My Beginnings

Now that I have introduced myself, I thought I would give you all a quick overview of my start down the road into the hobby of miniature wargaming....

Growing up, I had never heard of the wargaming community. About 90% of my gaming was done on a Nintendo and Pokemon cards, with the other 10% being a board game here and there. I'd say miniature games came into my field of view around Junior High/High School age. I was in one of my local game stores and, hanging on the shelf, there was this box with pictures of some cool dragons and monsters on it that said "Mage Knight". For those of you not familiar with it, Mage Knight is a collectible miniatures game (like the more popular Hero Clix), where you buy a box and get a couple random, pre-painted models with stats all over their bases (example of a "Draconum" character that I owned to the right).

For a time, this was entertaining. I went to one or two small tournaments with my brother, won a couple prizes, and generally had fun. However, there was a lack of depth that limited my enjoyment of the game. There wasn't much beyond buying models and pushing them around on a table. There was also the fact that there were no rules about who could be in an army together. For example, you could have dragons, humans, zombies, and elves fighting alongside each other. Just a little strange, at least in my mind.

Regardless, the line was cast, and I was hooked. I ended up quitting Mage Knight and sold my minis, thinking I was done with tabletop games.....

I was wrong. I ended up hearing about Warhammer 40k and bought the rulebook. In Christmas of 2008 my family bought me a handful of Space Marine kits (specifically, Tactical Marines, Devastators, Scouts, and Terminators). Then I hit another roadblock. I didn't see myself as very artistic. I had never painted, never taken any art classes, and I was intimidated. Those kits sat on my shelf for a good year, until December of 2009. A friend of mine who also plays came over, and gave me a quick tutorial on how to build the models, so I started finding time to glue a torso here, an arm there..... then I caught the swine flu. It was the most horrific flu I have ever experienced, and it got me out of work for a good week. Know what I spent all that time doing?

I assembled and painted everything I had as Flesh Tearers!

After that single week of non-stop hobby work, I haven't let inexperience stop me from trying new modeling and painting techniques. I moved on to complete over 2,000 points of Blood Angels, and I'm currently working on a Stormraven Gunship (you can see photos of the Blood Angels and more photos of the rest of the models I've painted in the tabs up above. Right now there are the Blood Angels, Orks, and Tyranids to look through). Next, I did a few Orks, trying my hand at using Green Stuff for some converting work.

They're still in need of more paint, but they have helped me to learn what I can and can't do with Green Stuff. I also completed Snikrot, except for his backpack, which I might or might not put on. I may even attempt to convert a different one for him...

My most recent work has been with Tyranids:

The first 'Nid model I completed was this beast:

From start to finish, it took me about 24 hours to complete him, dead Marine included. Not necessarily a "complex" conversion, but I'm proud of it. That, and it was a lot of fun to do!

Now I've got my hands on some Necron models I'm doing for my brother, and I'm waiting to get some commissions (if you need anything done, now is prime time, as I just opened up shop and you won't have any wait time before I can start!). As time goes on, I plan to expand and perfect my skills, and I fully expect to get to a level where I can enter into and possibly even win a Golden Demon.

There you have it, my story of growth into a full-fledged hobbyist!

How about you? Feel free to share in the comments below how you got into the world of wargaming!