Many miniature painters' sites I have looked at (and looked at, and looked at.....) have some kind of biography somewhere. I always find it interesting to see other peoples views about the hobby and how their interest developed so I thought I'd do the same.
What can I say? I am a married man with a beautiful wife, two beautiful children (both under 5) and I live in a beautiful 5 bedroomed mansion surrounded by beautiful artwork......, well O.K. perhaps the bit about the house is an exaggeration but the rest is true. I live and work as a teacher in the East Midlands, U.K. which has been my home for most of my life and I guess I like it here (my family have lived in the same village for over 200 years so I often use the excuse of inbreeding when anyone mentions my 'bizarre' behaviour, such as painting tiny toy soldiers).
What about the Hot Cross Bunny? I first drew him when I was about thirteen, messing around with some friends inventing cartoon characters; I guess many of us have done the same at some point. He just seemed to stick, first he appeared in my school books, then later he became a logo on compilation tapes I'd do for friends, he even appeared on my lab books during my Ph.D. He's like an old friend now. Not many people would count a cartoon rabbit amongst their friends, which means I probably have a bigger problem than I thought (must be the inbreeding).
My earliest memory of 'playing with little figures' was when I was about 6 or 7. I collected a lot of the Airfix 1/32 scale plastic soldiers. I don't remember everything I had but I certainly had some British commandoes, some Aussies (loved the hats) and some German infantry. I had the Command Post too, which I played with endlessly, and painted in some enamels - a bright red roof and white walls I think. I did have a go at painting the figures too but sadly there is no surviving evidence, although Mum and Dad occasionally dig up unpainted ones in the garden. At around the age of 9 or 10 I had some Airfix American Civil War figures in HO/OO scale and a copy of some wargames rules from Airfix (again). I used to play on my brothers Model Railway Table. I very soon graduated to building models, mainly aeroplanes but also some tanks, nearly all of which were made by (you guessed it) Airfix.
Seems to be a bit of a lull then until a friend of mine introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons when I was 15ish ('81/'82) which I loved and played for several years with different sets of friends, particularly Phil and Bill at university and Dave, Ellen,Mik and Claire at home, nearly always as the DM. I still have some very early figures from this period and it is amazing how things have changed. I also remember visiting what must have been the first Games Workshop store in Nottingham, strange to think that now it is a large, multinational company. Speaking of which we now enter my GW phase, which I think started with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, a system that I found to be better than D+D and which I played for several years, from around 22 or 23 ('88/'89).
Around the age of 21 I bought a copy of the Warhammer 40.000 rule book and was hooked for years. This is when I seriously got into painting for the first time. I painted a Space Marine army for myself 'The Sunburst Warriors', (see the gallery), and a small force of Eldar, a force of 'Space Dwarves' for my best mate Dave and a small force of Harlequins for another friend Mik. It was at this time in my life that I started wearing glasses - this could be a coincidence of course... The paints naturally were all Games Workshop paints and I still have several from then that I am using now, about twenty years later which is pretty impressive. I guess you can't argue with the quality of their early stuff, although you might have more to say about the paints they make now. I read John Blanche's 'Eavy Metal column avidly and learnt lots and got into shading with ink washes and blending paints and inks on the model before they dried. I also started playing their other games such as Adeptus Titanicus, Space Marine and Dark Future, again a lot of fun and plenty of painting.
In the mid-nineties things slowly faded and interests turned elsewhere. I never really lost my interest in gaming however but slowly my views changed and I started to look more closely at historic periods. In the late nineties I went to one or two 'Partizans', a wargaming show that is fairly close to home. Nothing really took off although I did do a little more painting, a second phase if you like, but it didn't amount to much. The fantasy figures above are from this phase. In early 2004 I started a regular boardgaming night with Dave, which we still do, and then in 2005 I came across Bruce Hirst's site whilst looking for ways of building scenery for my own boardgames. This is excellent stuff and something everybody interested in modelling should try. In late 2005 my thoughts were turning back to miniature gaming. I found a copy of some excellent and free rules on the Wargames Foundry site for Western gaming that we could play in an evening instead of boardgaming. Of course, for this, we needed some figures painting, so I dug out what remained of my painting kit, bought some more paints from Foundry and some figures from Dixon and rediscovered why I enjoy this hobby so much. This time I am spending more time painting for painting's sake rather than for games. It is certainly different to just buy models because you think they will be fun to paint.
That about wraps it up-thanks for reading.
If you feel the need to contact me, I can be found at simon@hotcrossbunny.co.uk