A Matter of Time

Nothing forces you to reach such a detail level... Except envy!

I spent a lot of time painting and still do. Whenever someone comes home for the first time, he/she is usually amazed by my display cabinets and their content, my huge collection of painted miniatures. The first question that follows is "how much time did it took to paint that?" usually followed by "you are crazy!". Sorry, I'm not. Or at least, not to the point of being in safe custody...

Painting miniatures as a hobby was the result of a sound reflection. People joking about how crazy I am to spend time painting probably watched TV more than the time I took to paint my entire collection. Even if they don't watch TV too much, there are plently of dull activities they can involve in - home sport, online gaming, going in bars, chatting or browsing randomly on the net. And they are proud of it, and there's no problem with that. I respect their choice to spend their time as they see fit, and I can do such activities from time to time myself. But for my main hobby I've chosen a different path.

Getting hooked

It all started in 1990. With several friends we were members of a roleplaying club. We encountered there a newcomer, Frank, involved in miniature gaming. Frank was very friendly, older than us, and owned more than one army. He suggested a demo game one evening. We already knew about lead miniatures, but we were mostly using them for our roleplaying games from time to time. I only had half a dozen of them, in various shapes and scales - just the ones I liked. I tried to paint them but the results were just awful. Despite my horrible paint work, they were still better looking than unpainted miniatures.
The evening came. Our common friend had taken two of his armies - High Elves and Goblins - with him. Frank's miniatures were not too good looking: paint strokes spilled over details, the job was chipped in different places, and the choice of colors was poor. But it didn't matter. He laid a grass mat on the table. He put some trees here and there, a couple cottages on one side, and packed the miniatures in two armies facing each other. And the result was incredible. Ordered in ranks and files, with some banners brandished, the two armies were truly impressive despite the above-average look of each soldier seen separately.
It was as if dawn arrived on a battlefield, each fighter eager to fight, the noble and outnumbered High Elf detachment opposed to the brute savagery of the Orks and Goblins horde.

Wich side would prevail? It was time to roll dice! We spent a wonderful evening of gaming, rolling handfuls of dice, manoeuvering to encircle the enemy, to shoot clouds of arrows or to see how close-combat resolved. My friends and I all agreed that it was a great game, being both aesthetically pleasing and fun to play.
Yet, my friend and I hesitated to join. We would have to buy paint, brushes, miniatures by the dozen and it would have been just a start: after that, we had to paint the whole. And in parallel we would have to buy and learn rules for gaming.

Wargamers meet fellow players in tournaments.

Later that year I achieved an impressive high-score on some of my computer games, I don't remember which one. While I turned my computer off, I realized the time I spent achieving mastery of this video game was a total waste. I was playing computer games more than two hours each day. What was left of all those hours of training, learning, playing? Not much. Of course, I enjoyed video games and still do, but the problem wasn't the game itself, but the fact that after playing nothing remained.
I then decided to involve into another activity, where I could produce concrete results. This simple approach brought a wonderful collection to life. I am now the proud owner of hundreds of nicely painted miniatures, painted from time to time at a moderate pace. But my collection is impressive nonetheless. Simply because a painted miniature lasts forever!
Of course, it didn't started easily and my first miniatures were painfully painted. As time passed, I bettered my skills and improved my efficiency. I wasn't painting all day long; to the opposite, I considered that as a mere hobby and did so while listening to radio or even watching TV - the kind of activities I did before, but without painting.

Not only painting is a creative way of spending free time, but once you achieve a neat miniature you can really be proud of yourself. You created something! How many people create anything during their free time?

The perfect mix?

Painting is not enough. Gaming is even better. I've a long history of gaming. Boardgames, roleplaying games, card games, computer games, and so on. I've always felt that gaming was both something to enjoy as well as an interesting social experience. When you involve in the Hobby, you can paint nicely sculpted miniatures, but you can play with them as well, expanding the pleasure you can extract from your work of art to unprecedented heights. Your painting is finished but you can still do something with your miniatures, they are not laying forever in a display cabinet.

Paint and brushes are easily stored.

Many hobbyists are gamers rather than painters. They bring unpainted miniatures to the gaming table, which is real sad because bare miniatures just look like faceless counters.
There are also talented painters who never play any game. They just choose a model they like, paint it using their impressive skills and then let their work of art on display or sell it. It's good but a bit sad - they will never experience the thrill of playing. Using a painted miniature in battle gives a meaning to the work, beyond the sheer beauty of the paint scheme.

Most of the time spent in this Hobby is related to painting. Not even 1% of my time is devoted to gaming. Yet, it's not that I have to paint so much to play so little, it's rather that I can paint whenever I want, which is not the case for gaming. I've not always had a desk dedicated to painting, but even in less comfortable times I just had my painting stuff packed somewhere and ready in minutes. Gaming is like scheduling a four-hour meeting with one or more friend on your free time - as time passes by it becomes harder, especially if this time has to be devoted to a specific activity. It's nonetheless possible, and gamers can always join a shop tournament to encounter other players. And when you don't have time for playing, you can still show your work to your guests.

Is it worth it?

The most common fear I hear about this hobby from people not involved is the time it takes. It's right but it's a twisted argument: the problem is not the time, but the pleasure. If you spend a good time, is it relevant to be bothered at all by the length of this time? I rarely hear anyone complaining about having fun for too long.
Involved gamers complain more of the cost itself, but those often have closets full of unpainted miniatures waiting for them.

Of course, only the most crazy gamers can build a whole army in a week-end. For mundane mortals like myself, it's a matter of hours, days, years - a lifetime. And it truly doesn't matter. Miniature Wargaming is like playing a musical instrument: the more you play, the more you enjoy playing and increase your skills. If you are playing for fame, money, or anything else than the music, you are likely to get disappointed. But if you enjoy playing for the sake of it, it doesn't matter if you learn fast or if you will ever become a virtuoso or not. But a guitar is merely a dead object when not in the hands of someone. A collection of painted miniatures is not.

A human army ready for a good fight.

When you start, you achieve your first model, then the second, and so on. Each time you get more focused and fasten your execution, each time you get more comfortable with miniature painting. But your old models don't disappear: they are members of your growing collection. I've been painting and collecting since 1990 but stopped many times, sometimes for several years. It did not matter - during those times, my collection so far was just as nice as usual, it just stopped growing for a while.

To conclude, yes, it's worth it. I don't regret any minute spent in this hobby.
created on 05 Nov 2004