I took some pictures of some of my early figures recently and thought it might be fun to put them up here. I painted these between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, with the chaos thug, monk and dwarf with crossbow being done earlier and the others later
Citadel Chaos Thug, Perry Brothers
Citadel Dwarf, Perry Brothers
Marauder Dwarf MM10-DW18, Aly Morrrison
Metal Magic Monk, Josef Ochmann
Heartbreaker Dwarf, Kev Adams
Heartbreaker Goblin, Kev Adams
The chaos thug has a base texture made with a toxic green airplane putty, proving he's among the earliest works I still have.
All of these but the monk have at least one bright primary color, and some have more. I remember feeling pressure to put all the primaries plus green on every figure, as if the Eavy Metal painters were over my shoulder whispering, "needs more red, eh wot." My memory is of part of me fighting that urge, but it winning most of the time. The monk was an unusual departure where I had the option of red pouch and perhaps I resisted successfully there. The way I got a bright red in the first years was to mix thick fluorescent red from the art store with my Citadel red and the dwarfs ' crossbow and hammer are good examples. Later I used red ink, as demonstrated in the goblin.
The pointing dwarf and the goblin with red shield are examples of me deliberately attempting to control the palette as I improved. Note the dwarf has just one strong primary, blue, and the other colors are accents, and there are a lot of various neutral colors from brown to tan to a dirty green (on the wristband). For the goblin, note the blue bag is muted with black so as not to compete with the (complementary) strong red and green, and his belt and shoes are are also dull. The green shoulder armor is the only extant example of a green metallic paint sold in a poorly sealed pot that dried to a solid mass within a few months of being purchased. By way of comparison I still have a few perfectly fine Citadel paints from this era.
They look a lot better than my 13 year old efforts.... and I still hear those whispers of "more red, more! more!"
ReplyDeleteHahaha, I knew I wasn't the only one!
DeleteThose are very good first miniatures. I wish I'd kept more of my early models.
ReplyDeleteNice! Josef Ochmann proves to be a very talented sculptor, too bad he never worked with Citadel
ReplyDeleteYeah, but Metal Magic has it's own special place in miniatures history. Also, I have separate American D&D and British Citadel collections and the figures clash when you put them next to one another on the table. But the Magic Metal are at home with either, being less "chunky" than the Citadel but slightly more robust and cartoony than the typical D&D figure. When you have a group of all three they almost work together.
DeleteClassic. It's great to look back on our old work. Sadly, I sold almost all of my first collection
ReplyDeleteI sold some early ones through the game story display cabinet for store credit and more figures, but I'm glad I kept the ones I did!
DeleteVery nice work. My very first miniatures belonged to my DM, I remember my 12 year old self feeling pretty good about them. I still field the orcs I painted around 1990, mixed in with tne ones I've painted since my return to the hobby.
ReplyDeleteNice! I'm going to try to find a place for some of these in my games as well.
DeleteI'm currently redoing my first 40k army, catachans, mixing in death korps for the tanks and special forces
ReplyDeleteLovely old models indeed, and I am envious you still have your original paint jobs. I wish I hadn't stripped mine down now, but such are the follies of youth. You were a dab hand back in your youth judging by these and far more skilled than me. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteClassic. It's great to look back on our old work. Sadly, I sold almost all of my first collection
ReplyDeleteโกเด้นสล็อต
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