The Hobbyist (Who I am)
I first worked with models in any form when I was about 3 years old, coming about mainly because of my older brother. He had gotten a package of the little green army men and began painting them. Now at 3 years old, putting paint on anything seemed like master piece quality work to me. I was lucky if I got the paint from the pot to the model at all, to say nothing of in the right place or in the right consistency. At the time I relied on my brothers’ guidance, and honestly didn’t know much better. As I grew older, I tried my hand at pine wood derby cars, wood working, Lincoln Log cabins, Model Airplanes, Space Ships, and assorted Sci-fi models.
One of the longest running modeling streaks I’ve had in my life revolves around the Games Workshop game of Warhammer 40,000 (AKA 40k). I first encountered this game in its’ second edition, when I was about 12 years old. I happened into a hobby store, and saw a bunch of people standing around a table. Curiosity piqued, so I had to take a look. The first thing that caught my eye was a large mechanized walker standing on a hill top. Asking about it, I was informed that it was a Dreadnought, and that it was used in a game called Warhammer 40,000. Well, a few months later my brother and I went in 50/50 to get the 2nd Edition Warhammer 40,000 Starter Set. He took the Space Marines, while I took the Orks.
When I was 15, I got into Gundam Modeling largely because of my discovering a local shop that catered to comic and Anime enthusiasts. Mind you, this was 1997. Anime was largely limited to those who remembered the horridly dubbed and edited Robotech from the 80s, the tiny segment of Dragon Ball Z, and whatever Cartoon Network was showing at the time. So Anime was a clique-ish sort of thing. But seeing the mecha from the Gundam series, and learning of their presence as model kits got me hooked, so I built dozens of them.
Fast forward about 10 years. I stayed more or less involved in the 40k hobby for the entire period to various degrees. At one point I was able to field over 3,000 points worth of Daemon Hunters, a 6,500 point Eldar Army, 18,000 points of Space Marines, and over 22,000 points of the Chaos Legions. That was when something finally clicked for me. In 10 years I had played maybe 20 games of 40k at most.
It was then that I came to the conclusion that I've always been more of a modeler and converter than a gamer. I originally started this blog around this time as an effort to seriously move from being primarily a modeler to getting more into gaming. For a time I succeeded, and got considerably more games in over a 2 year period. You can find various posts about those efforts throughout this blog. But 40k’s presence in this area had begun to wane for various reasons, as had my personal involvement in it.
My interest and enjoyment of modeling never waned however, and in truth has become ever stronger as my interest in the ‘game’ aspect 40k has waned. So I made a very conscious decision to narrow my focus. I have decided to make this blog more about modeling and the ‘hobby’ aspect, as opposed to the gaming. So this website was re-designed and re-launched with that new direction in mind, returning to the models themselves, rather than strictly working with models that could/should be used in a game.
-Last Updated: October 1, 2014
I first worked with models in any form when I was about 3 years old, coming about mainly because of my older brother. He had gotten a package of the little green army men and began painting them. Now at 3 years old, putting paint on anything seemed like master piece quality work to me. I was lucky if I got the paint from the pot to the model at all, to say nothing of in the right place or in the right consistency. At the time I relied on my brothers’ guidance, and honestly didn’t know much better. As I grew older, I tried my hand at pine wood derby cars, wood working, Lincoln Log cabins, Model Airplanes, Space Ships, and assorted Sci-fi models.
One of the longest running modeling streaks I’ve had in my life revolves around the Games Workshop game of Warhammer 40,000 (AKA 40k). I first encountered this game in its’ second edition, when I was about 12 years old. I happened into a hobby store, and saw a bunch of people standing around a table. Curiosity piqued, so I had to take a look. The first thing that caught my eye was a large mechanized walker standing on a hill top. Asking about it, I was informed that it was a Dreadnought, and that it was used in a game called Warhammer 40,000. Well, a few months later my brother and I went in 50/50 to get the 2nd Edition Warhammer 40,000 Starter Set. He took the Space Marines, while I took the Orks.
When I was 15, I got into Gundam Modeling largely because of my discovering a local shop that catered to comic and Anime enthusiasts. Mind you, this was 1997. Anime was largely limited to those who remembered the horridly dubbed and edited Robotech from the 80s, the tiny segment of Dragon Ball Z, and whatever Cartoon Network was showing at the time. So Anime was a clique-ish sort of thing. But seeing the mecha from the Gundam series, and learning of their presence as model kits got me hooked, so I built dozens of them.
Fast forward about 10 years. I stayed more or less involved in the 40k hobby for the entire period to various degrees. At one point I was able to field over 3,000 points worth of Daemon Hunters, a 6,500 point Eldar Army, 18,000 points of Space Marines, and over 22,000 points of the Chaos Legions. That was when something finally clicked for me. In 10 years I had played maybe 20 games of 40k at most.
It was then that I came to the conclusion that I've always been more of a modeler and converter than a gamer. I originally started this blog around this time as an effort to seriously move from being primarily a modeler to getting more into gaming. For a time I succeeded, and got considerably more games in over a 2 year period. You can find various posts about those efforts throughout this blog. But 40k’s presence in this area had begun to wane for various reasons, as had my personal involvement in it.
My interest and enjoyment of modeling never waned however, and in truth has become ever stronger as my interest in the ‘game’ aspect 40k has waned. So I made a very conscious decision to narrow my focus. I have decided to make this blog more about modeling and the ‘hobby’ aspect, as opposed to the gaming. So this website was re-designed and re-launched with that new direction in mind, returning to the models themselves, rather than strictly working with models that could/should be used in a game.
-Last Updated: October 1, 2014
