It ain't easy being green

Try working for this guy.

      If getting the time to paint was easy, all my armies would be finished. Modeling is a time encompassing endeavor, from assembly to clean, priming & finally painting. When most gamers become interested in a table top game, we see these beautifully painted and intricately detailed models. Sometimes, they are professionally painted out of a magazine or on the box of miniatures. Most often they are a force on the table.

       My first experience was in a friend's basement. I had no idea of the rules. I just watched and tried to learn. Four of my friends standing around a table, throwing dice at each other. "I hit 5 times." "Roll your saves." I just sat there waiting for them to die so I could look at these wonderful models. Suddenly, I needed to buy models and collect them all. Even in 1994, that was an impossible feat. Never did I realize that a month later I would be feverishly gluing models on bases just so we could play games. Then we played games..... and we played.........and we played.

         There was one great painter in our group. His looked better than any of ours. Three of us endeavored to paint as well, or better than he did. So I sat at the dinner table with a old butter tub full of water, 3 paint brushes, and a dozen paints. Dry brushing, shading, highlighting were foreign words to us. Luckily, we were mostly playing "Titan Legions." There is only so much paint you can put on those tiny miniatures. But we painted them anyway. It took a long time to take to paint an army. Months went by playing, painting, and working on army lists.
   
      Suddenly, I was engulfed. My life hasn't been the same since.  Not  a day goes by where I don't think about an army concept, or read about a new modeling technique.  The competition and camaraderie sucked me in. All from a handful of what would now be considered an average paint job on a bunch of poorly cast models. But I admired them all the same.