Why do you paint miniatures?

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Wolf_Fang

Guest
really theres more then one reson...

one reson is its realaxing... another is im starting to get into gaming so gaming is a reson.. another is a time waister.. another is its something not many people i know do... third is its enjoyable.. soo it will b commision (painting for friends)... a few other resons too... only other main reson i can really think of is to get the evil out of my head.. i tend to use darker colours and more evil models.. i feel this is because of all the stress i build from taking in everything that goes on in this world...
 
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StarFyre

Active member
:)

Well,

Play D&D with miniatures, and warhammer, and started 40k...so I need miniatures for gaming and I love painting them and learning art overall (in forms of mods, sculpting, freehand).

:)

Sanjay
 
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Frustrated Father

New member
I started out the typical nerd back in the day, playing D&D and breaking out the maps and miniatures and a friend of mine introduced me to it. Neat stuff. Then I go a life.

Fast forward 12 years later, I find a box in a closet with paints and miniatures. I\'m intrigued so I pick it up again. Life interfers again and I get a new job and move the family across country.

Two years later, I unpack another box ... and all the goodies come out again. By this time I\'ve got free time in the mornings with the kids at school (mostly) and the computer has become an issue between the wife and I so that I now don\'t even look at it mostly. Thus, enters the figures, as my wife likes to paint and draw and it is \'family\' time.

Of course that is how it started out, now I\'m all into the miniatures, trying to figure out this technique or that, and buying the damnable pewter bastards left and right and experimenting while buggering the wife about this or that. Now, if I can just get her to show me how to use the camera properly, we\'ll be in buisness.

So .... I guess its more of a challenge for me more than anything. Half the stuff I paint I strip, the other half I want to toss, but I think I\'m getting better at it and one day I would like to just be able to paint a miniature, sell the bugger, and buy another and keep the hobby paying for itself so the wife doesn\'t castrate me for my ebay purchases.

So ... \'OTHER\' for me ... I guess.
 
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Primeval

New member
Started out for RPG use, then found I was more interested in the miniatures than the game :)

Supposed to be a relaxing hobby now, but I don\'t find it all that relaxing at times (doing eyes, etc.)

I sell a few on ebay and by commission as well, but it is mostly an artistic outlet for my barbarian urges :)
 
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Primeval

New member
Originally posted by No Such Agency
I paint minis to express my artistic side. That can get kind of cramped from working in the lab all day. Since I have virtually no actual training to paint or draw (I did take a drawing course recently but find little time to practice), this hobby allows me to do something creative and produce a nice-looking result* without being Claude Monet.

* your opinions may differ :D
Click to expand...

I didn\'t read this before I made my post - this pretty much sums it up for me as well (except for the lab part :) )!
 
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SkyDancer

New member
...A long time ago I played Dungeons and Dragons, back in junior high and high school, and I began painting miniatures to represent characters and monsters on the tabletop. After all, I already had paints (nasty enamels that were oil-based; the old-timers will remember those and shudder) because I was very much into modeling.

Then I went into college and graduate school after that. Working 16 hours a day in a lab pretty much put a cramp on any outside fun things, and over time (a total of 10.5 years for BS and PhD), the miniatures were forgotten. I had a bag full of older, beat-up lead minis (Grenadier, I think, with a few Ral Partha thrown in), and during one fit of cleaning/tossing away the old life, I...I...THREW THEM AWAY! What a FOOL I was.

Then, about two years ago, I saw figures for the WizKids game Mage Knight, and remembered I\'d painted once, a million years ago, and thought I could do better than their crappy paint jobs.

Then I discovered this site, and I was hooked once more, although I don\'t use enamels any more, but acrylics instead, like most people here. I paint because I must, just as I compose music because I must. It ain\'t an option. My mind says \"do it\" and I do it. It keeps me sane, and being a professor, I need that dose of sanity every now and then.

Skydancer
 
Infidel Castro

Infidel Castro

New member
OTHER

I paint as it stops me beating my girlfriend. ;)

Now I\'ve got your attention I\'ll start truth-telling...

I paint because sometimes I do it well. As I only paint sometimes anyway, the sometime good ones are rare indeed - but the idea is still in my head that one day you\'ll all be kissing my polished, holy, pink little arse and calling me your painting master/hero/god/etc (delete as appropriate). A tad egomaniacal? Yes. Just forget I ever wrote this :innocent:.

My muse is my own ego. How quaint!

Rev

P.S., most of the above is most probably not true.
 
T

TAB Studio

New member
On Christmas my then soon to be hubby gave my children and I minis to painted by him represent all our characters all in hand painted boxes. We loved it. Then he offered us experience points for painting. 100ex each piece (hubby GM he has been playing since teens and had plenty of unpainted minis) We became addicted also at the time on ebay starting to sell off his old game material I sold a couple of dragons I painted. We saw Viking lodge\'s work and followed it to his web site that landed us here. Our extended family.
It is a challenge to improve I love a challenge:)
I relax and am very visual in my work so it carries to the painting.
It is quite here at night and painting makes for great meditation time. My labor job is someday going to overtake my body this will keep me busy when I am old and broken.
We also paint as family time,chatting painting good stuff.
 
G

Galante

New member
I voted for the first one, a relaxing hobby.
Sometimes things don\'t turn out exactly like I would like them to, but I don\'t let that affect me and think that a poorly painted miniature is better than a miniature not painted at all, so I just move on to the next.

I also think exactly like this:

Originally posted by frenchkid
... it\'s a nice challenge and the only artistique thing that I don\'t completly suck at, and I always wanted to be artistique ( I so want to draw but wouldn\'t be able to to save my life :p)...
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I wish I had friends into this, so I could offer them a mini or two as gifts, but the internet is my only consolation :~(
 
ipaintminis

ipaintminis

Active member
Originally posted by TAB Studio
On Christmas my then soon to be hubby gave my children and I minis to painted by him represent all our characters all in hand painted boxes. We loved it. Then he offered us experience points for painting. 100ex each piece (hubby GM he has been playing since teens and had plenty of unpainted minis) We became addicted also at the time on ebay starting to sell off his old game material I sold a couple of dragons I painted. We saw Viking lodge\'s work and followed it to his web site that landed us here. Our extended family.
It is a challenge to improve I love a challenge:)
I relax and am very visual in my work so it carries to the painting.
It is quite here at night and painting makes for great meditation time. My labor job is someday going to overtake my body this will keep me busy when I am old and broken.
We also paint as family time,chatting painting good stuff.
Click to expand...

ditto:p
 
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frenchkid

New member
Originally posted by ipaintminis
Originally posted by tooshy
...so I can meet boys....isn\'t it obvious? :rolleyes: ;)
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BAHAHAHAH!
i only wish that were true for all of us.

that gave me quite the chuckle.
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seems true anoth for you becca, you have a small hord of fan on the site ;)
 
L

latinking

Guest
Now I paint cause it´s relaxing, after a hard working day I really like to spend some time painting or building scenics while I hear some music.
 
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sniffles

New member
Originally posted by SkyDancer
...A long time ago I played Dungeons and Dragons, back in junior high and high school, and I began painting miniatures to represent characters and monsters on the tabletop. After all, I already had paints (nasty enamels that were oil-based; the old-timers will remember those and shudder) because I was very much into modeling.

Then I went into college and graduate school after that. Working 16 hours a day in a lab pretty much put a cramp on any outside fun things, and over time (a total of 10.5 years for BS and PhD), the miniatures were forgotten. I had a bag full of older, beat-up lead minis (Grenadier, I think, with a few Ral Partha thrown in), and during one fit of cleaning/tossing away the old life, I...I...THREW THEM AWAY! What a FOOL I was.

Then, about two years ago, I saw figures for the WizKids game Mage Knight, and remembered I\'d painted once, a million years ago, and thought I could do better than their crappy paint jobs.

Then I discovered this site, and I was hooked once more, although I don\'t use enamels any more, but acrylics instead, like most people here. I paint because I must, just as I compose music because I must. It ain\'t an option. My mind says \"do it\" and I do it. It keeps me sane, and being a professor, I need that dose of sanity every now and then.

Skydancer
Click to expand...

We forgive you for throwing the old minis out. We were all foolish once. :D

Welcome back to the hobby. Have you rejoined us at the gaming table as well? Too bad you\'re in eastern Oregon. We\'ve got a good group here in Portland.
:bouncy:
 
Valander

Valander

Member
I had to vote \'other\', since there wasn\'t an \'all of the above\' option. ;)

For me, it\'s not really any one particular thing. Yeah, I use them for gaming (both RPG and wargames). Yeah, I\'ve given a few as gifts (planning on giving two soon). Yeah, I\'ve sold some on eBay. And, yeah, I find it a relaxing hobby.

I think, though, that a real part of it is that it gives me another venue to express my creative side. I like the feeling of accomplishment when I finish a model and it \"looks cool.\" I like the challenge of trying to capture a certain feel by using color choices and so on.

In general, I do it, quite simply, because I\'m a geek. lol
 
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Nomis

New member
Originally posted by TAB Studio

My labor job is someday going to overtake my body this will keep me busy when I am old and broken.
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You think?

First the eyes go so you need glasses then you need a magnifying glass.
Then the hands start to cramp up so you can\'t hold the minis so still or for so long - this means that you can\'t paint so neatly but it doesnt matter too much cause you cant see them anyway:(

With the magnifying glass etc set up time increases (if you dont have a dedicated paint station) and becomes a chore - which means that you do it less often

On the plus side is that you can probably afford more minis and better paint and equipment which you can hoard on the expectation that things must get better:rolleyes:
 
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