About
The Artist
James Mathias, he/him
In my heart I’m an artist, writer, and outlaw; using my brain I spend my days debating the attributes of rectangles; by night I fill my soul, using my hands to grant vibrant life to minuscule soldiers and monsters.
This Website Permalink
Serves as a way for me to expand on and articulate my hobby time though cataloging and journalizing my projects and overall hobbyist journey.
Hopefully you—dear reader—are finding some value in those efforts.
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I post daily hobby content on TikTok and Instagram. I also post hobby content on Bluesky, though I post/re-post other content like politics, entertainment, and observational shit-posts.
I lurk/participate in several hobby discords, if you see jmathiasxiii in a discord it’s most likely me. Say hello!
The Journey so far Permalink
tl;dr: I painted my first miniature on August 5th 2023 and haven’t set my brush down since, amassing around 376 painted miniatures.
Long story, long: The year is 2023, the month June, the 10th day. The Warhammer 40000: Leviathan boxset is available to preorder, on a whim and prayer (and nudged on by my eldest) I placed an excited order.
Two weeks later we were knee-deep in a sea of gray and black plastic.
Let me back up. The year 2011, the month February, the 5th day. The event was selling the bulk of my Magic: The Gathering collection which gave me the capital to make a series of board game purchases, including a rare copy of Space Hulk: Third Edition.
I was so excited to get this classic game, and I intended to jump in and join the mini-painting community. Explicit foreshadow: This game sat on my shelf unassembled, unpainted, unplayed until 2023.
Turns out I was legitimately terrified I would destroy this irreplaceable game by breaking or ruining the minis inside.
Back to the past—2023. Still terrified to ruin everything, my eldest, who harbored no such terror, offered to assemble the minis in the Leviathan box so we could play a game—Yes please!
After they finished building and we’d played a game or two, they offered to assemble Space Hulk, to which I apprehensively agreed. They set to the task and that’s when we discovered that the Space Hulk minis were all push-fit.
The whole !@#$%& time.
I could have built those minis at any time in the twelve years they sat upon my shelves. You see for past me, push-fit miniatures weren’t nearly as scary as the thought of slicing my fingertips and inadvertently gluing small plastic bits all over my hands. </tangent>
Even unpainted these minis were so much fun to play with. I really enjoyed playing Warhammer 40000, and Space Hulk. Both games gave us great opportunities to tell fun stories and the dice mechanics created intense and super funny narrative beats.
In 2023 I turned 49. I had just found Warhammer and was really blessed and stoked to receive a new model kit, plus the Army Painter Speed Paints Complete Set from my family.
I decided I needed to try building minis on my own.
I grabbed the box of Space Marine Bikers that my partner had given me for my birthday—an act of encouragement I think she may regret in hindsight. I had an absolute blast building those bikers!
Officially it was on July 13th 2023 that I built my first miniature kit, this was the day after my birthday. On the 22nd I built a box of terrain elements and started building the contents of the Chaos Space Marines combat patrol box. From there I was spending all my free time building minis. I was feeling more at ease with the building side... Still I avoided painting.
On August 5th I said “Damnit, Jim! Paint something!”
I picked up a box of low stakes 40k objective markers and I built, primed, and based them. I spent the next five days in a swirl of joy, happiness, and literal peace. I was painting my first set of miniatures and I wasn’t ruining them!
Nope. I was having the time of my life.
I got scared again. What if it was a fluke. What if I destroy all my other more expensive, harder to replace minis!
I spent the next month painting six miniatures from a board game I was going to donate, and decided last minute to instead use its contents as painting practice fodder. I painted one for each family member and one for me. I was building confidence while having a great time.
On September 1st I decided to just go for it. I painted twelve Orruk models I had laying around from Warhammer Underworlds, plus a commemorative Orruk Megaboss for which I made a custom base.
I was finally doing it!! And in the moment I was so happy with the outcomes and it didn’t feel like I was ruining them.
For the next 365 days I sat at my hobby desk every night to do something hobby related. Painting, building, project planning, taking pictures, playing games, making player aids, browsing for miniatures and paints. No matter what else I was doing, I always put some paint on a model, every day.
One year later I took another stab at the Orruk Megaboss the overall improvement was stark.
And now? Permalink
My hobby streak is ongoing, it’s been a total of 828 days of putting paint on plastic and loving every single minute.
Two years in and looking back I definitely ruined ALL of those minis, and that is absolutely OK. I wouldn’t be writing this, or making this website or even enjoying the hobby two years later if I had not jumped in, lied to myself a bunch, and ruined a ton of minis.
I can say it was one-hundred percent worth it.
The moral? Ruin those minis. There are always do-overs and more minis down the road, and if you don’t try, you never get to retry.
Love you!