Hobby Report - First and Best (so far)! [Group/Open]

[ub3r_n3rd]

"...one year's worth of XP, twenty eight times..."

 

I will try to locate and photograph relevant items.

 

*****Wonders what box(es) to look in.*****

 

First mini is gone forever. Also unknown. Apparently unfindable on the Internet. (Aside: my autocorrupt has decided Internet is a proper noun. I have no idea why. Is it? It gets capitalized automatically even though I never attempted to manually set it to do that. ) Where was I ??

 

Right. First mini. It was a horse and rider. The horse was a ghost. There was much swirly cloth horse barding (AC does not know the word barding.) ...and the barding morphed into swirly Caspar style ghostiness. The rider was heavily cloaked. Probably a wraith or a ghost. The rider had a lance. Cast in lead. Badly crooked. I replaced it with some wire.

 

Mostly I slathered this thing in India ink but I think I put two red dots in the empty sockets of the barding.

 

The mini belonged to a friend but I painted it for him.

 

I keep repeating the description hoping somebody recognizes it. It would have been about 1980-81.

If you can't find your "first" mini or pics of it, then how about the earliest in your painting journey that you have on hand or have pictures of?

[Serenity]

(Aside: my autocorrupt has decided Internet is a proper noun. I have no idea why. Is it? It gets capitalized automatically even though I never attempted to manually set it to do that. ) Where was I ??

I've always capitalized it (unless I forgot for some reason), I think because the tech books I've read did so.  In informal usage, people do not always capitalize it.

[Darcstaar]

Everyone's journeys and improvements are really inspiring.

 

Here is one of my earliest, a space marine from 1984.  I was 8.  I was so proud of the fact that I painted his shoulder pad and forearm symbols free hand, I entered him into a contest and lost, of course.

I remember feeling let down at the time.  Then I started reading White Dwarf, and realized what a NOOB I was.

 

 

The most recent complete miniature I am most proud of is the one I sent to Arc724 for the 2015 summer exchange.

I had so much fun coming up with the back story, modifying it into a Sith, and painting it... It was REALLY hard to let him go.

That was the mini I had spent the most time on in my life to that point.

 

 

Keep it going, everyone.  This thread is awesome.

[Jasonator]

That Sith is incredible !

What a magnificent expression of an impending death.

Looks great !

[knarthex]

Well, you asked for it....

 

I started painting in 1977....

Ral Partha was THE company making minis back then, and I had just started playing AD&D 1st ed, when my fellow players took me to a hobby shop that sold game stuff.

Looked for a mini for my viking fighter, but there weren't any.

The next best thing was a mini for my dwarf fighter so he was purchased

I had been painting military scale models, so I had a bunch of Testors, Pactra, and Humbrol enamals, and some so called brushes to put the paint on with. No primer, just paint on lead...

 

 

Well skip to about 2 years ago, when I was done with GW games, but still had all their paints. I had discovered many things since then, like primer, washes, simple shadings and highlighting...

 

 

Then Last year I joined the forums, and actually had people I could talk to about my hobby!They were willing to give me all sorts of advice and suggestions....

And I had my epiphany of discovering the joys of GOOD brushes and wet pallets, Scale 75 paints, and many other things...

 

This mini took me a month of painting, usually every day for a few hours, agonizing over trying to make her the best I could...

ATM she is one of my favorites, and I think, my best works...

 

 

I took her to ReaperCon 2016, and she won a Silver Medal!!!!!

 

 

But I'll show you some other progressions too...

 

These 2 giants are from Grenadier, and I bought them in the summer of 1985.

The male was painted shortly thereafter, using Polly S and Ral Partha Paints, the female never was finished....

Her paint got stripped off, and she was re done about 18 months ago, using GW paint.

 

 

 

Here's another!

 

This Ral Partha AD&D goblin would have been done around 90 or 91 using Polly S and Ral Partha paints:

 

 

While this one (From Vegascat! Thanks again!!!!) was done with Scale 75 paints...

 

 

Tired of me yet?

This WotC Black Dragon was done around 2000, and is all wash and dry brush.... likely took 2 or three sessions, and that only because of waiting for paint to dry...

 

 

Jump to August of last year when I found a thread about a mini that I had had for 15 years or so,waiting for 'When I am Good Enough...."

 

It took a few months of on and off stuff, then about 40 days of concentrated work, scale by scale, and lots of fun with stories before SHE was finally done....

  

and SHE is the piece that all of YOU liked the most of what I have done....

 

and now I am trying to push myself with just about every mini I paint, new techniques, skills and practice, practice, practice the ones I have....

 

and next up we have.....

 

George

Edited January 18, 2017 by knarthex

[Glitterwolf]

@ Darcstaar That Sith is amazing!!! Great improvement!

 

@ George, You're getting better and better, and I love your work!

 

I agree on people on this forum contributing a lot.

 

I started out with Military model kits. then mostly grenadier and Warhammer stuff.

 

For decades my only references came from the White Dwarf magazine.

 

The the Internet was invented ( yes I'm old...)  and a whole world opened up.

I improved a bit...

 

Then in 2013 I joined this forum..

I have been more productive then ever, paint better and am still learning and improving.

And most of all I have so much fun here.

 

Of course certain individuals here have peeked my interests into larger scale minis and busts, my wallet thanks them ,you know who you are!

 

All I hope is that when i get older I will still be able to enjoy the hobby.

In that aspect, people like Malefactus, Jasonator and till he got ill, Catdancer are my inspiration.

 

Luckily there are things like magnifiers with headbands, visors and such.

 

Since I visited this forum I also invested in good brushes and this is really helping what you can achieve.

 

I've said it before and I will say it again.

 

This is an awesome Forum and you all are helping me and each other to have fun and learn.

There was a time when I didn't know if I wanted to get connected to the internet.

Now I don't know if i could go without it.

And certainly this forum is like a virtual second home.

 

There are even those who I can call friends here.

Maybe we don't meet in person, but we talk, have fun, share things ( sometimes less fun stuff ) and sometimes glitterbomb each other or send little surprises.

 

So..keep it up people!

Great thread

Great Forum

Great You!

[Jasonator]

@Xherman1964;

 

"All I hope is that when i get older I will still be able to enjoy the hobby.

In that aspect, people like Malefactus, Jasonator and till he got ill, Catdancer are my inspiration."

 

Thank you Xherman !  What a beautiful think to say.

I am sure that Malifactus and I both will say that you will continue on doing miniatures.

He has been doing it for a life time it seems, and still going strong, I am now over three years,

and the more I do, the more I enjoy.  The challenge, and the pure Joy one gets from each mini one does;

contributes to more happiness.  My big concession to age is "smaller handled brushes".. sometime I have to

really hunker over a mini to get that brush control !  Beyond that..Have a blast !

Jay

Edited August 4, 2016 by Jasonator

[junex]

One of the first I painted back in the early 90's.

 

Took a long break. Decided to paint again, ordered a set of Reaper paints in the middle of 2010. Here's something I did back then:

I understood the concept of highlights and shadows but execution was till lacking.

 

Fast forward to now, this is probably one of my current favorites:

 

And a WIP:

I've been working on her on and off for a couple of months now. I messed up the initial layers, still trying to fix it.

[ub3r_n3rd]

@Junex - really like your progress as well, the newest stuff you are doing is stunning!

[Silvervane]

@Junex - really like your progress as well, the newest stuff you are doing is stunning!

The barbarian speaks Trooth.

[Ghool]

Ok, so I no longer have a mini from that long ago....they ended up being worth too much to not eBay way back when.

So, I'll start with the first Warmachine model I painted back in 2006.

 

 

And the one I just finished yesterday....

 

 

I do have the first model I painted when Ral Partha made their first miniature paint acrylics. I'll snap a photo and get it up here. It's absolutely horrid, and will give anyone hope.

 

Here's one I found from around 1992:

 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Ghool

[junex]

@Junex - really like your progress as well, the newest stuff you are doing is stunning!

 

 

 

@Junex - really like your progress as well, the newest stuff you are doing is stunning!

The barbarian speaks Trooth.

 

 

Thanks! I have great teachers. :D

[Glitterwolf]

Wonderful stuff Junex and Ghool!

 

@JAY, Thx.  Right now my concession ( I'm almost 52) is a visor. I can't see small details anymore without those and I need reading glasses for text and images.

 

Luckily I have  discovered larger minis like busts...so if this get worse, the minis might get bigger.

This may lead to other problems though.

 

*** No honey, we don't have room for a 1:1 scale Allosaurus with a Lizardman rider***

[Jasonator]

I'm hoping that more folks will contribute to the display of "I started here, and here I am now".

We all have taken so many trails to get to our respective levels.

I think that these pages are a great inspiration, and a NEWBIE should be directed here to begin

his journey, knowing this is where he can be by simply painting his favorite miniatures !

If you haven't posted, please do, you are making all of us feel proud, and delighted in your progress !

Edited August 5, 2016 by Jasonator

[ub3r_n3rd]

I'm hoping that more folks will contribute to the display of "I started here, and here I am now".

We all have taken so many trails to get to our respective levels.

I think that these pages are a great inspiration, and a NEWBIE should be directed here to begin

his journey, knowing this is where he can be by simply painting his favorite miniatures !

If you haven't posted, please do, you are making all of us feel proud, and delighted in your progress !

AGREED!!

 

Keep posting and sharing everyone!