"Tarantella" as drawn by Willingham - yeah that's the ticket!

When I posted those pics of some cheap rubber figurines that reminded me of the artistic style of the great Erol Otus, I ended with this scene where a Paladin (at least that's what he is in this particluar scene) was facing off against a giant hideous spider:


The keen eye of Grognardia's James Maliszewski put my spell-checker to shame in noticing my caption in which the Paladin implores "Taste my holy steel, *fowl* arachnid!"

Even after fact, I decided to leave in that flub, as James' vision of a "chicken-spider" still makes me giggle, even just typing about it here.

At any rate, I didn't really have a good Otus pic to pair up with that shot, but I just liked it, so I bunched it the others there. Well it was kina eating at me...I mean, I knew there must be an old-school D&D illustration somewhere, by one of the greats of that time...but where, and by whom?

Tried googling. Failed. Broke out some of the old tomes. Ah-ha! There it was. And so here it is, paired with a reverse-image of my original pic...a wonderful little sketch by the incredible Bill Willingham of a Tarantella:

If that creature name doesn't ring any bells, it may just compell you to dance. Check out it's description in the Monsters section of my favorite D&D ruleset, Moldvay's Basic D&D box set, page B43 (please excuse the photo, it's all I could find, and I don't have a scanner or camera on hand at the moment...oh and I am far too lazy to type it all in here by hand):


So who's dancing? Yeah, me too...for 2d6 turns, as the dreaded Tarantella utters in Tarantellaic (or is that Tarantallaese?), "Bailamos, you *fowl* humanoids!"

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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