I don't know if anyone here remembers me, I joined in 2003, some of you may not have been born yet, and was pretty active for several years. Then, as is often the case, life happened. I packed away my minis, paint, brushes, and all of the other miscellaneous bits of gear one uses in this hobby, and set everything aside for about 10 years. Hard to believe it has been that long. But, now life has finally slowed, my own kids are grown and are starting out on their own, I am getting closer to retirement and I find myself with a small amount of free times on my hands. And the bug has bitten again.
I was on Facebook scrolling through the dross, and a random group for miniature enthusiast popped up, so I decided to give it a quick look. I should have taken the blue pill. I started seeing all of the new amazing 3d printed resin minis that are being produced and got the urge to paint again.
So I dug through the closets, pulled out the brushes and paints, and set up my painting station again in a small corner of my home office. Then came the decision, and the dread. Its been 10 YEARS, can you even still do this... where to start. Then it hit me, I have several board games with pieces tht desperately needed painting. Why not start there? After all, no matter how bad of a paint job they got, it couldn't be worse then the cold grey plastic the were molded in right?
So I decided to start with the Wizard, one of my favorite characters to play in the game. I prepped him with a soft wash and dry, primed with my still functioing can of GW Chaos Black primer, and mounted him to bottle cap, and sat dow to paint. Three things became quickly obvious:
1) Paint does NOT last forever, regardless of how well you seal the bottle, most of my paint was dead, brightside, it made picking a color scheme easier
2) My eyesight has deteriorated significantly in th elast 10 years, I could NOT see what I was doing (magnifyers to the rescue)
3) Somewhere along the way my hands have gotten a bit of a wobble to them, not full on tremors, but not the rock steady nimble hands they used to be.
Some of these issues could be solved technically and financially:
eyesight problem - $5 drug store reading glasses
shaky hands - found a really vool mini holder with hand support on ETSY (shout out to my man Tim at Eureka3DDesign who worked with me to modify a custom miniature holding plinth!)
Now the dried up paints are a bit more of issue to solve. While I was away from the hobby it seems like every Game store and hobby shop ni a 50 mile radius has gone out of business, probably my fault as I was several of the store's best customers. Only stores left are Michael's and Hobby Lobby. Very limited options there, but at least the Hobby Lobby had Valejo paints, but not a big selection.
So, problem's solved, time to paint....wait, how do I do this again? It's hard to believe how much I have forgotten in 10 years, especially considering how much I used to do it. So, no I begin the slow process of learning how to paint all over again. Wish me luck, and please be kind while I adjust to my new reality and limitations. If you want to see some of my previous work, I was shocked to find that there at least some of my gallery is still there.
http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/Grumb
I seem to recall removing most of it at one point, but I can't remember why. Memory is a funny thing...
ANd finally, here is the first WIP picture. I should have started with something a bit bigger. These Tallisman game pieces are tiny, sub 28mm.
View attachment 79659
Stay tuned, I'll post some more when I can paint some more...pray for me, or send good thoughts my way as I crawl through this learning process.
Cheers,
Grumb
