Grumlock

It's been about... holy cow, never you mind how long... since I last painted miniatures with any regularity. I used to go to a weekly painting "class" which was really more like a bunch of geeks painting what they wanted and asking advice when they felt like it.

Terry, the guy who ran the class, was a fabulous teacher and artist.

This part of my life was a phase all its own: I was a new teen mother, separated from my husband, and felt completely cut off from everyone I had known, including my family. The painting group itself was a kind of social awakening for me. I admired everyone's work and their personalities. My best friend was a woman named Adrienne, who made sure I came out of the shell I tried to dive into. I honestly don't know what kind of a person I would be now, if it hadn't been for the experiences I'd had at the now defunct Sunrise Hobbies.

Fast forward through al of the other phases I've had, all the other experiences that changed me, to now. I play Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which is only the latest game I've played, but one which stirred a degree of recognition. Warhammer, as it turns out, was the company that put out the sort of miniature I had liked to paint. My brother/best friend Stu was showing off his Collector's Edition, which came with an incredibly detailed model of one of the characters of the game, Grumlock. Without even thinking about it much, I volunteered, "I can paint that for you."

What was I thinking? I hadn't touched brush to lead in years. Most of my paints were dry, and God only knew where my files and Blue Tack were. Nevertheless, I ponied up, hied myself to the local comic shop for supplies, and off I went.

It was fun. Amazingly fun. I remembered quite a few of the old tricks, and remembered others only after I had finished, whoops! I can't even imagine how the current figure compares to how I used to paint. Am I better? Worse? Stu liked the figure just fine so maybe I'm too critical of myself.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed painting. It's not quite as rewarding as knitting, since I didn't create the miniatures. Like cross-stitching, it's really only re-doing something someone else has done before me, and done better. Still, seeing a lovely painted work, knowing it used to be bare metal, is pretty neat.

Now, if I can find some female dwarfs to paint, I'll be all set....