Warhammer Holiday Diorama
In this video I walk you through my process for building a Warhammer-themed diorama from concept to final assembly.
Before beginning the project I knew whatever I did was going to be a Christmas gift for my brother, and in keeping with the wintery themes of the previous two years, I tried to outdo myself a bit. But I also didn't want to go crazy with it either because it was already mid-December when I started, and if I followed through on every idea that popped into my head I would never get anything done.
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The Army Painter Speed Paint Starter Set
There's a Hunger For More Toy Content
I posted one miniature painting to YouTube and it gained decent tracking without me ever having to promote or share it.
Shot with my iPhone X and composited together in Photoshop. Fun fact: these are actually two different plastic green army men. I forgot to take a “before” picture, but they all look exactly the same so it’s easy to shoot one-for-one.
As of writing this post (November 1st, 2022) my Army Man Painting Tutorial + Commentary has 250+ views (posted 9 days prior), 10 likes and has even gotten me 4 new subs. This is a big deal to me because I didn’t really do anything to make people aware of it outside of a very small circle of close friends. It also opened me up to a whole section of youtube creators who are using army men and other toys like Lego to make movies entirely stop motion.
I’ve long known that YouTube is a great place to go for new and unique content outside of what I’ve come to expect from theatrical releases, but I’m absolutely floored by the active community of creators out there making things that they want to see. It’s a fun discovery that I’m eager to dive into even more and hopefully become more involved with over time.
The little bit of traction I’ve had so far as really inspired me to want to record my painting sessions more and to figure out a structure that will share my love for toys, hobby craft, and painting. It’s a whole new exciting time that fills me a rejuvenated spirit to create and share, and that fire has always been what’s lacking from content creation process. I needed to find a niche to spark my intrinsic motivation and I believe I’ve found it in the toy community.
More to come as new things emerge.
Peace and love —
Jimmy
Short interview with Go Solo for Subkit
“In 2015, I created ‘Damn Good! Brand, LLC’ to be the flagship brand for my work as an entrepreneur. Damn Good! Brand isn't about big-name chasing or winning accolades. It's about partnering with passionate people to create memorable visual identities and experiences that stand out in an increasingly attention-demanding world.”
Nov 7 – Ideas
What do you do with all your ideas? Do you write them down? Do you make time to try each one? That last question has got to be impossible for anyone. It’s simply unrealistic to expect someone to execute on every idea they’ve ever had.
I’ve decided I’m going to blog about the lives I’d be leading if I followed through with any of my crazy ideas.
Let’s take for instance the idea that I could blog about something meaningful everyday. That in and of itself would be impossible without borrowing from existing resources. Maybe I can do that. I think it’s what I would with my blog all those years ago. I mostly shared free stuff I found around the internet. I don’t know if Squarespace is the best platform for this sort of blogging, but I think it’s worth a shot.
[Writing break: More as I continue to gather information.]
eBay Finds and Model Painting WIPs
I’ve currently got my eye on a few hard-to-comebys over on ebay. Namely this cardboard standee of a Stormcast Eternal and I’m seriously considering it for the sheer cool factor of having it on display in my gaming room one day.
This week I was also able to score a really sweet deal on a Beastclaw Raiders army on eBay that is exactly what I was missing for my 2k point list of Thunderbellies. I essentially got two Start Collecting boxes for $110 + shipping, so $130 total, which is about $50-$70 off retail (depending on who you buy from) and I don’t have to build the models, which has quickly become my least favorite part of the hobby.
I’ve also got busy test painting my Ogors and have been bouncing back and forth between a few different minis that I bought loose from a local store. I really love the technical paint “Blood for the Blood God” as it lends a really brutal feel to the final look of the mini. I want to use it somewhat sparingly across the Ogors, but I think I’m going to get really messy with it for my Flesh-Eater Courts.
Also, while speaking of the FEC, I was able to get a 2k pt game in with my brother yesterday where I played a Hollowmourne list against 2k pts of his SEC. It ended up not being a great matchup for the FEC as the list is very mobility-focused, and better for taking objectives than it is for directly assaulting an army, as was the case in the game we played “Stirring the Nest” from the FEC book. I imagine if the list was more horde-focused it could have gone a lot better, but he was running 4 Celestar Ballistas that were protected by Sequitors and Evocators and I just didn’t have the power to kill even a single unit. I also missed/forgot a shooting phase and didn’t make optimal use of my army’s full command abilities.
I think in the now 20+ games of AoS I’ve played I’ve managed to win 2, which says something. I think it stems from not stick with just one army, which causes me to misstep a lot, but there’s no excuse for missing phases.
Army Building: A Warhammer Journey (Age of Sigmar)
I have no idea why, but I love, absolutely love, the feeling I get when I’m piecing together my Stormcast Eternals army. If you’re into sports and don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, well it’s a lot like drafting in Fantasy Football. There’s a satisfaction that’s derived from finding pieces and making them fit. In the case of FF it might be getting great receivers, or the perfect QB, but Warhammer lets you pick from a large pool of troop types that fill different roles.
I quit collecting and playing Warhammer 40k and Fantasy completely sometime between 2008-2010 and swore I’d never come back to either until they fixed a lot of the problems I had with the game. Many of my issues were with the design of books and how inaccessible the games felt for casual gamers, like myself. I decided to pack it in and focus on Magic: The Gathering because it was faster paced and allowed me to jump in and out of games rapidly which was more rewarding for my simple ADHD brain.
Fast forward 10+ years and I suddenly find myself in a place I told myself I never wanted to be: knee deep in unpainted plastic and spending my entire Sunday playing a single game of AoS with my buddy Mark and smiling the whole damn time.
