Everyone needs a hobby.
That’s a refrain a buddy of mine tells me every other week. Living in the Cariboo or anywhere, really, sometimes you have to make your own fun. Next to writing and photography, my hobby recently has become miniature painting.
Readers with good memories will recall I have written about this particular pastime before. Specifically, I have begun painting my Leagues of Votaan, or space dwarf, army for Warhammer 40,000. They may also recall that I have a gang of warrior women to paint that a friend bought me many years ago.
What readers won’t know is that my unpainted mini-collection has… expanded in recent months. Ever since Valhalla Games opened up in October I’ve been buying Dungeons and Dragons miniatures on a fairly regular basis. Nothing crazy, just two minis here and two minis there, all for under seven dollars.
I now have about 40 of these minis, on top of a squad of Sisters of Battle, a Kasrkin Kill Team and a few special anniversary dwarves my brother got me for Christmas. Suffice to say, I’ve got some painting to do.
That’s why I’ve dubbed this month ‘Mini-March’. Over 31 days, I plan to paint at least 31 of these miniatures. I figure its a better way to spend my time then just surfing YouTube for random videos.
As of the publication of this column, I am three weeks deep into Mini March and so far it’s been a huge success. I was worried at the beginning of the month that performing in Murders In the Heir would take up too much time but if anything it just motivated me to find the time to do one mini a day.
I started off with a miniature I wouldn’t mind running, a bandit I planned to paint as a pirate with a crimson coat, a bushy orange beard and a fine bronze blade. I was pleasantly surprised when this paint job wasn’t just attainable but actually turned out halfway decent. Every model I’ve done so far has been the same with my simple concept being brought to life by my brushes and paints.
That’s not to say that I’m flawless, mind you. Thanks to my camera I can see places where the paint didn’t quite cover the knee of one miniature, or where metal paint for the sword ended up on the arms of a character. Faces, meanwhile, remain fairly undetailed as I don’t yet have the fine motor skills and confidence required to paint eyes on a 25 millimeter tall female knight.
Still, this month is proving to be a huge confidence booster for me and I’m looking forward to comparing my first model to my last model by the end of the month. In the meantime, I encourage our readers to get back into their own hobbies this spring. After all, everyone needs one, right?
