Willingham's "Dragon vs Party" scene: reenacted with lead minis and a plastic dragon

One of my all-time favorite D&D illustrations...I absolutely love that drawing by Bill Willingham.

Anyway, a little back story: A little over a week ago, we took an extended weekend up to Frankemuth ("Michigan's Little Bavaria") for a little family getaway. During our stay, one of the many fun little downtown and/or River Place shops we checked out was the Frankenmuth Toy Company. My son and I checked out the Papo figurines, of which they had plenty.

After an initial "pass" on a purchase of any of these very nice figs, some uncannily coincidental blog posting/replying over at Grognardia (awesome blog BTW, but ya'll already know that), and finally an early morning revalation by my son and I, we headed back to the toy shop to snag a fig or two.

For reference and just plain fun, I'll quote myself, quoting my son, along with quoting myself some more:

"My son awoke this morn and the first words out of his mouth were "Daddy, I was just dreaming about those figures and stuff at that toy store!". I said, "Hey, me too!"

Anyway, my son had his eyes on their Battering Ram prop for some future improvised employment in our Crossbow & Catapults sessions:

...while I spied their Red Dragon fig:

That is one smooth looking Red Dragon, right? I mean, sure it may not be the $80 "Colossal" version from WotC, but I actually like this guy better. He (or she) just has that cool old-school look, that screams "Use me with your old lead minis, you scrawny human!"

So I did.

Here's a little reenactment of that Willingham scene, using some of my old TSR lead minis and this cool ass Papo Red Dragon:

First the awesome Willingham work:

And my simple rendition:

Dorky, yet fun!


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EDIT:
As it turns out, I very likely totally stole this idea from Christopher B and his very cool blog A Rust Monster Ate My Sword. He saw a similar cheap-yet-cool plastic dragon fig and thought he'd like to bust out some old lead figs and recreate the Willingham scene. He just never really got around to it...ha! At any rate, here I thought I had some great original idea, and as it turns out, I probably just read his post a while back and then forgot all about it. So, props to Christopher B for a great idea! Of course I do claim some small thread of originality in the actual composition of the figs...hehe. I think I got them pretty darn close to the original. So props to me too....hahahaha!

BTW, if you haven't already, go visit A Rust Monster Ate My Sword. It is a rockin' blog, filled with great ideas you can plunder for your own posts. (just kidding, bud. ;>])

I do totally dig his blog, though. Check it out fo' sho'!
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