Kid’s Stuff
Time to start introducing this little hobby to the boy. A few weeks ago, he got a box of Warhammer 40K figs to practice on, but I can’t let him have all the fun. Tonight, we glued them together in whatever way seemed cool. Here are our results, sans paint.
Warhammer players will recognize these as Imperial Guardsmen – Cadians, I think. They will also recognize that WYSIWYG-wise, they aren’t a 40K legal squad. That’s okay, because they won’t be used for 40K. Worst case scenario, we’ll run a few games of Necromunda with them. Best case scenario, they each have enough personality to work in a game of Frag.
But they boy and I swung by the local game shop last Monday to scout out the tables, and what I saw disappointed me. Out of 14 Warhammer 40K players, not a single one played with a fully painted army. I’m not really a painting snob. I don’t have a problem with people who aren’t the best painters in the world. But I don’t play unpainted.
I think that a lot of people are intimidated by the level of painting shown in the pictures on sites like the one GW has. Some never even try to paint, others start and get discouraged. And some jump right in by spending tons of hours lavishing ultra detailed paint jobs on a few of their figures and never get an entire force finished.
I keep hollering "learn to use washes and drybrushing and you can have a lot of fun while cranking out tons of figures!"
When she was five, my oldest daughter painted up a squad of Chaos Marines by drybrushing over a black base coat, and the guys at the local store really liked the look of them – both before and after they knew who painted them.
I wish more people understood that it doesn't take tons of talent to paint models that look good on the tabletop.