These Miniatures Changed How I Looked at the Hobby

Transcript

The post office is killing the game right now. The last of my birthday loot came early. This is from SmashBash.com—look at these cool stamps and stickers.

The Unboxing

Got blind boxes, one of those cool hand-drawn content maps of everything inside, and a model from Mold Mold Mold that I absolutely fell in love with the moment I saw it. It gets its own box. I don’t know what it is about this model, but I instantly had to have it. It’s definitely my favorite model that I own, period—so thick and solid.

Moon guys for Sunrot, blind box minis, old Relic Blade metals, and Nick Belli’s book. The book itself is high quality with very thick pages.

Why This Matters

I quit social media years ago because I kept getting FOMO and buying stuff. So I was totally disengaged and missed the beginning of Inq28 taking off. Through Inq28, I became aware of Totally Not Panicking, Gardens of Hecate, Mold Mold Mold, and Miscast—this almost bootleg “taking the hobby back” movement where it wasn’t corporate telling us what the hobby was. People were going back in and actually making art.

Looking at these miniatures was really inspiring. They’re totally changing the paradigm of what miniature painting and scale modeling can be. It made me realize this can be crazy and weird—who even knows what half of it is? The whimsical side, the kit bashing, the sculpting, the obviously handmade parts. Pulling stuff out of the realm of imagination showed me a whole new world and a whole new way of thinking about the hobby.

It doesn’t have to be the base coat, wash, highlight pipeline. I really can’t wait to start making weird crazy things that don’t exist.

Nick Belli’s Book

Over 300 ultra-heavy conversions and mutations brought into being from a pool of plastics, shell, glue, wire, putty, string, and metal. Produced by The Pia 2—same publisher that just did the Tom Hunter book. Very high quality, very inspiring.

What’s Next

The Relic Blade stuff and these Smash Bash minis are my next main projects. I plan on using the resin guys for Sunrot and as a necromancer gathering. This is my last purchase this year—I’ve got the Gardens of Hecate Kickstarter coming in, but in terms of buying, I’m officially locked down.

Time to hit it hard. I’ve got Relic Blade, Normans, the Infinity commission, a second full army commission, plus everything else. A pretty huge backlog just from this week alone. It’s time to paint a lot of different things in a lot of different styles.