the starry nids: the first, feeble steps on the painter's path (some starry nids for you finally)

i have been away for over a week, but i can tell you that doing this project has already started to bear fruit. i just finished my first mini in one and a half years.

i can't believe how rusty i am, but it gives me motivation to continue and improve my skills to the (not very high) level that i once achieved in my painting.

the mini (which was completed on the 16 of february) was kinda like a fresh start, or a new beginning, and that got me quite nostalgic about the first minis i painted all of two years ago. they have been on display in a local store, but i took them up to Auckland with me to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Warhammer 40,000 (they will be back in the store window soon though). while i had them, i also took the oppurtunity to photograph them, and here they are in chronological order.

this is it. this carnifex is my first ever attempt to paint miniatures.

i suppose ironically he was completed just around this time too.

i can still remember how it felt to paint this mini. He was a Christmas gift, and before the day was out, i was sticking him together with blu-tac (i didn't find out that this was called dryfitting until much later)

i was eager to put him together, to see what he looked like after i had finished with him. yet, at the same time, i was fearful of making an illegal model. you see, back then, before i picked up the brush, i had my heart and mind set on being a gamer, blindly following whatever colour scheme was laid out in the codex for me. i had no idea of what would happen next...

hive tyrant (2nd attempt at painting)

in the mid summer of 2010, i walked into a Games Workshop for the first time. i was looking for paints and the new tyranid codex, which wasn't out yet. instead i bought my first white dwarf magazine, with a large section on the army of my choice.

i was soon devouring every word written, caught up in wild ways to paint my army. i was set on paintig my nids in the colours of hive fleet leviathan when something caught my eye. an 'Eavy Metal tutorial on the legion of the dammed by Anja Wettergren. i had glossed over it eariler when looking for nid stuff. i don't know what it was that struck me about this article. it could have been the minis, maybe the paint scheme, or perhaps because it featured another girl, but whatever it was stirred something inside me, and i began to read the tutorial.

as i read the step by step instructions and the hints and guides, i felt a strange emptiness welling up insede me, as if all the thoughts of what i had previousily expected to do with his new hobby had faded and died. in that empty darkness, i learnt that there was so much more to painting these miniatures than i had ever igmagined to be even possible. a new world opened up before me, like the opening of an eye, and it was in there, in this strange, silent, hollow darkness,

that something clicked.

the click ignited the still domarncy of my mind, setting my heart racing at fever pitch. before i knew it, i was back at Games Workshop, buying a strange combination of paints and brushes, something inside my head guiding and reassuring me that the discordant colour tones were the right choice. as soon as i got home i assembled my carnifex and began to paint. i was terrified. i had no idea what i was doing, i couldn't even remember the last time i held a brush. yet the instant i picked one up, the terror stopped, replaced with a calm puprose. i didn't know what was going to happen, wether i was going to be good at painting or not, but that didn't matter. what i did know was that one way or another, my minis were going to stand out, so much so that even the bases were going to be unique, completely different to anything that you'd normally see or ever seen before. or at least, that's what i hoped...

trygon prime, the third mini i painted

skip ahead three months and i'm back in Auckland heading to Games Workshop. in between school and other duties (there's a lot of those on a farm) i had managed to paint my carnifex along with two other monsters. but i wasn't satisfied with just painting them. i wated tips, advice, somebody to teach me new skills and tecniques, and to point out the errors of my work. i thought what i was painting at was standard tabletop level. i thought everybody painted to the standard, and higher than i did, and i wanted to push myself higher than them. i was expecting a harsh critisism, after all, i'd only painted three minis, i can't be anywhere near adequete yet (i mean, the bases look ok and everything, but i only painted them like that because i was too lazy/scared to try and base them properly)...

...so it was with some reluctance and more than a little dose of nerves that i stepped over the threashold of the Games workshop store. I had prepared myself for the worst, expecting to be laughed out of the store. i looked around, feeling a little lost and very nervous. at least the store was mostly empty. it would be ten times worse to get humiliated in front of a whole crowd of boys. with a last, futile attempt to harden my resolve and a deep breath, i stepped up to the hobby table, where the staff were working.

"can I help you?" one of the storekeepers said, his deep voice cutting through my mumbled, lame greeting, eyes blazing into mine in what he thought was a look of polite intrest.

"y-yes. you may help me" i said with a calm, quiet confidence i did not feel. i quickly fegined eye contact by studying a box of bloodletters behind and slighty to the right of his seated eye level, a trick i had learned from my many interactions with normal people. i don't really do the whole conversation thing very well after all.

"okay. what would you like help with?"

"er...painting" the other store keepers were beginning to notice the trygon in my hands, their waves of intrest tingling on the skin. not good. my fingers played absently over the miniature monster, concealing it from view.

"yes," my eyes snap back from studying the shine of the box as they detect a pulse of emotion across his face. irritation maybe? "what part of painting would you like help with?" he continued, aparrently unfazed by the six foot teenager intent on studying every miniscule detail of the box behind him.

"painting tyranids" i relaxed a little, a bit more comfortable with the conversation now "i've just started painting. i've completed a couple of models, but i would like some advice on where i could improvemy painting, and perhaps instruction on how to do that."

"do you have any of your models here?"

this was it. i can't draw it out now. best to get it over and done with.

"yes. i do. it's my latest one, but it's also te third model i ever painted. i apologise for the poor quality of my work."

stifiling every urge to scream and run away, i wordlessly uncurled my fingers from around the trygon and place it silently on the table.

their eyes widend. their pupils dilated. the muscles controling their jaws went slack in amazement. i stood there uncomfortably, waiting for a response. i was completly confused. they must see minis like this everyday, so why did my mini merit this reaction? was it really THAT bad? i stood there wanting to scream ath them to hurry up and tell me already. insted i stood there in complete silence, watching them stare at my obviously horrible mini.

"we can't help you"

the sudden speech jolted me away from my sanctuary of thought.

"i'm...er pardon?"

"i'm sorry." he said, a most peculiar gleam of awe glowing in his eyes, "we can't help you. we can't teach you anything that you don't already know."

i was shocked. i wanted to scream "but i don't know anything! i have no idea what i'm doing!" but then i heard a sound. slowly, like an ocean being made with an eyedropper, i began to realize something. there had been some more people who walked in since i arrived, and they were clustered around my trygon (my trygon? my mind echod in numb disbelief), a chorus of oohhs and woahs escaping from their lips. i turned back to the storekeeper.

'in fact," he said, a smile playing on his lips, "you can teach us."

...i seem to have done it again. waffle on far too much, and this time, in a short story mode! (why, o brain why?). i'm sorry i will leave you with (hopefully)no more words to say. instead i will leave you with more pictures of my old minis.

until next time

-claire