: 001 : In the beginning...

It’s February and I’m considering this a late New Year’s Resolution. I’ve decided to write a blog about my modelling in 2014. Don’t worry this won’t involve any shots of me in lingerie (they can be provided for a modest fee) this is purely going to be my record keeping of everything I’m painting, and I’m going to paint over the course of 2014. 

This is the 'getting to know me' entry.

Firstly a bit of a background... 

I’ve only been painting since summer 2011, so this is a hobby I barely been involved with. I started off working in a Toy Store. Let’s just say for a dude who hates customers AND children, it definitely wasn’t what I’d call an ideal job. I’m eternally grateful for the employment though! The other perk, apart from a regular monthly wage, was the 20% staff discount, which was gloriously applied to Airfix kits, paints, brushes and eventually Warhammer 40K.

Initially I started off just painting World War 2 tanks and stuff like that but the more time I spent working in the model department of the store, the more I started noticing the rich history of 40K. I read through the fluff of the Dark Eldar and Blood Angels codices, the latter part, the points etc were skipping over because I had absolutely zero context in which to use them, “A power fist? That’s some kind of sex toy, right?”

Then came the first purchases, a ￡4 box of three marines here and there, just to practice new painting techniques. My first models were awful. I started off painting Ultramarines, they were always on the box art, that must mean that they must’ve been cool, right? 

As you can see they aren’t brilliant. These are some of the first models I’ve ever painted. I never painted Airfix kits or anything else before working at the Toy Store. This is genesis.

Sure, I could’ve stripped them and re-painted them but I decided to keep hold of these as a constant reminder of how shit I am at painting and that the only way is to get better. 

My second purchase was a Space Marine Command Squad. I loved the look of the Dark Eldar a lot more but skin frightened me. I couldn’t paint power armour, let alone the semi-naked flesh of a hedonistic space alien armed with toys that would put even the staff at Ann Summers to shame, never mind the power fist.

The idea of playing 40K never cropped up. I was quite happy to play Dawn of War, that was as far as my involvement ever got. I always saw the hobby as being infested with spotty, sweaty, greasy, sexless nerds, that was until a fateful day at the GW store in Preston when I saw my first ever game. Nerds. A sea of nerds. All assumptions I had were true.

I find it quite weird how, as a society, that people who are geeky criticise other geeks as being too geeky, crazy, right? I mean I’m 31 and I still play Pokemon but the idea of playing a table top game with loads of plastic toys was a level I’d just never ever stoop to. That said, I’ll never, ever play Top Trumps, aka Magic: The Gathering. Come at me, nerds ;)

Anyway, as a then 28yr old veteran of Pokemon, I was stood in the tiny one man store of Games Workshop Preston. I only wanted to look at the Tomb Kings Necrosphinx kit (it looks amazing) and between me and that kit (apart from the price) was a table full of nerds threatening to ‘power fist each other into next week!’ and that was like, “wow, I’ll never be one of those people!” My girlfriend even joked, “if you start playing I’ll dump you” 

Let’s just say we’ve now been together a little over 5 years and I have a couple of thousand points of Tau, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Necrons, about 1000 points of Dark Eldar, and a 1000 points of Bolt Action Japanese ;)

Late 2012 I started a new job, something actually important. I went from 23 hours a week to 39 hours a week with a round trip that added a couple of hours a day in commute time. So my modelling suffered because of it. I bought quite a lot with the intention of finishing it one day, so that’s why I’m here now, in 2014 writing this. 

It’s going to be something that’ll keep a check of my progress over the coming year but also provide some inspiration when I inevitably hit that “I can’t be assed painting” slump

Now time for some gratuitous modelling shots ;)

October 2012 - painted a year after painting the original space marines

My Blood Angel Sanguinary Guard painted up as Flesh Tearers. 

Six months after original Space Marines

The best face I've ever painted and it was a total accident. 

Every face since then looks like it's missing a chromosome.