Show Off Your First Mini!

[buglips*the*goblin]

I'm not sure if I should like that or call the cops.

[Girot]

I'm not sure if I should like that or call the cops.

 

I didn't have much money (or skill) back then so I had to use what I had lying around. I apologize for the gore but I needed objective markers. That and I was all about the gore back in those days.

[Gailbraithe]

I think this was actually the tenth or even twentieth miniature I painted. It's hard to say, because I lost all my miniatures in 1995, except this guy who I found in a totally random box sometime around 2004 while I was helping my mom organize her closets. I know my first miniatures were the Ral Partha ElfQuest minis (I had the Wolfriders set and the MadCoil set), but I think a box of Space Marines was my second purchase, and this guy came from that. His bolters were cannibalized for other projects.

 

 

Wow. Is that phenomenally bad or what? In my defense I was 11 years old, I was using Testor Enamels, and I was using a Testor's disposable brush, which is only nominally better than painting with your fingers.

 

I was trying for an autumn camouflage. It...didn't work.

[CashWiley]

Honestly? I like the impasto effect quite a bit.

[Gailbraithe]

Honestly? I like the impasto effect quite a bit.

I had to look that up. That's the politest way of saying "slathered in paint" I've ever seen.

[Cassu]

 

 

This figure is still sitting on my shelf, may strip her in the future and try and to paint her again but right now she serves as a good reminder of where I started.

Don't do it! That's a really cool paint job.

 

I concur. I had considered stripping and repainting Hilde, but have decided to keep her as is to remind me of how far I've come (and that I never used Testors enamels hahahaha).

 

Clearly you both have the brain worms. I'll keep her as I guess, for the aforementioned reasons of showing my progress.

[CashWiley]

That's the politest way of saying "slathered in paint" I've ever seen.

Heh. But I'm not kidding, I think it looks cool.

[Muninn]

Back around 1995 my older brother took his first tentative steps into geekdom by buying Heroquest.

After much badgering my brother eventually let me paint the minis. Problem was, the only paints I owned were Tester's model paints, and my brushes were those crappy plastic things that came with kid's watercolors. That, plus the fact I'd never really *painted* a miniature meant the finished product was not very good (in my defense, I was 12). During a raid of my parent's house I found a handful of my first painted minis.

My buddy, and fellow gamer, happened to have a copy of Heroquest, and I thought it'd be fun to paint one, and compare them to see how far I'd come. I actually painted this guy last week.

 

~Muninn

[ShadowRaven]

worlds of difference eh? I really like the sort of cartoon look the new guy has going, and the blending is great, especially the jewel in his belt buckle.

[trystangst]

That's awesome. And a perfect illustration of what this thread is all about.

[Cassu]

Oh wow, what a difference!

[buglips*the*goblin]

Testors Enamels are like first kiss partners for mini painters. It was okay, you had fun, and you didn't really know what you were doing - but in retrospect you're glad you didn't stick with them.

[pocketcthulhu]

Testors Enamels are like first kiss partners for mini painters. It was okay, you had fun, and you didn't really know what you were doing - but in retrospect you're glad you didn't stick with them.

you nailed it, the reason my first attempt at my first mini was so craptastic was exactly that testor's...

[CashWiley]

I guess I was lucky in that the guys I knew were painting with Polly S Floquil (a glass pot of acrylic pretty similar to what we use now) as far back as 1980. They were local (out of Rochester, I think), so all the local game stores carried it (we actually had TWO FLGS back then). Got wrapped into Testors at some point and they killed the fantasy line, but you can still find some of the regular line at train stores. The glass pots I paint on are mostly old Polly S bottles, nice heft to them.

 

Looking back on this thread, it's so weird that I was talking about those guys and the one in particular who taught me to paint (sort of, more like made fun of my mistakes somewhat constructively), and two days later I learned he died.

[Suffer]

Interesting how many people here have hero quest mini's as their first painting attempts... I do too for the record, will get the camera into action at some point...

 

Suffer