Gribbly Miniatures is a home run miniature company specialising in extremely detailed high quality resin miniatures. You won't find pristine, shining glorious good guys on this site, Gribbly miniatures is all about the bad guys, the monsters, the demons and the living dead. Since i was a kid i've always been drawn to monsters of every kind and now i can produce what i can imagine which i suppose is the inspiration to begin all this. I'm just starting out at the moment but i have alot planned over the coming months including adding a range of sculpting tools and putties aswell as several great new miniatures. Anyway here is a little bit about me and what i do and how i began down this slippery slope....

This little adventure started back in the summer of 2008 when I began sculpting what turned out to be the Plaguefather miniature. it was my first full miniature i'd ever attempted and after alot of trial and error I completed it and on the advice of several of my friends and a lot of people I know on several internet gaming forums I was persuaded to have it cast up in resin to sell. After a lengthy search and an incredibly messy and disastrous attempt casting them myself at home I was introduced to Grey Matter Figures who offered me their services at a great price. I got my first miniatures back shortly after and crazily people liked them enough to buy them. So here I am making my own miniatures and hopefully end up making a living out of it.

(if you’re looking to have some resin casting done these are the guys you need to speak to. http://www.greymatterfigures.com Top notch all round, fair prices, great service, you order what you like when you like. I can’t praise them enough and without them I probably would have abandoned the whole project entirely)

On the hobby side of things the road to oblivion began at the tender age of 10 where I discovered Games Workshops' hobby via a box of plastic miniatures of dubious assemblage and painting skill at a car boot sale I was dragged to by my parents. Currency was exchanged for goods and my life was changed forever. Since then I’ve played a lot of different systems and dappled in roleplaying and D&D but have always preferred the painting and assembling aspect of the hobby more than the playing. Life progressed and I sadly became a teenager and like so many of us I forgot wargames for a few years after discovering alcohol, women and more alcohol.

Some years later I sobered up enough to remember fragments of my childhood and with fondness began again with reckless abandon collecting miniatures from dozens of different companies. At this point my “skill” as a sculptor began to develop. I got hold of some greenstuff as many budding sculptors do to pop their puttycherry and began playing around with it. 2-3 frustrating hours later and I’d developed a deep hatred for the stuff and wondered what demonic pact I’d be required to partake in to acquire the skills required to use this hellspawned devils chewing gum. My skill with greenstuff to this day has barely improved a jot. From a gaming point of view I play several different miniature wargames whenever I can find the time but the majority of my hobby time has always been the creative side.

Present day and I find myself married with a son and living a normalish life trying to cram my hobby around the 3-5 minutes of free time I get every week with limited success. And because in this cruel world one is required to earn money to live I work as a chef and although I love it I find the prospect of running a miniature company far more appealing. Who knows I might even be able to quit my day job before long and become a man of leisure working from home.

As for my sculpting 90% of my work is produced with super sculpey polymer clays, after trying just about every modelling putty in existence I instantly loved this stuff, it’s the easiest to work with by far and because it has no curing time (it needs to be baked to cure) its very forgiving for someone like me who has little time free and has to constantly pick up and put down a project. The only problem with it I’ve found is repeated baking often leaves miniatures discoloured or even burnt which doesn’t make for great photography but I’ll endeavour to do my best in that department regardless.

All I can say now is thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far, especially my wife and the guys from the UKCORD forum who bullied me sufficiently into starting this adventure.

Appreciate the support guys.

All the best

Alistair (or Bork to the gaming community) – www.Gribblyminiatures.co.uk March 2009