Poilu_1914 Posted November 19, 2021 Share Posted November 19, 2021 (edited) I thought it would be a nice idea to start a topic where we could discuss what brought us to the hobby, show off old figures we painted ages (decades, has it really been that long?) ago and trigger memories of old figures lost or newly found via eBay. I got my start with D&D when I moved from Switzerland to St Petersburg, FL and my neighbor across the street introduced me to that world. I've been hooked since then. So here is my first entry, from left to right: Ral Partha fighter - dated 1979; Ral Partha Frankish (or Merovingian?) warrior - 1978; unknown brand knight - marked MF 34 on the base. Edited November 19, 2021 by Poilu_1914 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glitterwolf Posted November 20, 2021 Share Posted November 20, 2021 (edited) Great idea. When I was a kid I was into the Airfix 1:72 Military Soldiers, collected them all and painted them with oils like Humbrol. Expanded to 1:32 and started to build kits like tanks, airplanes and some ships. My dad helped me with the first kit which was a Jaguar Jet Fighter. Over the years I got more and more obsessed with how things should look. Borrowed books from the library ( yes! Whippersnappers! A Library with actual BOOKS!!!!) and studied on books about WW II, Napoleonic Wars etc etc.. I HAD to paint the models the right way and I converted panzers to make them look like they should instead of what was in the ( not always historically correct ) model kits. At a certain point it started to bother me. Now I loved Fantasy, Scifi and Superheroes like every kid. And then, one day I walked into the model store ( No! Not THAT kind of models you guttersnorklers!!!) and they had Prince August, Mithril and Grenadier Minis. I was happy to see the minis from the books like LOTR and I bought some Orcs, Undead and Elves. It was quickly followed by Warhammer/Citadel, Ral Partha, Reaper and even some Magic the Gathering miniatures later. I also bought some Prince August molds and some Tin/Lead and cast minis that way...ah the old days when lead poisoning wasn't an issue ! I loved it, no more rules! I only played Warhammer a handful of times and maybe two games of 40K but I quickly decided I just wanted to paint and collect and play around with my armies. Making up my own background stories although the early Warhammer World had awesome Lore and I started out with that, I could paint a mini in any colour I wanted instead of Prussian Blue or Field Grey. And that's where I am now, the hobby expanded to Busts and some larger scale models as well but my main thing is still creating armies with their own stories and colours. 3D printing is now a part of it as well. Joined this forum in 2013 ( not 2015 like my profile says but that's a different story in itself) and I've learned a lot more about painting ( and now printing) thanks to the awesome people here. I no longer have the minis I painted first and I didn't take pictures in those days. But here are some of the older ones I did take pics of, not my oldest work but still somehwere between late 80's and mid 90's. Excuse me for the bad quality of the pics, some where made pre-cell phone years. I do have older models that are still unpainted and I did paint some over the last few years, but since those are painted miore recently I think those won't count. Forgive my ramblings....I tend to talk a lot...on to the minis: Citadel ( Warhammer/Bloodbowl) Goblins: Confrontation ( Rackham) Zombie My first Horde of the North Project from the 90's. Lots of Grenadier models and some others like Reaper/Gamezone and Shadowmaiden. LINKED FOR NUDITY: https://i.postimg.cc/ZnHgyHZ5/North-Shaman.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/4dTFLqx3/shaman.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/C5wXyszg/hero-lady.jpg Harlequinn Chimera Edited November 20, 2021 by Glitterwolf 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poilu_1914 Posted November 21, 2021 Author Share Posted November 21, 2021 Fantastic stuff! I think I need to post more stuff after that! So after my intro to D&D I started getting more Ral Partha and Grenadier minis for our adventures, then we discovered another game and got heavily into that one: Chivalry and Sorcery. I still have the first edition rule book and two sourcebooks! The only rule books I did not lose during my many moves with the Navy. These two cases saved most of my old minis during those moves. So during my RPG days before the Navy I added a lot of fantasy and historical Ral Partha minis to my collection, along with some from companies I have long forgotten. I really liked Ral Partha's Landsknechts. . And then this new company popped up called Citadel. And then they became Games Workshop and started doing slotted bases. By the time the slottas came out I was in the Navy and no longer gaming but still enjoyed collecting and painting minis. The sarcophagus may be a pre-slotta Citadel mini. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glitterwolf Posted November 21, 2021 Share Posted November 21, 2021 Great stuff! 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poilu_1914 Posted November 21, 2021 Author Share Posted November 21, 2021 Going through all my old minis it looks like a few need some touch up repairs and maybe do some proper basing to match my new ones. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Chaoswolf Posted November 21, 2021 Moderator Share Posted November 21, 2021 Cool topic! I'll need to do some excavation of the lead mountain to be able to get some pictures of my first minis I ever got, and even those wouldn't be my first paintjobs. Nice to see someone using those old Chessex figure cases, I've got quite a few of those filled with figures. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckyball Posted November 21, 2021 Share Posted November 21, 2021 Here is one of the very first miniatures I ever painted from back in the 70s https://scontent-den4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/171262208_10159268006203926_3595770513265538864_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=cdbe9c&_nc_ohc=WL-rayyw77gAX_3gbOb&_nc_ht=scontent-den4-1.xx&oh=3e7cd4d73ac1683109a83bd491fd71e4&oe=61C040BA buckyball 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poilu_1914 Posted November 21, 2021 Author Share Posted November 21, 2021 3 hours ago, Chaoswolf said: Nice to see someone using those old Chessex figure cases, I've got quite a few of those filled with figures. I think those are the only reason I still have a lot of my original minis. The FLGS did a lot of business when those hit the shelves! Pretty much one of the only ways to carry your minis around from game to game with minimal damage. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckyball Posted November 22, 2021 Share Posted November 22, 2021 On 11/19/2021 at 12:37 PM, Poilu_1914 said: I thought it would be a nice idea to start a topic where we could discuss what brought us to the hobby, show off old figures we painted ages (decades, has it really been that long?) ago and trigger memories of old figures lost or newly found via eBay. I got my start with D&D when I moved from Switzerland to St Petersburg, FL and my neighbor across the street introduced me to that world. I've been hooked since then. So here is my first entry, from left to right: Ral Partha fighter - dated 1979; Ral Partha Frankish (or Merovingian?) warrior - 1978; unknown brand knight - marked MF 34 on the base. I am pretty sure the middle one is a Byzantine Skutari buckyball 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Dean Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 (edited) Well, I did something like this a few years ago: https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/60890-remember-when-fantasy-figures-from-the-dawn-of-time/#comment-1109316 I was a boy in the 1960s, so I had toy soldiers in the usual approximately 54mm size. During a recent visit, my father was sorting slides which proved that I got a Marx Knights and Vikings playset for Christmas in 1966. Two figures survive from that set, which are my provably oldest miniatures. Here’s one of them, a Viking chief, doing duty as a verdigrised status in a Frostgrave game a few years ago: I also had a casting set (as chosen from the Sears Wishbook), which demonstrated my desire for vast, vast, vast amounts of figures early on. Controlling the means of production is the key, comrades! Unfortunately, Dad and I didn’t know enough about metallurgy at the time to make it work well, so it was some (i.e. 25) years later (and after some practice with Prince August products) that I was able to reliably cast figures with it. That first mold (still in the mold library) makes these three copies of Heralds 1950s British, here painted for an imagi-nation: Early predisposition aside, I got into what we would generally call “this hobby” by buying boxes of Airfix 1/72 scale plastic figures at the general purpose trains and plastic models hobby shop my father frequented. I’ve shed most of them over the years, but still have a few of my original Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood figures: In 1971, when I was in fifth grade, a classmate had a copy of this book: I got my own copy not too long after. Once I knew there were rules, I was off and running. The hobby shop started carrying the Wargamer’s Digest, which I started reading with Vol.1 #2 in 1974. So I was around, a 13-year old connected to the broader hobby by reading the magazine, when Gygax published an article on Swords and Sorcery in Wargaming, the first mention of D&D I ran across. I’d read The Lord of the Rings by then, and it sounded somewhat interesting, although I was more attracted by the idea of doing big battles from Tolkien. Minifigs had issued their Mythical Earth line of figure about then, and I invested in dozens of them. (Which isn’t enough to really play Chainmail for mass battles, as written…) That bit of early imprinting has resurface recently with this nostalgia retro project, to do what I didn’t have the skill to do and couldn’t afford to do then: https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/79755-minifigs-mythical-earth-lord-of-the-rings-warbands-picture-heavy/ Within a couple of years, I decided that the D&D did sound interesting, so I ended up with a copy for my 15th birthday in 1976. As you see, I still have it. That triggered the purchase of a lot more metal fantasy figures (as shown in the first linked thread), and I’ve shifted back and forth ever since between hex-and-chit board wargames, fatnasy miniatures, role-playing games, and historical miniatures in a variety of periods. My current projects include a portable fantasy skirmish set, which includes an homage to Airfix, by using a bunch of Robin Hood figures: Three of the five humans defending the ford (not the two armored swordsmen) are Airfix. I’m also noodling around with some ideas for a miniatures-based original D&D game, with a flexible cut-off for antiquity of figures. (Probably 1985/6, but there may be a super-authentic 1976/7 version as well). Edited March 16, 2022 by Rob Dean 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poilu_1914 Posted March 16, 2022 Author Share Posted March 16, 2022 Holy cow @Rob Dean, those bring back memories! I haven't seen an original D&D manual set in ages! And Wargamer's Digest on top of that! Very cool. I still have my original Chivalry & Sorcery book and the two sourcebooks. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Dean Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 @Poilu_1914, I have not kept absolutely everything, but so much of high school and college was wrapped up in D&D that I have never considered selling my original rules, and the two Wargamer’s Digests with the D&D articles are part of that history (and weren’t hotly collected last time I checked, but that may have changed). My original collection of Strategic Reviews and Dragons, on the other hand, got sold at some point, and the deal included a Best of the Dragon Vol 1 which included all the articles from the SR and early Dragon I wanted to have for gaming. My AD&D collection was trimmed down to just my first three hardcovers at some point in the early ‘90s. I’ve only revisited AD&D on the table once since then (~2013), so I have not yet regretted that decision. Chivalry and Sorcery was pretty hard core. Did you play it? I owned it in a collecting fit in the early ‘90s, but never tried it … 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poilu_1914 Posted March 16, 2022 Author Share Posted March 16, 2022 16 minutes ago, Rob Dean said: Chivalry and Sorcery was pretty hard core. Did you play it? That was pretty much our go to game. Loved it. We did do some in-house modifications, mostly to do with social standing. We made it so if you gathered enough treasure/experience and whatnot you could actually climb the social ladder, starting at being knighted. Of course this also depended on your alignment. One of the source books had barroom brawl rules so we tried that several times, loads of fun. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egg of Coot Posted May 7, 2022 Share Posted May 7, 2022 I got into Dungeons & Dragons in the spring of 1983. I picked up my first miniatures in the fall of that year. I still have my first mini, an Asgard Dwarf Lord in plate mail, somewhere amongst the boxes of figs I have around the house. Unfortunately, none of my original paintwork survives - I repainted everything I had sometime in the late 90s. The Egg 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Jack Posted May 8, 2022 Share Posted May 8, 2022 (edited) I'm currently painting another version of one of the TSR 5303 Magic Users and Illusionists box set figures - the "magic user with pack"... He represents one of my old NPCs, "Patch", a "kindly old wizard who's fond of performing magic for children", but who actually happens to be Neutral Evil and occasionally makes one or two of those children disappear. I still have my original figure from back in the '80's, so I'll be posting a few side-by-side pics in a week or two, assuming I find the time to finish it. I've posted some pics of my early work before, I'll have to see if I can still find them. My shadowbox I've had since I started painting at age 15... Most of these are from my Testors enamels days. The wererat in the middle and the goblin and kobold on the bottom shelf are the first miniatures I ever owned, bought from a kid down the street who painted. The stunning quality of my early work, lol... The guy with the shield is my first ever conversion... Edited May 8, 2022 by Mad Jack 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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