A Little Back Story/Frivolous Minis (Crow's Blog #1)
by
, 05-15-2020 at 09:15 AM (2931 Views)
Well Comrades, I thought I'd take a moment to write a little side blog over here on CMON. First up, a little back story - I haven't touched a paint brush in years, but I've been in touch with the gaming/lore side of things for a good while. As a fantasy writer, I've always been interested in the world building side of things.
So I'm not a total noob, but on the other hand never developed past a basic stage of painting. This was many years back when I had a job and I kinda went in at the deep end, bought a load of stuff, overloaded myself and then found I didn't have the time because...... ah, it was frivolous! I sold off most stuff, but I did keep the big set of Vallejo paints and inks that I had.
Spin forward to lock down, and like many folks who have kids, it was a struggle to keep my boy occupied. We set about doing a bit of colouring in some photocopies from a fantasy book. I couldn't resist a giant sea drake eating the Moon!
The significance of this was that I really enjoyed the colouring in - it focused my mind, creating that meditative state where you're not thinking but you are.... intent.
So a couple of days later I was routing through a cupboard when I found a copy of Space Crusade. It appeared complete so with my son and brother we set about a little bit of gaming. It was good fun, and my boy wanted to be the "baddies." When I asked why he didn't want to be the heroic marines, he said "because they don't have a dreadnought." Fast learner, that one.
So after a few rounds, and me getting my crummy snotters blasted to bits, I was thinking about checking out some other baord games. My brother, recalling that we had Heroquest somewhere, vowed to dig it up.
In the meantime here were all these minis, and I had all these stashed paints, and I thought perhaps I'd enjoy doing something..... frivolous. I improvised a wet palette and set about painting a chaos marine. Not the best sculpt, but it was something to practice on. I was quite pleased with the result, trying my hand at highlighting and blending. Just like the colouring in, this really did take my mind off of things. Normally I find it hard to relax because my brain is often over working itself with ideas, and here was a chance to just turn down the volume as it were.
One of the things that I really liked, which isn't too obvious from the pic, is the base. I had no materials for basing, but using the foil from a pack of scalpel blades I improvised some twisted metal sheeting, getting some stained, rusty effect.
Thus was my interest in the art of painting minis once more kickstarted, and I thought I'd take a little time to make a journal of it. Let me know what you think.
Anyhew, until next time, take care of yourselves.
Crow