Silverwulfe
New member
I am late to the game and this post is mostly for me to track my progress. I am 45 and have been married for 19 years. I work in IT at a state university, at least officially. As we are a small college in the University, I also get to take photographs of our students, work on our websites and produce videos for presentations and programs, along with day to day computer maintenance and problems.
I have been a reader all my life, to the point that in second grade I learned that the teacher would watch us for a bit and then quit paying attention. Promptly, I would store my papers in my desk and begin reading. Back then it was all kinds of "We were there..." books and battles were very exciting to me. It took two weeks or longer for my teacher to notice that I was not turning in any work... and that's when her trouble began. I was the superintendent's son and she was in quite a quandry. To discipline me she had to be prepared to receive it herself, as she should have been more current on her grading. Needless to say, I still got my licks and then the long speech and the follow up at home (Dad was a firm believer in discipline and if you got it in any kind of public setting, you would revisit it at home). By the time the speech was over, you were ready for the discipline, because then it was over and you just had to apply the lesson. I still love to read.
My parents made a mistake during the Christmas of my eighth grade year. I got a red boxed set of Dungeons and Dragons and a Bear compound bow. I have been a ranger ever since. I have played practically all versions of D&D (excepting the 5th) and sold and bought more books than I would like to tally. I like the World of Darkness setting and still play face to face, pen to paper games in the Mage setting of the Old WoD (the characters were brought to life over 8 years ago... scary...). I played Everquest and then the second one, where I really enjoyed roleplaying. My wife and I nearly got divorced with EVE Online. I still have an active Warcraft account (though I scorned it at the time as a dedicated EQ player), and I no longer know anyone that still plays personally. I prefer to solo my way through the game, so I'm an odd duck. I found others of similar mind at the Warcraft Hunters Union and was sad the day Frostheim left... but I am a night elf at heart and could only put up with Dwarf shenanigans so long.
I do not live within 100 miles of a Games Workshop store, which is a heckuva whole lot of Texas. I have been fascinated by miniatures for some time, and we picked up a few here and there for our RPG games, especially orcs for the bad guys. Trying to find out more on something as intricate and detailed as miniatures just from online resources is not the easiest thing to do. Especially when I was mostly seeing Golden Demon winners and equally high level Eavy Metal figures. Then when you start adding in the cost of all the tools and the paints and the miniatures... oh and the rulebook which is more than my monthly entertainment budget, it is very difficult to take the leap.
And then I found CMON and started looking at the WIP threads and yes, I found way too many professionals but I realized I might could do this. I expect that if I paint every day for the next 5 years, I might be in a place where I'll be proud enough of my work to begin entering contests. Basically, I want to see if I can maintain the focus needed to produce the high level of work necessary to be more than just an adequate army painter.
I have zero skill. I have a few basic tools and I have also acquired a few things to get me started (like the jeweler's vise... which is good unless I turn it upside down, which I find I need to do regularly). I do not have a wet palette, I am using a plain white ceramic tile. I do not have detailed brushes. I have a few Army Painter ones, namely the Standard, the Drybrush and Small Detail (yeah, i know the name says detail, but it's like painting a door with a wide paint brush and calling it good for details).
I did not know anything about a game called Zombicide when I purchased my boxed set of "Island of Blood" around Halloween. I began assembling models with Gorilla glue and finding out the learning curve that came before the paint was ever applied. As my anniversary approached, I began looking for a zombie game that I could give to my wife and found out about Zombicide, downloaded all the rulebooks (great concept, by the way... let people see the rules and the art, they just might buy the game!!!) and the missions. When payday came in December, I made an investment in my wife's love of zombies (very very vast love) and my future in miniature painting. I now have nearly 120 zombies to paint, a handful of survivors and the entire Island of Blood set. I'll be busy for a while, which is good.
I expect to learn brush control and how to work with paints in the next year so I can level up. On one hand I apologize for what I am going to subject you to, if you choose to follow, but on the other hand, I am cataloging the steps of my journey. I can only attempt to learn something from each stage and find wisdom in what I share with others.
TL;DR - I'm gonna paint some stuff to improve what I am doing... and here is where I am at Day 5:
And here is where I work... after moving the computer and in desperate need of better lighting!
I have been a reader all my life, to the point that in second grade I learned that the teacher would watch us for a bit and then quit paying attention. Promptly, I would store my papers in my desk and begin reading. Back then it was all kinds of "We were there..." books and battles were very exciting to me. It took two weeks or longer for my teacher to notice that I was not turning in any work... and that's when her trouble began. I was the superintendent's son and she was in quite a quandry. To discipline me she had to be prepared to receive it herself, as she should have been more current on her grading. Needless to say, I still got my licks and then the long speech and the follow up at home (Dad was a firm believer in discipline and if you got it in any kind of public setting, you would revisit it at home). By the time the speech was over, you were ready for the discipline, because then it was over and you just had to apply the lesson. I still love to read.
My parents made a mistake during the Christmas of my eighth grade year. I got a red boxed set of Dungeons and Dragons and a Bear compound bow. I have been a ranger ever since. I have played practically all versions of D&D (excepting the 5th) and sold and bought more books than I would like to tally. I like the World of Darkness setting and still play face to face, pen to paper games in the Mage setting of the Old WoD (the characters were brought to life over 8 years ago... scary...). I played Everquest and then the second one, where I really enjoyed roleplaying. My wife and I nearly got divorced with EVE Online. I still have an active Warcraft account (though I scorned it at the time as a dedicated EQ player), and I no longer know anyone that still plays personally. I prefer to solo my way through the game, so I'm an odd duck. I found others of similar mind at the Warcraft Hunters Union and was sad the day Frostheim left... but I am a night elf at heart and could only put up with Dwarf shenanigans so long.
I do not live within 100 miles of a Games Workshop store, which is a heckuva whole lot of Texas. I have been fascinated by miniatures for some time, and we picked up a few here and there for our RPG games, especially orcs for the bad guys. Trying to find out more on something as intricate and detailed as miniatures just from online resources is not the easiest thing to do. Especially when I was mostly seeing Golden Demon winners and equally high level Eavy Metal figures. Then when you start adding in the cost of all the tools and the paints and the miniatures... oh and the rulebook which is more than my monthly entertainment budget, it is very difficult to take the leap.
And then I found CMON and started looking at the WIP threads and yes, I found way too many professionals but I realized I might could do this. I expect that if I paint every day for the next 5 years, I might be in a place where I'll be proud enough of my work to begin entering contests. Basically, I want to see if I can maintain the focus needed to produce the high level of work necessary to be more than just an adequate army painter.
I have zero skill. I have a few basic tools and I have also acquired a few things to get me started (like the jeweler's vise... which is good unless I turn it upside down, which I find I need to do regularly). I do not have a wet palette, I am using a plain white ceramic tile. I do not have detailed brushes. I have a few Army Painter ones, namely the Standard, the Drybrush and Small Detail (yeah, i know the name says detail, but it's like painting a door with a wide paint brush and calling it good for details).
I did not know anything about a game called Zombicide when I purchased my boxed set of "Island of Blood" around Halloween. I began assembling models with Gorilla glue and finding out the learning curve that came before the paint was ever applied. As my anniversary approached, I began looking for a zombie game that I could give to my wife and found out about Zombicide, downloaded all the rulebooks (great concept, by the way... let people see the rules and the art, they just might buy the game!!!) and the missions. When payday came in December, I made an investment in my wife's love of zombies (very very vast love) and my future in miniature painting. I now have nearly 120 zombies to paint, a handful of survivors and the entire Island of Blood set. I'll be busy for a while, which is good.
I expect to learn brush control and how to work with paints in the next year so I can level up. On one hand I apologize for what I am going to subject you to, if you choose to follow, but on the other hand, I am cataloging the steps of my journey. I can only attempt to learn something from each stage and find wisdom in what I share with others.
TL;DR - I'm gonna paint some stuff to improve what I am doing... and here is where I am at Day 5:
And here is where I work... after moving the computer and in desperate need of better lighting!
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