Center Stage Miniatures

I am happy to announce that I have purchased the rights to the Center Stage Miniatures line which went bankrupt after Center Stage spent a small fortune to top sculptors to sculpt some very cool figures including Dungeons and Dragons specific figures that are not available by any other makers.

Center Stage Miniatures was envisioned and started by Matthew Solarz who wanted to produce the ultimate D&D focused line with the focus not being on redundant dwarves, halflings and elves but on desirable monster figures that had not been produced or which had only been produced in small numbers in the past. Mathew's favorite miniature lines were the Citadel AD&D and the Ral Partha 2nd Edition AD&D and he envisioned Center Stage Miniatures to continue the work of these two lines and take it to the next level. In the few years that he owned Center Stage Miniatures, he certainly did achieve his vision having had over 200 amazing and useful to the gamer figures sculpted and putting about 50 into production before chaos struck. I believe that Mathew started Center Stage Miniatures in 2010.

I met Mathew through trading and we made many trades for Citadel ADD and Ral Partha 2nd Edition figures. In fact, when he decided to start Center Stage Miniatures he sold me his collection of Citadel ADD figures in order to start paying sculptors to sculpt and a large portion of the Citadel miniatures on this site came from him. When I asked how much he wanted for his collection he replied with a rather low price. I asked him, "are you sure? these are worth more..." His reply was that he just needed that much to get these new minis started and that he didn't want more. From this experience I know that Matthew was not about the money, he was about the minis and realizing his vision of an amazing line of miniatures. Later when I heard he was out of business, my first thought was, "I can see him not being good at managing money," because his attitude about the money when I purchased his Citadel collection was not the attitude of a person who thinks about money, but rather a person who runs for dreams and inspiration, and people who don't think about money often mismanage their business numbers and go bankrupt... I am convinced that if Matthew had had a partner who was an effective money manager and expense planner, Center Stage Miniatures would never have failed on all the levels that Center Stage Miniatures failed. The level they did not fail on, however, was in respect to the miniatures they made - its a great line.      

While running the company Matthew managed to get about 55 figures into production before facing financial problems and eventual bankruptcy. At the time Matthew was sitting on approximately 120 unreleased sculpts. Pacesetter Games acquired the production rights and put the unreleased sculpts into production under their own label. Pacesetter Games had worked with Matthew to combine their exciting adventures with Center Stages amazing miniatures, so they had a good knowledge of the line and really didn't want to see it disappear. Upon getting the new sculpts into production, Pacesetter Games contacted Kickstarter pledgers and offered them figures at production cost prices in an effort to make up for Matthew's failure to fulfill the Kickstarter campaign promises. Pacesetter was in no way obligated to do this, they simply did it out of a care for the gaming community and the gamers that find a home in that community. Pacesetter was active with the line for about six years and many of us had no idea that these figures were available during that time. Towards the end of 2021 Pacesetter ceased selling the figures due to website issues and the skyrocketing price of metals and so they took their time to get the figures back in stock while they waited for metals to come down a bit. Before they did get back into production, I showed up and now the entire line of models is once again available, in production again, thanks to Pacesetter Games being willing to sell the line to me. You can purchase these online at: www.rpgelements.com.

When I heard that Center Stage was GONE, I tried to track Mathew down to see what was going on and see if I could step in and help get him through whatever was stalemating his figures to arrive in the hands of eager mini lovers. But all his contact information yielded no results in getting a hold of him and by the time I found out about it, I later learned, the bankruptcy was finalized and all was said and done. For years I would occasionally look for word about Mathew or Center Stage and never found anything useful until early in 2022 I found out that Pacesetter Games owned the rights to Center Stage Miniatures. I was really excited that the line still existed, but Pacesetter Games had taken a vacation with the figures over the past six months, as mentioned above. They were about to start up production again when I contacted them. Pacesetter loved the figures and really wanted to see them out in the world getting slaughtered by powerful adventures; but they had limited time to get them out as they are so busy with their publishing of gaming adventures that they were open to a miniature loving fanatic like me to really get behind putting Center Stage Miniatures where they belong - on your gaming table or well painted in your display case.   

Center Stage Miniatures produced five original lines: Advanced Fantasy Miniatures, Demons & Devils, Tome of Horrors, Razor's Coast, and Torn World. The first line to be developed was the Advanced Fantasy line and the packaging was reminiscent of the Ral Partha 2nd Edition AD&D packaging. Center Stage Miniatures purchased Secret Skeleton Miniatures and Goodman's Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics line which were integrated into Center Stage Miniatures lines in various places. In this site, rather than organizing the figures into lines which presents some confusion due to lack of all information, I have organized them into obvious groups such as giants, demons, dragons, etc. Where the line that the figures were intended for is known, I have included that information with the figure. The majority of Center Stage figures were cast in lead free metal with some of the larger models cast in resin as resin is more affordable for casting large figures.

Center Stage also purchased the rights to a few Archive miniatures and a few Metal Magic figures which made up the Fantasy Encounters line which was later renamed to the Fantasy Classics line. They were also the last producers of the two Julie Guthrie Fantasy Personalities lines which were originally produced by Grenadier - these figures are not being posted on this page - though the available ones are being made available for purchase at www.rpgelements.com.

One final note is that one of the problems Center Stage constantly encountered was using trademarked names that belonged to the D&D world, as they were not an official producer of D&D miniatures. As a result of this, Center Stage was constantly juggling names for their figures so as to not step on any gaming giants toes (or rather, to not get stomped on by these giants). The names I am using below are the names as used when the figures were last in production. Many of these names are not currently suitable as they do infringe on trademarks owned by others. As this is a documentary site and not a purchase and order site, I have left the names as they were last used by Center Stage for historical purposes and I do hope this is acceptable to those who own the trademarks for D&D specific names. I have not been able to determine the names of the sculptors for several models, any information in regards to this would be appreciated. The images used below are those I obtained from Pacesetter Games games upon the purchase of the line and I do hope to add pictures of figures painted by me as I get around to painting these magnificent miniatures, though now I am off too the casting shop and will leave my brushes behind for a while.

 

Angelic Beings    Demons    Devils    Fictional Deities    Giants    Humanoid Monsters   Mythology   Undead    Wyrms    Other Monsters    Adventurers

 

Angelic Beings

Demons

Devils

Fictional Deities

Giants

Humanoid Monsters

Mythology

Undead

Wyrms

Other Monsters

Adventurers

 

You can purchase Center Stage Miniatures online at: www.rpgelements.com