Orclord's Beautifully Painted Citadel Giant

There are so many later references to this model on later giants, particularly the use of shields as clothing/armour parts. Is he holding the poor knight on the boxart by any chance?

Hello again, retro-Citadel fans - and how is this for a weekend treat? That's right, it is the famous Citadel giant fully painted and part of the enormous collection of one very well known collector, Orclord. Now, much of his collection has been thankfully photographed and is available for viewing on the sodemons website, and if you have never visited then this is a very good time to do so! 

Richard (Orclord's real name) shared this image, and several others on social media recently and I felt that enthusiasts of '80s lead who don't use the Facebook platform would probably want to see these. So we really need to thank the not at all green Orclord for getting this enigmatic model painted and photographed in such detail. 

But what do we know about the Citadel Giant? Well, for a long old time it was a bit of a myth. The first time I recall hearing about it was in White Dwarf about eight years ago. It was mentioned in one of their 'articles' and I am paraphrasing here but the comment went along the lines that the model was so old no images of it could be found by the White Dwarf team. Nothing at all. They didn't even have a model in their collection!

Fast forwards into the early period of the Oldhammer Scene and a collector called Skarsnik shared images of not one Citadel Giant, but two! Then the famous Harry, of Warseer fame, offered to paint on the said models just for the thrill of handing such a rare figure. At the first ever Oldhammer Weekend, that painted model was on display - though it lacked the multiple heads and hands. It was an incredible moment to come face to face with such a mythical model from Citadel's past too. 

Several years later, Marcus Ansell showed me the Citadel Giant that is part of Bryan's collection. This one is currently missing one of it's arms, sadly. 

But I have never seen a complete Citadel Giant set fully painted until now. Hence my excitement! 

I am fairly sure that the model on the right is the same piece as can be now seen in Bryan's collection. Only here, he has both arms intact! This was the first sight of the Giant as far as I can tell, and comes from White Dwarf 37.

In case you didn't know, the Citadel Giant was sculpted by Alan Perry in late '82 and was released in January 1983. He even signed the inside of the torso! The model was produced at a time when Citadel were really pushing the boundaries of what metal casting could achieve, what with the Chicken Dragon before it. Priced at £29.99 (that is well over £100 in today's money) this was a pricy kit, even compared to some of  GW's modern stuff. Considering that it was made of metal, the box must have weighed in at a hefty weight too!

Hey look, '80s cellotape. Why does it go yellow?

And here is an example of said box. I love the illustration on the front, which can also be found in the Warhammer Fantasy battle third edition rulebook, as I love the puzzled shock of the heroic knight dropping his dagger in surprise!

This illustration shows off the multi-part options of the original model, and illustrates the pieces that Orclord's model does not yet show. It is probably worth pointing out here that these new photographs were shared with a note that they were still work in progress, so I hope we shall see the remaining bits and pieces added later! 

And with that, I shall leave you with the remaining photographs of the Citadel Giant. He may not be so mysterious as he once was, but he remains a stunning achievement of early Citadel's ambition!

Rambo head?

Subotai head?

Oliver Reed head?

Duncan Goodhew head?