Well... Have you heard of Deadpool? He’s a Marvel comic character, he says silly things, sometimes he’s a villan, sometimes he’s an anti-hero? Yeah, that’s all I really know about him. Still I had this Callidus assassin floating around for upwards of ten years. One day I just looked at it and realized this model had the same face as deadpool (and spider-man, for that matter).
I base-coated it scorched brown (my all-time favorite basecoat colour), and with Deadpool as inspiration the model practically painted itself. The first time I painted the Callidus, I painted her body suit with a citadel colour called Tin-Blitz and hit a dead end. I couldn’t think of how to accessorize anything else with this colour. I think I tend to paint most models red because it is a colour with which I can easily accessorize.
I knew that if my Callidus had a Deadpool theme, the ponytail would definitely be yellow. Subsequently I discover Marvel Comics has a Lady Deadpool Character and she in fact has a yellow ponytail.
Six months ago my girlfriend was sitting at my work desk. She told me she wanted to make a warhammer model. She picked up a random unprimed model held my cutters to its head and took special delight as I frantically tried to talk her down.
I work with children who cannot communicate verbally and I know every difficult behavior is an attempt to communicate something. GirFriend was telling me if my attention is divided between her and my hobby neither of these thing will thrive. I knew next time it would be Tycho, Dante, or Sanguinator that would lose their head. These things do not matter; I invest the importance in them. I could hand my GF any model and say: ‘paint’ but she would not get the satisfaction I gleam from them.
I made a vow. I picked up a Vindicare Assassin I knew I’d never get around to using, glued, primed him and began to paint. I painted that model faster than I’ve painted anything: the lives of my favorite (unpainted) HQ’s were in jeopardy!
Painting for someone else is a liberating exercise. I knew the recipient in this case would never be as scrutinizing as I could be. Any back tracking and trying to fix earlier mistake would cost me time. Time was of the essence, the quicker I could finish, the more I could show my Guardian Force that I prioritized her over my hobby. If I never make any headway with this hobby that I pour so much time into, she has every right to claim it is either her or the hobby.
When painting was finish I based the Vindicare with textured paint (which has now completely dried up), I glued a little static grass down and shipped it off to my Girl Fiend. She loved it! Actually her favorite part was the static grass; but that’s what I love about modeling, one little detail that draws the viewer into the world the figure inhabits.
My girlfriend has no interest in Deadpool, she likes two things: big boobs and sexy ladies. Beyond my hobby of modeling my idea around empowering my Grill Friend with two assassins is that in a game of 40k, she is invited to stroll up anytime interrupt any game I am having, infiltrate her two assassins, and become a third side of a two-sided battle.
After boobs and sexy ladies, her next favorite thing in this world would be torturing me. I doubt any opponent would protest the addition of these two powerhouse models to impede my progress and draw my fire Hilarity would ensue from either the damage she could cause, or the rage I would unleash towards the goal of tabling my Griffen’s army of two models.
They say if you love someone, set them free. I feel if you love someone give them the keys to your destruction; if they destroy you, it was never meant to be. If you care enough about them to trust them with your kryptonite, the power you give them combined with your love for them should always keep you on the straight and narrow.
I must say, model aside (which is fantastic by the way), this was a very interesting read. I luckily found a girl who, after playing a few games of WH40k with me, decided that she would love to start her own army, of which I bought her the first model, a nice big Daemon Prince (yes, it's a CSM army).
ReplyDeleteI never actually gave her the keys to destroy me, but she has certainly beaten me plenty - I haven't managed to score a victory against her once, yet.
But she has so much joy when she plays. It makes me happy that she found something we both love. :)
That's fantastic, Trent! So glad you found her!
DeleteI've been similarly lucky to find a Norn Queen who accepts and encourages my hobby. She's even tried sculpting and started painting a Genestealer. When she did, she commented "Now I understand why you do this! The act of it is so zenful!
She also just freaked out about the Armoured sentinel conversion I completed for my Cult force.
I think the key thing is that, if you can hobby and still make enough time for the one you're with, then you're good. If your hobby brings you joy or stress relief, then you have to be invested in the fact that it matters for you, and you need to value yourself highly enough to ask that whoever you're with respect it, too.
The above article was written by my brother, but you may enjoy the following, which I wrote, on a similar subject:
http://www.modernsynthesist.com/2012/11/deepthought-wisdom-of-norns.html