What was your first mini?

[tattyted]

a beautiful little figure of death - hooded, cowled, scythe etc. Painted him black and the scythe blade silver. Bought it in Nottingham in school holidays in the early eighties -one of Citadels first ever models. Probably very basic (both the figure and the painting) by todays standards, but I loved it and 30 years later am still enjoying fantasy gaming and modelling.

Think he cost about 50p!! And got a free citadel catalogue.

[Inquisitor Wall]

First models ever were the contents of a 40K 2nd edition box. Terrible gretchin, Orks and Space Marines.

First Malifaux models was an Ortega Crew.

[TeeCee]

Hi everyone!

I decided to show my first mini I’ve ever painted. I think it was like 5 years ago. I haven’t really painted much since then except for recently. I think it’s either a dwarf cleric or sorcerer. I was supposed to use it in a D&D campaign but never got the chance. I think that I’ve gotten better at painting since then. You be the judge :1_Happy_Puppet2:

[durek]

Hey, thought I’d join in also. Unfortunately this is my 2nd mini done, as I unknowingly gave my first away when I traded my dwarf army decades ago. The Minotaur was done about 17 yrs ago; back when thinning paints seemed like a stupid idea and dry brushing was my ultimate technique lol. I think I may have improved a little over the years (but someday you wouldn’t know it).

[CloudFang]

nice thread..... thanks steamhammer for the link to stuff of legends... i almost forgot about that site and i love lookin through those old models... anyway my first models ever are these two greenskins from heroe quest:

[DevotedTeddy]

Mine was High Elf spear man twelve years ago

[Lord Shaper]

Mine was a chaos warrior back in 92 from a Citidel paint set...

[reapergirl]

Mine was a GW dwarf that's sitting on the shelf right behind my painting area. It's there, next to my more recent stuff to remind me of the progress I've made so far.

[heartnet]

My first purchase was the Battle For Macragge starter for 40k. Didn't paint any of it till pretty recently. The first thing i painted was a box of goblins for the LOTR game. First thing for Malifaux was the rotten belles from the seamus box. just got done with seamus last night, Ill post pictures when i find my camera

[Webmonkey]

Thanks for all the pics and the honesty guys. Its interesting to see how far you all have come.

[Vinncent]

For Malifaux.. that was LJ box, but my first minis was Goblins regiment from GW, I think that was ca. 7y ago.

[Rannith]

I know this is a bit off topic and I appologise but does anyone know if Wyrd or anyone else does a Wyrdstyle Little bo Peep/shepherdess mini? Roughly around Malifaux scale or slightly larger?

[Rameses]

My very first model painted was a Dwarf of some kind from the miniature line for Shadowrun the RPG. I tell ya that was one ugly model and paint job lol!

[Webmonkey]

Resurrects thread,... just to see what the new people to the forums have to offer,..

[edonil]

I'm an 'old guard', but my first painted mini was an utterly miserable Eldar Dire Avenger... something like 12 years ago or more, lol.

[Webmonkey]

*bumps this up, just to see what the newbies have to offer,...* *grin*

[Linus Mcmold]

My first finished painted miniature was a Witchelf for Bloodbowl I guess, but I don't think I based her.

I've melted my Dark Elven team with burning paint thinner after they've lost two leagues...

I really didn't like their paintjobs and I though that I would save time by just burning the paint thinner and paint off the miniatures since they were metal... anyway the details also melted so I threw those away.

My first painted and based miniature is a Wolfen Warrior from Confrontation and I painted and converted him for my friend to represent his Planescape (dungeons & dragons) flind character.

He was supposed to look more like a giant prearie dog/hyena man (noble subspecies of Gnolls). The rat on the floor is supposed to represent a Cranium Rat which are supposed to get very dangerous when they form a conscious hive mind via psychic powers (that's why he has a little brain thingy on its head).

The conversion besides the brain on a rat was adding the scimitars and the cloak.

Here's a link for a bigger picture. The painting looks very messy to me now, I remember I was quite happy with it before My NMM is total trash.

Edited August 12, 2013 by Linus Mcmold
adding more text and a link to a bigger picture

[EmperorsChump]

Oh how I remember my first painted model, its was a Blood Angel Space marine. The undercoating was so thick I lost most of the model detail! I knew absolutely nothing about painting techniques other than 'brush loaded heavy with paint straight out of the pot onto model' I remember it ended up looking like id just dipped him straight in the blood red pot, also..well.. lets just say my painting of eyes left rather a lot to desire.... if I had photos of it id burn them, noone should bare witness to such monstrosities

-Skribs

edit: mind you I was only 11 at the time...

This! (When I started reading this I had to stop to make sure I hadn't posted it! )

Although I was 10! . . . . Oh and I couldnt be bothered to wait for the 'smelly primer' undercoat to dry so he ended up more pink than red!

[Mister Shine]

A termagaunt thats been reprimed a half dozen time by now, lol

[nagash13]

I never found out about the hoby until my freshman year in college (97/98). back then we were playing games workshop fantasy as a group of 5 people on my dorm floor. we didnt bother to read all the rules or form full armies. the first model i painted was an off brand high elf swordsman with a shield. while i was able to "paint within the lines", I had no clue about inks(washes didnt exist back then), wet blending, highlights, or even drybrushing(that i learned by end of school year when i perfected it on a treeman model). the end result was a very color blocked model. it lost all sence of depth without any shading. it might be in a bin somewhere in my well or parts.

[Linus Mcmold]

I guess my wolfman (above) was painted like 6 to 7 years ago and the Blood Bowl ones must have been more like 10 years ago...

I haven't been painting for some time now, but I see a lot of progress on my first two Malifaux minis (which can still be retouched and fixed I hope):

Unfortunately I've taken a photo of Francois before I've finished his base, since there is a chopped of head on it which has a better paintjob than Francois himself.

Recently I've found out they come out much better when painted during the day ().

[nagash13]

any model that is metal can be saved no matter how brutal the paintjob is. they can be stripped bare without worry of damage.

your models will not need anything that drastic. without holding it in my hands, my first suggestion is all your wood is the same color and so you completely lose the detail of the chair on the model.

I would suggest darkening the chair wood and perhaps trying some edge highlighting of the deck planks to lighten their overall color. this will provide some contrast and stop all the wood from blending together.

another touch you can try is on the vertical supports for th deck, take a thinned black wash and apply it to about the bottom third. then when dry do it again but this time the bottom half of the area you washed last time. then one more time just at the bottom. this will mimic what wood does when it is pushed down into a bayou/swamp/lake. wood will soak up water and start to rot. the water wicks up the post above the water level and darkens the wood.

[Linus Mcmold]

Hey, thanks a lot for the useful tips.

At the moment I was painting that wood I didn't even had a real brown color but I mixed the colors myself.

I'm also planing to paint those skulls on the base in some more vivid colors with a bit of a freehand since the idea behind Ophelias crews paintjob was that they were celebrating gremlin version of Dia De Los Muertos.

I've already replaced Francoises sword and stripped Marcuses Machete and glued it back on him. Currently I'm working on another crew, but I'll go back to reatouch all the gremlins after I finish it...

@Webmonkey: Great thread dude! This made me think back about some stuff I liked about painting minis before. I never thought my minis were much bad, except maybe those for bloodbowl. I have a lot of bascoated eldar lying around somewhere in my old apartment.

@Ratnhard (first page): I love your puppets and the roses on the Neverborn bases.

Pink teddy doesn't look that bad at all from what I would imagine (very clean painting) and the pink woes look like chewing gum spirits.

[Webmonkey]

@Webmonkey: Great thread dude! This made me think back about some stuff I liked about painting minis before. I never thought my minis were much bad, except maybe those for bloodbowl. I have a lot of bascoated eldar lying around somewhere in my old apartment.

Thanks!!! I actually like to dust this thread off, every 6 months to a year or so,.. just to see what the new guys have to offer. And to get them to look back at "where they were vs. where they are now". For most, doing so brings about a certain sense of accomplishment.

And for the people new to hobby, it helps them to see that none of us (not even one) started out as a master painter. (hell, I'm still totally garbage *laughs*). But they should know, that if they simply are patient, ask questions, and try new things,.. sooner or later they'll get to look back, and realize just how far they've come too.

Just some food for thought.

[nagash13]

i got some time off work while my friend from back home is in town visiting. i'll dig around to see if i can find that first model, and then pick a couple models i painted more recently.

one thing new people will learn over time is there are various levels of painting for different things. for example, on a standalone large scale resin a person might spend months wet blending colors for that perfect transition from shadow to highlights. an army centerpiece model/character might get extra attention paid to it(not quite enter it into a contest, but close). standard troops models might get the "3 foot paintjob" which means when the model is on the table and about 3 feet from your eye, it looks great, but pick it up and hold it under a light a foot from your face, and you see things you could have done better. extreme edge highlighting of armor is a good example of this. up close it looks bad, but on a gaming table it really works. and lastly a favorite tactic a friend of mine does, and was talked about in some games magazines, is when painting rank and file blocks of troops, the front row gets all the details. shading, highlights the works. the second and third row gets basic colors with washes and highlighting done to all points mid chest and above. fourth row and behind only get a basic coloring with only parts at or above the head highlighted. this saves time, and with the angle of your opponents eye looking at your block of troops, they would never see the lower parts of you troops in the back.