Most of you will know me from Twitter ( @oftheaett ) 

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My mate jack wanted to write about his hobby experiences - hope you enjoy!









From the moment the last drop of glue has dried to that final zenithal highlight hours, days weeks, months or even years after. That is the time of the painters. The time for colour charts, airbrushing and shades. Whether it’s your first miniature or your 41st, one of the best feelings in life is to finish something, to look at a painted model and think “I did that.” It is, as you might have guessed, the hobby time I enjoy the most. The moments the miniature shows my idealisation rendered in resin are some of the finest I know. Before we go any further, please know I am not skilled in the truest sense of the word, I am no Brush Wizard or ‘Eavy Metal Painter, I am simply a keen Novice who enjoys painting models. I thought in this article I would outline a few things I love about painting small plastic miniatures and my interactions on social media.

Choosing the colour scheme is a very big thing for me, I have halted projects for years because I couldn’t settle on the right combination of colours to put on my precious, plastic soldiers. This is mostly because I’m picky, I want a unique colour scheme that is steeped in lore and is, nevertheless, easy to achieve. Also, if I see someone else has done the colour scheme and…DUN DUN DUN…done it BETTER!? That’ll halt my hobby mojo right then and there. This is wrong, I know, but it’s difficult to see someone else’s perfect miniatures and compare them to your own.

This I think is why Hobby Twitter is so important to me. I am a relative Newbie (my twitter account tells me I’ve only been doing this since January), but it is the sharing of this community that matters. Have some models painted as Iron Hands? You bet there’ll be others out there, are they better painted? Maybe. Does that matter? No, because when you all pile in GIFs of Will Ferrell drinking a glass of wine while blubbering whenever anyone mentions our…less than complete Primarch, it doesn’t matter that one of them has created the best miniature you think you will ever see (@errantwolfdave I’m looking at your Ghost Ferrus – seriously check it out it’s amazing). This is because you are, in the truest sense, a community. You share a love for a specific corner of a specific universe that you can all share, predominantly screaming FLESH IS WEAK at your hand whenever you get a paper cut…just me? Nevermind.

After I’ve chosen the right colour scheme, usually focussing on either the lore or colour palette and compromising on the other, it’s time to start the painting. I have what I’ve found to be a different way of ordering my painting table than many others I’ve seen on Twitter. I like to have lots of projects on the go at once. This usually manifests itself as one from each game I’m working on. Let me give you a current example: I have the new FW Knights of Dol Amroth, Genestealers (and Patriarch), Tehenhauin the Skink and some Skitarii on my painting table at time of print. This may seem like I have that common wargaming ailment of Hobby ADD, but I honestly will finish each of these before moving on to the next set. I find that if I have this many projects on the go in a round robin style, there will always be something I want to paint and I will push myself to get past that Rhinox Hide basecoat on the skin of the 14th Genestealer so that I can layer the brass on those Skitarii that looks so darn cool (not complimenting myself, it’s the way they paint it in the GW Mechanicus book). If you find your hobby mojo waning, why not try starting another model at the same time as your current one, as a bit of a mix-up. Let me know how it goes (@FerrusJackus), I’d love to know I helped.

Jumping forward a bit, you’ve finished the model…what next? Many people enjoy playing games with their newly painted models, or putting them in their display cabinet and admiring their work day after day in their hobby room. These are wonderful ideas and I wish I could do this also. However, I have neither the space nor free time to game or store in such lavish conditions. This is the second reason Hobby Twitter is so precious to me. It is a social space where I can store (and share) nice images of my achievements. For me, it’s not the number of likes these models get, although I’ll never complain if I get a few more, it’s my own internet storage space where other people can say, “nice work mate” or “looking good!”. These little interactions make it all worth it, and allow me to reflect upon the time I gave out of my life, and how I enjoyed sitting and applying the basecoats, the shades, the highlights. Spending some of your life painting is important, you must appreciate the time you do, for you only get one life, and it’s a joy to spend it with the hobby and it’s a joy to share the fruits of my labour with you.

Thank you for reading and thank you for being a part of this community. Finally, a note on sharing. I have mentioned positive interactions here, and a special shoutout must go to @StormgradGames and @VincentKnotley for encouraging me to come out of my shell and interact more with the community. An even more special thank you to Andy for being a true gent and posting these silly ramblings. However, there are some people who don’t enjoy being nice. These people should chill out and understand that we all just want to get along and enjoy this hobby together. Enjoy your own time however you want to. It’s your hobby, it’s your life, live it how you enjoy it.