We all started somewhere...

[Stoof]

*takes @ClockworkOrange by the shoulders and guides him out of the room*

"Come on now Mr. Orange, let's go for a little rest shall we. Yes, those were nice Space Marines weren't they. No, the youth don't know they're born, do they. Have you taken your tablets today Mr. Orange?"

 

[cronevald]

These are not my earliest miniatures, but the earliest ones I have on hand. These are probably from when I was about 12 or 13. I have a few more from this time but they're all packed away somewhere at the moment.

My early minis 1

• cronevald
• Apr 18, 2023

My early minis 2

• cronevald
• Apr 18, 2023

My very first minis came from the old Caverns of Doom game which I got when I was 9. My very patient mom helped me paint them. That damned dragon never would stay glued together.

Caverns of Doom

According to Sid Sackson's "A Gamut of Games": Enter a series of caverns in search of treasures of all kind. A die calls up monsters (which, like the adventurers, are metal figures to be colored with the paints supplied) and governs their attacks. Crypt of the Sorcerer was the companion piece...

boardgamegeek.com

 

[spafe]

My wonderful offering... sadly since lost his gun. Painted circa 97-98 when I was 7 or 8.

IMG-20230416-WA0005.jpeg

• spafe
• Apr 18, 2023

 

[MusingWarboss]

Ok, well I dug around and found a few of my old models.

Part 1: The Ral Partha stuff.

Much like Punktaku my early stuff was mostly Grenadier or Ral Partha for fantasy as I preferred the style.

Got them for AHQ.

Silver & Steel: Larry Elmore box set.

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

Silver & Steel: Larry’s Etchings

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

Missing card no.3 for some reason.

Silver & Steel: Warrior Ladies #1

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

Silver & Steel: Warrior Ladies #2

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

Silver & Steel: Warrior Ladies #3

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

Silver & Steel: Random Ral Partha Models.

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

Cleopatra (?) and Medusa

Random Ral Partha

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

Including compulsory “didn’t quite finish that” Miniature.

Lovely Humbrol Gloss finish.

 

[Pierric]

I can't recall which was my first ever attempt at painting a miniature... But I do recall one of my first ever set painted. It was summer of 90. I was 15 and had badly broken my left leg late may, and stayed more than 50 days with a cast. After boring myself to death with WC 90 in Italia (one of the worst ever, I reckon) I painted my "Encounter at Khazad-Dûm" Citadel box in July, on a large wooden table outside my parents house in the countryside.

My technique was pretty basic. A base coat, a more or less mastered wash and some dry brushing highlighting. Unfortunately, I decided a few years ago to do justice to this great set with a new paint and stripped my Gandalf, Boromir and Aragorn characters. Only the Balrog remains with its original paint, but dissassembled.

I had anotehr great Citadel box : the Dwarf Lords of Legends. It was already quite old when I got it around 1989/1990.

I don't remember if I painted them before or after the Balrog set...? Anyway, it was around the same period. At that time, I mainly played RPG with High School friends, and was interested in miniatures mainly for collecting and painting. Such a game as WFB was unaffordable to my parents.

My favorite was Kimril the Giantslayer, since he was a badass looking dwarf and since he was on the cover of Warhammer RPG which I was playing at that time.

Borax Bloodaxe

King Gorrin

Throbin Death Eye

The Baron

For some reasons, three of them were never painted.

We can see that I was using a pretty thin black undercoat, more like a heavy wash, then painted them color by color, "as you dress" as I learnt back then.

Great thread, and great memories....

 

[MusingWarboss]

Part 2: Citadel Stuff.
Here we have a few Citadel bits. Sadly most of my early early stuff (80s) has been swapped, sold or stripped over the years. I do still have stuff from the 90s though.

Advanced Heroquest (AHQ) Early 90s

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

So here we have some of the Earliest still existing (1990??). These three are the heroes from Advanced Heroquest (though they also appeared in another smaller boxed game).

The Elf has lost most of his grass!! The glue got so brittle it just came straight off. Back in the earliest days I never used primer. Just painted straight onto plastic or metal.

At some point in the mid-90s I wanted to re do these guys in an AHQ project, probably after Warhammer Quest was released. So the next two are models from that era:

Advanced Heroquest (AHQ) Mid-Late 90s repaints.

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

These two were primed with Citadel black, I tried to do the bases to match the tiles. One is a henchman from AHQ and the other is a standard Citadel Skeleton.

Marines:

Everyone had some. Here’s a few surviving ones from the mid-90s. I used to have loads but many were again swapped, sold or stripped.

A few surviving marines.

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 18, 2023

Medic, Mark 8, Dark Angel

Never based.

I know the 90s was the era of Goblin Green but believe it or not, many of my models only got based after I’d finished painting a squad!! Consequently an awful lot looked like this for a long time!!

I wonder if I should actually base them now? The DA is missing his chapter logo as I ran out of transfers. I might just keep these three as a sign of progress over the years.

Yellow/Black was my “Fox Tails” Chapter. You can see the logo on the shoulder.

I do have a few more and a DA Rhino somewhere.

 

[daveh]

does never parting with an old model mean we are dedicated or do we just have hoarding issues?
ive just moved house and threw away several years worth of wagame magazines from the 80's , i still feel a bit sick about it even though i havent looked at them for several decades

 

[Gunkaiser]

It's not hoarding until rodents start eating it... Before then it's long-term storage.

 

[CaptainDangerous]

You did the right thing @daveh
I went through my white dwarf collection, chopped out anything useful/interesting, then just let the rest go. It was especially difficult with my earliest mags.
But the very worst is that my mordheim got caught up in the cull!

 

[Punktaku]

I don’t know how many book shipping boxes I have in storage filled with white dwarf and out-of-edition Codexes…. May be as many as boxes of CDs from my record store days….

 

[SuboptimusPrime]

My wonderful offering... sadly since lost his gun. Painted circa 97-98 when I was 7 or 8.

IMG-20230416-WA0005.jpeg

• spafe
• Apr 18, 2023

Oh hey, that is a familiar face:

early days.jpg

• SuboptimusPrime
• Apr 19, 2023

Painted around 1996, when I was 11 or 12 or so, with a mix of those horrible Revell enamels you had to get out of your brushes with turpentine and my first couple of GW paints. Not quite my earliest models, those were Revell WW2 minis, not my earliest GW figure either, that was one of the monopose dwarf warriors, but I can't for the life of me find one right now.

And on the subject of White Dwarfs: I recently purged my WD collection from my parent's basement, because I too just didn't see any reason to keep them beyond nostalgia, and 20 years of WDs do take up a ton of space. But I did keep a few gems, among them the first one I ever bought.

White Dwarf Origins.jpg

• SuboptimusPrime
• Apr 19, 2023

Fun fact: Out of the three currencies listed here, only one still exists.

 

[MusingWarboss]

does never parting with an old model mean we are dedicated or do we just have hoarding issues?
ive just moved house and threw away several years worth of wagame magazines from the 80's , i still feel a bit sick about it even though i havent looked at them for several decades

We just have hoarding issues.

Though I’m not sure if we did before we started this hobby or if by doing it we developed one.

 

[rustedchrome]

My first minis I painted were Testors paint too. I'm not sure if anything has survived, all the minis I have are from my high school years as far as I know.

I did locate the exact model of the very first model I ever bought though on eBay, still in its original packaging although the plastic is very aged.

I remember the situation very clearly...

I had to have been like 9 years old, my folks took the family on a vacation to a California beach community called Carmel. We were walking through a quaint little downtown area and found a toy store. Poking around I came to this wall of miniatures in blisters. Soooo many cool little people!

My folks let me pick one out as a souvenir and this is what my sweaty little fingers picked out:

Julie Guthrie’s Evil Archer

• rustedchrome
• Apr 28, 2023

An NOS copy of the first miniature I ever bought, the original being lost to time or possibly my...

 

[MusingWarboss]

Poking around I came to this wall of miniatures in blisters. Soooo many cool little people!

I this probably describes the experience of anyone who discovered miniatures in the 80s and early 90s.

There’s something quite evocative of the time, seeing a wall of blisterpacked metal miniatures. Spending what seemed like hours looking at them all, the artwork on the card backing, carefully choosing a pack not because they were part of a big army plan but simply because the sculpt caught your eye and captured your imagination.

Sure it was probably expensive for the time but it was worth it.

I’m not sure the boxed plastic we get now offers quite the same feeling, I’m not sure the boxed plastic back then did either.

 

[cronevald]

I’m not sure the boxed plastic back then did either.

The boxed metal (and some plastic) sure did, at least for me. Those end of '80s GW boxes had this amazing combination of art, graphic design, a little story, and stats. Their packaging from that era really set them apart from the rest of the market in my opinion.

 

[rustedchrome]

I’m not sure the boxed plastic we get now offers quite the same feeling

I was thinking this just the other day. I was standing in a GW store recently and it just had a sterile feeling...

In the mid 90's/early 2000's the local comic/game shop in town had a whole section that was walls and racks of miniatures, not just GW stuff either. I remember buying random stuff just because how cool the model was.

 

[rustedchrome]

The boxed metal (and some plastic) sure did, at least for me. Those end of '80s GW boxes had this amazing combination of art, graphic design, a little story, and stats. Their packaging from that era really set them apart from the rest of the market in my opinion.

I just missed the Rogue Trader era and love all the art and fluff from that time period.

Holy moly! Writing that I actually just realized I do have some minis from prior to my high school times, some of the RT era pirates and metal Imperial Guard. Some of them I had originally painted with Testors, although later they were stripped and redone. Some of them are on their third repaint I think, because I redid them AGAIN when I conscripted them into my metal Cadian army!!

 

[rustedchrome]

This guy! This guy is one of the ones I've had the longest, since my middle school years. Traded him and a couple other RT minis from some friends. He's always been one of my favorites which I why I think still have him. Wearing a crummy rush repaint when he got drafted into the Cadians, but I've painted him at least three times. IIRC before this he was dark gray with dark red pads and black bits.

Dude!

• rustedchrome
• Apr 28, 2023

Thanks for the trip down memory lane and sorry for the thread hijack...

 

[ClockworkOrange]

You reminded me, in terms of what I still own its these classic Arbites http://www.collecting-citadel-minia...der_Forces_of_the_Imperium_-_Collectors_Guide I’ve had them since 1993 when they were new releases in those lovely blister packs. Even remember buying them from the local hobby shop.

Now on the 3rd repaint……

 

[MusingWarboss]

The boxed metal (and some plastic) sure did, at least for me. Those end of '80s GW boxes had this amazing combination of art, graphic design, a little story, and stats. Their packaging from that era really set them apart from the rest of the market in my opinion.

The 80s boxes were certainly glorious with their artwork, and I think it was in sync with the culture around it at the time (80s having a big Sword and Sorcery revival, lots of cool Sci-Fi and Fantasy too).

I felt that the 90s ushered in an era of product photography on boxes which while nice, was no way near as evocative of a fantastic setting.

These days it seems a lot more mixed media, sometimes photoshopped photos (added blur, muzzle flash etc) sometimes digital artwork, but it all seems a little… dead. I think it’s a decent enough compromise though, it does show the product off and gives a hint of the setting.

Land Raider Box Art

• MusingWarboss
• Apr 28, 2023

Top: 80s
Middle: 90s
Bottom: 2020s

It’s funny, you look at that and though the bottom modern image is pretty cool, once your eye has spotted it’s just the model kit photoshopped you can’t unsee it!!

Even so, I still think there’s something mysterious about those old blisterpacks that an enclosed boxed product lacks somehow. Not sure why.