About POYI
Custom miniature painting and figure conversions for the gaming
enthusiast
My name is Les. I was incarnated in 1961. I started playing with toy soldiers as soon as my manual dexterity allowed it.
In junior high (1975 or so), I became fascinated with Airfix H.O./1/72 scale miniatures. I painted World War II, World War I, Civil War, Revolutionary War, and Napoleonic-era miniatures. I soon became dissatisfied with the Testors enamels we all used for models and found that I could get some really cool effects using the tube acrylics from the art set my Mom had gotten me for Christmas.
Soon Atlantic came on the scene with H.O. scale Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians, as well as cowboys and Indians. I was in heaven.
In 1979, the magic and game shop I frequented in Davenport began carrying these blister-pack lead figures made by a company called Ral Partha. They were figures from The Lord of The Rings and I bought several packages of Orcs and went home to paint them. I had an idea to create a game where Greeks, Romans etc could fight Orcs. We were also thinking of creating a version of RISK that used fantasy troops with different abilities.
After raiding the figure rack several more times (and by now Ral Partha had come out with a separate fantasy line--their catalog was less than one page of listings then!), the shop owner said, “You guys must really be into D&D to need all these figures!”
I looked at him and said, “What’s that?” He then did something that would change my life. He pushed a plastic wrapped 10x12” box across the counter. On the front was a rather poorly rendered dragon being shot at by equally poorly rendered warriors. I whipped out the checkbook and on the way home read the descriptions of Orcs, Goblins, Elves and the hilarious Gelatinous Cube to my friend and soon to be co-gamer.
Even in those early days, the miniatures drove my games. I could not bring myself to use a monster unless I had a suitable figure to represent it. Painting these things became my first love hobby.
I still have those first Orcs. They are hideous. The sculpting was beyond crude, and I did not know the value of primer or top coating, so they have bare metal showing everywhere. I had stumbled on some black light acrylic paint, so all of their eyes would glow under black light. (Of course their “eyes” were just slits poked into their faces.)
I got better over years of practice. Soon I had so many miniatures, I began to sell some of the duplicates at a local hobby shop. They went fast, and then people started calling me and asking if I would paint a character for them, or do this cool dragon they just got for their birthday and have no idea how to paint. One guy had me paint 200 French infantry from Waterloo. Another guy had me build and paint Rourke’s Drift using 1/72 scale British troops and Zulus, including several converted figures to match the guys from the movie “Zulu.” Soon I had people bringing me batches of figures--PCs for their entire gaming group, with little detailed lists of colors, and notes about which weapons needed to be cut off and replaced. I began to play with Green Stuff (two-part epoxy putty or KNEADATITE) so I could re-sculpt whole areas and make new equipment and hairstyles.
I would daresay at this point I have painted more minis for others than I have for myself. I love doing them. They calm me, and let me escape from the stresses of the day. It also allows me to paint cool things that I have no use for myself. I've never wanted to collect a Chaos Nurgle army, but it was great fun converting and painting one for a customer!
Now I've decided to go online. Only a few of my customers live locally. Many people have stumbled across me on the Internet, though discussion groups, IM chats etc.
I have no interest in making a living doing this. I have a real job, but I do have this terrible need to get MORE little metal guys, and to create new and different paint schemes. Pigments Of Your Imagination lets me do both.
Workin' away
A few bits of my collection
A few *more* bits...
A few more...no, it's not habit-forming...I can quit any time I want...
Samples of Work:
Fantasy: D&D, Warhammer, Mordheim
Ancient Historicals
Victorian and Modern
Sci-Fi
Convert or Die
Scenery
Wargods of Aegyptus
©2004 Pigments of Your Imagination, Westminster, Colorado, USA.
All
rights reserved.