i found its really nice sculpt, heh on a plus note because no one likes him i only paint £2 on ebay in box :)
 

Ti Pouchon

Member
Showing Morley appreciation with a Morley sculpt avatar...
OK, OK, I'll take my Morely disappreciation somewhere else...
 

knobgobbler

Member
I thought it was funny, yesterday, when I was looking through GW's 'collector' area... to see that in the undead section Nagash is the only figure they offer.
 
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