Hello and welcome!

It’s difficult to know how to open a blog; perhaps I should begin by saying a little about myself. I’m Ben, a museum curator by day and miniature painter by night, and this blog is devoted to chronicling my journey through historical wargaming.

I’ve been a hobbyist for as long as I can recall; one of my earliest hobby memories is inheriting my dad’s collection of figurines from the 1980s.* I began, as so many people did, with Warhammer, but over time I was increasingly drawn to the historical side of the hobby. In hindsight, this is totally unsurprising; history was always my passion, and as an Egyptologist and museum curator I now get to pursue that passion every day in the workplace. Really, my hobbying is an extension of that.

In recent years, I found myself with less time to hobby, as real-life commitments increasingly became a priority. However, over the last year or so, I’ve managed to carve out time to properly re-focus. This last year also saw a marked shift in how I hobby. I used to paint alone, never really playing any of the games or sharing my work with a community. This time, I vowed to be different. I started an Instagram account, and the feedback there has been incredible, really spurring me on to keep painting and posting updates once or twice weekly.** Most of my engagement there revolves around the Lord of the Rings game, and whilst I will still keep that up I felt it was time to start up a blog devoted solely to my historical models, to give them some of the spotlight.

So, what can you expect from this blog? Well, as you’ll have guessed from the above spiel, it’s all about history, baby. I paint mainly in 6mm (ancients) and 10mm (medieval) scales, but dabble with 28mm for skirmish games like Saga. I’ll be posting once or twice a week to show off works in progress or finished pieces, and there’ll be plenty of tutorials. This will also be a forum for me to combine my paintings with musings on history, so expect plenty of pedantic commentary about fabric patterns and shield shapes.

 Anyway, you’re here to look at things, not to read my ramblings, so here's something to whet the whistle. Thanks so much for stopping by – until next time!

 

 

*Some subsequently received the obligatory terrible thick coat of paint, a rite of passage for all 10 year olds picking up a paintbrush for the first time, but others still lie pristine in their boxes. That Citadel Great Spined dragon is probably worth more than my flat now…

**For those of a fantasy bent do please check out my Instagram page (@model_man_ben). Several of my historical miniatures have already been posted there.