In the beginning...

When I began this hobby, it was back in the good ol' days of the internet that involved dialup modems and you actually had to wait minutes before you could read a single page on a website. Back then, gaming communities existed almost exclusively in stores; for a kid, not only could transportation be an issue, but playing a bunch of older strangers was intimidating. As such, my community involved the friends I'd game with - friends are still who you should be playing, but nothing gets the creative juices flowing like poking around diverse communities and seeing what this hobby is capable of.

We ended up spending most of our money an hour away in Toronto at the Games Workshop store there. Every time we'd walk in, the employees were friendly, inviting and were great to talk to about questions, units, options and so on. They introduced me to Space Marine, (before Epic, Space Marine was the name of the small scale game) Warhammer Quest, (Diablo style hack'n'slash dungeon crawling) Space Hulk and eventually, Warhammer 40k.

To this day, every Games Workshop I walk into I see the same friendly manner in their employees. Smaller hobby stores have the danger of getting cliquish and stale - not always inviting to a new player. Hopefully, this doesn't turn people away - and it shouldn't, not with the internet. Now, you can game with your friends, and join any number of online forums, galleries and other sites to share your ideas and learn about all sorts of things you may never have even considered.

Recently, I've been getting back into the hobby quite a bit - we don't get many chances to play, but all the modding, painting, terrain, and so on has always relaxed me and is something I really enjoy. I've had a great time reading what others are doing, seeing some fantastic models and trying to push myself more. There's a lot of fantastic tutorials and people putting lots of work into sharing their knowledge.

The reason I've created this blog is that I want to give back to the community that's helped to keep this passion of mine going. I want to show new hobbyists that the important thing is to practice, experiment and just keep at it; you will eventually get better. Towards that, I'd like to share what I've learned over the years (and still am learning) as well as cause some debate.

I am interested in hearing from anyone who finds these articles helpful and even constructive responses from those who think I'm doing things completely wrong. Everyone works differently, and maybe my methods aren't for you - but someone else could read your view and learn. Comments are enabled on all posts, so please give me some feedback. You'll also notice there's a Q and A section, and I will try to get around to responding to anything I'm emailed either as a post on the blog for all to enjoy, or a response back through email.