What started you on this hobby? (May have been done before)

[DaN]

In fact, almost certain it\'s been done, but I don\'t like threadomancy, and I can\'t remember ever seeing it, so I thought I\'d do a new one

I vaguely remember first coming into contact with minis due to MB\'s space crusade, and enjoying that.

But what really interested me was playing confrontation with a group of my neighbourhood friends - which was the GW precursor to Necromunda - very open ended.

Alliances were temporary, silly stats were drawn up for cheap gang members, while the main members were rediculously hard and stalked the corridors with vortex grenades and terminator armour

Ahh, the memories.
Particularly memorable was a gang member on my team whose sole purpose was as a suicide bomber - whose main stats were speed and wounds, and whose entire inventory consisted of a harness of plasma grenades

It was fun chasing my friends around the board with him lol

 

[matty1001]

A mate back in primary school used to play warhammer and gorkamorka with his brothers, I never had any models, but used to paint his with him.

Then i lost contact with him, and never touched the hobby till just under 10 month ago when my little brother bought a small Dark Eldar army. I bought a couple of boxes and paint\'s and played a few games, then I found CMoN and started painting for display rather than gaming.

 

[frenchkid]

Well, back in middle school one of my friends bougth one of the warhammer box set, and since he only wanted to do orcs he the proceded to convince me I needed a nice empire army.
I never really got hooked on the game, but the painting part agreeded with me. So I started painting my little minis, searched the internet for tips and eventually ended up on CMON. There\'s no leaving for me now

 

[uberdark]

i started back in 2000 originally for like one month. my friend had just gotten the orc and empire army and i saw this evil looking orc and painted it. i loved it so much i went out and bought the warhammer box set and traded the empire for his orcs. then i painted like 6 of them and a month later i started my job as a teacher. so i totally stopped up until last year when i saw one of them laying in my desk and thought that i would give it a go again. so one year later, here i am and painting like crazy.

 

[GreenOne]

Maybe two years ago, I went to one of my friend\'s brother, just passing by, and saw them playing that game, warhammer, of which I heard before but never saw, all their minis were unpainted and not appealing visually, but this was interesting anyway; then as we were idly passing the joint around, I started looking through the army book...
I clicked when looking in the showcase section that these things are meant to be painted.
\" Oooooh, that\'s pretty.. I think I could do that \"

So I taught about it for a while, and thanks to a loan from a friend, I got the basics through mail order, and started painting on my own, with no other guidance than the GW site.... a few weeks later I found CMON, second revelation for me, and here I am now.

 

[Highbulp Billy]

I was always interested in fantasy novels even when I was very young. My eldest half-brother (who I hardly ever saw) was into RPGs and gave me copies of part of the 1st edition AD&D rules and I used to play out games using Star Wars figures. Shortly afterwards I discovered metal minis and bought a pack but never thought of painting them. It wasn\'t until I went to secondary school and fell in with the \"geeky crowd\" that I started playing proper RPGs and collecting minis and painting them (badly!). I guess Heroquest was a major factor back then as everyone was buying it and painting up the horde of plastic minis (I still haven\'t finished). I took the obligatory break during college, uni and the start of married life and only got back into the hobby after seeing the LOTR range from Games Workshop a couple of years back.

 

[matty1001]

Originally posted by Highbulp Billy
and only got back into the hobby after seeing the LOTR range from Games Workshop a couple of years back.

Well atleast it did some good lol

Finding CMoN seems to be a re-birth for everyone lol

 

[Sand Rat]

Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was but a young innocent (about 1976) my uncle introduced me to a little game called Chainmail and followed that the next year by a little game called Dungeons and Dragons.

I\'ve been doing this for a while.

 

[lono]

I think it probably has been done before. I have a vague recollection of writing down that it was Heroquest that set me on this path to financial destruction. Great little game though.

 

[Ritual]

I started painting minis when I was about 10 or so in 1985 or thereabouts. I played RPGs and I was tempted by the minis they had in the game store. I never used minis much when I played, but they appealed to me and I enjoyed painting them. When I got older, 13 or so, I quit because I thought it was chilidish... I started again on a whim just before starting high school and when I got into high school there were a couple of people in my class that played Warhammer. At this point my interest in high end painting began because I was introduced to White Dwarf and was really inspired by the Eavy Metal team. I painted for perhaps 5 years until I quit again because painting took too much time from my university studies (and I was feeling stuck at a certain level, as well). 4 years ago or something like that I started again, also on a whim as I happened to see a really cool mini in a store and just felt compelled to paint it. But, now I found that GW minis, which was basically all I knew, didn\'t look as good as they used to, or at least they didn\'t appeal to me that much anymore. I decided to look on the Internet and see if I could find anything there (duh!! :redface: ) and, yes, I found stuff. I found Rackham minis that blew me away and soon after I found CMON.

 

[Onis Lair]

Sometime in 2002 i started playing the Living RPG games from WoTC, as me and the wife did not have any home RPG games going. Most everyone was useing minis and battlemaps for the combats so i bought a few just as character markers. Almost no one had a painted miniature so i figured if i painted mine i could spot it easier on the battlemap.

 

[Aidan K]

My path came via Necromunda which I found with a friend on a chance visit to a shop called Mind Games after a trip to the movies. Some epic engagements were played out as we introduced various friends to the game eventually leading to 40K. But our group drifted apart after high school as we went to separate unis etc. Thus I try to paint, though we still wheel out the old gangs for a game once a year or so. Some of the conversions we did through the years are so quaint now, but were brilliant at the time!

 

[Sand Rat]

Originally posted by Ritual
I started painting minis when I was about 10 or so in 1985 or thereabouts.

Now I feel ancient - I graduated high school in \'85 and had been painting for 9 years already - I think I\'ve got minis older than you lol

 

[vincegamer]

Originally posted by DaN
Ahh, the memories.
Particularly memorable was a gang member on my team whose sole purpose was as a suicide bomber - whose main stats were speed and wounds, and whose entire inventory consisted of a harness of plasma grenades

I-Kore used to make suicide bomber minis. They were pretty cool, but became hard to sell around 2001.
I think you can still buy them though at Urban Mammoth if you look at the old stuff that they are now calling \"urban wars\".

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by steelcult

Originally posted by Ritual
I started painting minis when I was about 10 or so in 1985 or thereabouts.

Now I feel ancient - I graduated high school in \'85 and had been painting for 9 years already - I think I\'ve got minis older than you lol

It struck me just the other day, that most people who work in my local GW store are born thereabouts... THAT made ME feel old.

 

[Avelorn]

Well I\'m just happy that I\'m born in 1984 so that Anders can\'t say \"I\'ve been doing this before you were born\"

Started around 1994 perhaps. The first minis I painted were a couple of gretchins for my ork army.. that never happened. I painted quite frequently for a couple of years up to the age of 14 perhaps. My inspiration was the White Dwarf and the local painters that.. well I got to say that some of them could have taken a few demons back in the days. We have always had very good painters in our lgs.. and some of the \"oldies\" have actually started again which warms my heart. Unfortunately we never had any community thing going on.. so I painted mostly alone and the techniques I learnt were by myself or from the White Dwarf. After that period I painted less frequently.. As with Anders I thought it was a bit childish but even more maybe because I was pretty alone with my hobby. So from that time I only painted a couple of miniatures until I quit alltogether when I was around 17-18. Then 3 years ago I visited a friend who played Dwarfs. I said I would paint a mini for him and I did. Then curious I searched the Internet and was amazed that the hobby had been taken to another level. After a short while I found this place.. and well. Let\'s just say I\'m into it now... lol

 

[Sonnyslayer]

My first mini was a Space marine. I think it was a marine with some sort of heavy weapon.
The year was 1997 and me and my best friend spent most of our spare time painting military models. Well, snapping the parts of the sprue and add tons of glue. and a final touch of smelly humbrol paint. I had been saving my pocket money for several weeks so i could buy the airplane model i wanted. The toy store was a 30 second walk from the apartment we lived in. When i got there i saw the warhammer shelf. I was pretty interesting in buying a model but i really wanted that model airplane. So i bought the plane and went home. I still had some money left from my savings but not enough for any warhammer. So i asked my friend if he was interested and if we could team up and share the warhammer. He wasnt very interested in futuristic monsters and powersuits so i had to wait for more pocket money. When i had enough money i went donw to the store and got the cheapest mini i could find(Cant spend all your money on stuff.. every child needs candy) when i got home i opened the blister. I had no idea what it was or how it worked.. i grabbed my humbrol paints and slapped on some blue. Thats all i can remember about the start. 7 years ago i moved to another house. Where i met a new friend
His friend and his smaller brother brought their warhammer armies when they came to visit. They played alot but i wasnt very itnerested in the game. I wanted to find out more about the minis. He explained everything about them and he said that he painted them by hand. I couldnt belive him. I remember holdin one of his skinks in my hand and thinking of some machine that painted them in a large factory. Then he showed me a book with the armies and all that. I wanted to play the orcs. and my friend wanted to play the dark elves. I found out there was a store nearby that sold theese miniatures so i went to the store and asked for warhammer. The clerk directed me to a corner in the stre with some shelves bit alot of boxes. When i saw the blisters i remember the space marine i painted as a kid. I bought a box of orc warriors, 4 paints, a brush and some glue. I painted all the orcs in one day.. I loved it so much.
But i didnt use primer or highlights
I was buying minis all the time and after a while i found coolminiornot.com... I learned new stuff.. i realized this was a big hobby with alot of talent. I also found out there was painters in stockholm with great talent(you know who you are)
And here i am today.

Phew.. That was quite a story
Im sorry about the bad spelling and all that. Its late

 

[lizcam]

Started playing D&D with my husband before we got married back in 1979. They were playing with dice as markers for thier charecters, using the numbers to mark which monster was which.

I finally went into a game store and saw real figures. I bought a few that matched our charecters and a simple set of paints and slapped some paint on \'em. Everyone was impressed, even tho\' I only did very basic colors with absolutly no detail. They were easily impressed.

Then in the early \'80\'s they came out with the 1st slot based figures. By this time I had a fair collection of paints and there were actually articals on how to paint. I was improving and sometimes selling pieces in my local gaming store. It was still pretty crude work, tho.

Got a question, how many of you have hundreds of unpainted minis sitting around in forlorn groups talking about how you neglect to paint them? I do. They keep me awake at night with all the noise. And my hubby keeps bring more home. I will NEVER get them all painted.

 

[lizcam]

Now I feel ancient - I graduated high school in \'85

I graduated in \'78 so imagine how I feel. you\'re still a baby

 

[DaN]

@Liz - Oh I\'m sure we all have stacks of em waiting... In the darkness... Crying out for a basecoat... \"Paint me! paint me!\" they scream...

Sometimes I hear they cries in the night, and...

Ahem. Yes. Too much late night-cheese methinks.

@ Sonny - Wow that was a detailed saga

@ Vince - yeah I imagine so. But we just used the figures we had at hand, so my suicide bomber was actually a plastic warhammer skeleton