In the winter months of 2019, my friends and I were about to embark on a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign. This was to be a longer campaign so we all thought we would spend some money and get custom miniatures from Heroforge made to represent our newly minted characters. When the minis arrived, I looked at the grey plastic and couldn’t help feeling that it was a poor representation of the epic Half-Elf Barbarian that I wanted to shepherd me through the dangers of the Underdark. So I decided to change that.

I watched a few youtube tutorials, ordered a few supplies from Amazon and after about an hour I had the fully painted (if poorly) miniature seen here. He didn’t have any eyes as those were too small to paint, his skin was all one color, and the base was still bare plastic, but the beginner paint job added life to the mini, and I really enjoyed the process. I watched a few more tutorials, purchased a few more cheap miniatures and kept painting. Our first session of our new D&D campaign went great and my red Half-Elf Barb definitely stood out against the unpainted minis of my adventuring party, but unfortunately the campaign was doomed…

As we ventured into 2020, only a handful of sessions into our new campaign, the world shut down for the Covid-19 pandemic. Quarantined in my apartment, unable to meet for our regular D&D game, I fell full force into the miniature painting hobby. Turns out it’s the perfect activity to do while stuck at home by yourself. As I continued to hone my skills painting wizards and soldiers from the fantasy races of D&D, I kept hearing the same word repeated over and over in the Youtube videos I watch: “Warhammer".

After a little research, I bought my first box of Space Marines, and I’ve never looked back. Years later I’ve continued learning and improving my painting skills and even entered a few painting competitions, even winning gold in one. I’m a full blown miniature painter now and every day I keep chipping away at my unpainted pile of shame.