This blog is about the world of gaming miniatures, as seen from my perspective. I've been collecting and painting for over 30 years now, and while my primary focus is miniatures for D&D, I also enjoy many other games that use minis, so we'll be covering those as well. Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

The Dark Crystal & What The Hell Is A Podling?

Not too long ago, I picked up a minis lot on eBay that was mostly 54mm historical stuff (Imrie/Risley, New Hope Design, etc) but also had some fantasy items, which was why I bought it to begin with. I'll resell the 54mm stuff to recoup my investment. Mixed in with everything were a couple of items that stood out:


Who invited Miles Finch? He never brings anything to share.

At first, I thought they were some sort of Scandinavian gnomes or trolls. There were no hallmarks on the miniatures or table, so I guess I chalked them up to odd little gnome dudes of unknown origin and set them aside. Fast-forward to yesterday when I was scanning eBay and saw a group of familiar-looking faces. Mystery solved! They are Grenadier miniatures from The Dark Crystal (part of the Pinnacle Products lineup). So I'm looking at four Podlings and their table, got it. But what about this ugly fella:


Hey sailor, wanna show a lady a good time?

Which isn't a fella after all, but rather Aughra, a wise woman of sorts with the official title of Watcher of the Heavens. I had her pinned as an ogre-mage or something along those lines. My apologies to all ogre-magi and their kin for this rash assumption. She is UG-LEE!

And finally, a random staff grasped by a hand:


Paging Mr. Skeksis; please report to Lost & Found to claim your staff.

The staff belongs to Skeksis, a Garthim Master and all-around bad guy. So what I have here is an almost-complete Dark Crystal set #9002, minus of course Skeksis (and the box, paperwork, paints, and tray). Always cool to solve a mystery and properly identify some the many minis languishing in my unknowns collection. Now I guess the only thing left to do is see if my library has The Dark Crystal in their system and watch it. For the life of me, I cannot recall if I ever saw it or not!

4 comments:

xredmenacex said...

I'm guessing you haven't seen it if you didn't recognize Aughra. I haven't seen it since I was a kid and I recognized her right away. :)
http://www.habidabad.com/images/aughra_1.JPG

Closed and No Longer In Business said...

It's a great movie. The plot is rather cliche and is the standard good versus evil fare, but it's one of the classics.

I've got an extra copy of the director's cut in my collection, if you'd like me to send it your way. :)

TopKat said...

Red,

You are 100% correct - there's no way in hell I would have forgotten a mug that ugly!

Matt,

Thanks for the offer, but I'm already next in line for one of the two copies from the local library. Hopefully my kids will want to watch it with their old man :)

Boric Glanduum said...

What a terrific find! Even better that it was unexpected.

Hope you enjoy the movie; I watched it again not too long ago after a LONG span of time. The "Muppet"-work is still impressive. As CSM said, it's standard good v. evil, but I'd agree that it's a classic.