Sunday, February 16, 2014

Ray Rubin - Grenadier's Box Set and Blister Card Artist

Ray Rubin, Vice President of Grenadier and artist of all of Grenadier's box & blister card art, was born and raised in Manhattan, NY. He also began collecting figures when he was 11 years old and joined MFCA early on.  Ray's background is colorful and varied; attending Hunter College in NY and receiving his BA in Design (while Art was his love he fully appreciated the necessity of having graphic design & sculpting in his portfolio) , serving a 2 year term in the Army, working as a researcher for Fortune Magazine, a Buyer for Brookes Bros., then graduate school. Eventually Ray ended up in Detroit where he helped establish Squadron/Rubin Miniatures, a line of primarily 54 mm. historical figures.


After nearly 3 years in the Midwest, though, Ray yearned for the East Coast again and returned to help set up. Canterbury Pewter (our mother company) with Andy Chernak. Grenadier was set up immediately to produce 25 mm. American Revolutionary War figures (the initial figure was a …Grenadier, hence the name.) but soon other historical lines came to be.

While Ray has sculpted for years (and painted professionally also) his chief concerns now are packaging & design specialty figures (like animals), and is in charge of coordination between all the various departments. As he likes to put it his, greatest joy is in seeing that everything works properly.  Every box cover and blister card we have ever done has been painted by Ray and the progression of his "visions" match the progression of our quality.

Andrew Chernak (Seated) and Ray Rubin (Standing)



Space Squadrons Blister Card Art

Space Squadrons Box Set Art


 (Source Grenadier Bulletin No. 4)