A Small World

I had many hobbies growing up and I come from a long line of folks that craft but miniature war gaming has stuck with me for over 20 years, it's something I still try to do as much of as I can time permitting, however I always manage an hour or two.

My introduction to this small world was through a set of trains my grandfather had, and I mean it was a full set. Old time train station and everything. I would go from that to making a newspaper and glue battlefield for one remembrance day, cutting the wire to make the dips and craters. Then one day I walked into a games-workshop and from that point on i was to be forever lost in a miniature world.

Some of the fondest memories I have of my mother are during those first few years spent with my hands covered in model glue and acrylic paint, hunched over the kitchen table trying my best to paint a bit of color and creativity into those amazingly sculpted grey lumps of plastic. I would spend every free weekend at games workshop leading my humble army of space marines in skirmishes across miniature battlefields decorated with scratch built ruins made from old cereal boxes, cardboard sheets and chunks of packing foam although you would never know it with the amount of work and detail the staff put into turning them into trench lines, fortified bunkers, abandoned ruins, and patches of trees. I was completely mesmerized.

Once I had the idea in my head to build my own war gaming terrain, I found myself at every craft store in town looking for the perfect tools to sculpt this miniature world I had brewing in my teenage imagination. I returned home with a pair of the most expensive scissors I ever purchased, some wire, a few sheets of sturdy card stock, a bit of putty and got to work, checking every room in the house for unused bits of cardboard and plastic, coffee tins and old birthday cards. The excitement of making my own terrain would inspire me to eventually make my own gaming table and before I knew it I had three or four different sheets of flock and gravel covered plywood to wage war on a miniature scale. Naturally I would craft additional terrain to suit the different theaters of war and always improving with each piece completed.

When my dungeons and dragons group would get distracted looking at the "carved stone" entrance to the secret lair of Grog the Bugbear and compliment me on my attention to detail and extra flair that I put into our sessions it kept me inspired and filled me with a sense of joy that to this day I have yet to recreate although I never stop trying.

The detail in my finished terrain pieces and the encouragement I received from friends and family encouraged me to craft more and finding ways to hide little signature bits and extras into each piece, like an uncle of mine that once painted little mice in the foreground of his paintings that my grandfather had displayed in the rec room of my childhood home, right next to the grizzly bear head and underneath the stuffed badger. But that's another story.

I have since downsized from a large theater of war to a humble smattering of ruins but those scissors have stood by me ever since, helping me move to a new place and start a new chapter of my life or opening new packages from my favorite online shopping service and cutting open the seals on board games so I can make memories with the people in my life I care about. They've always remained sharp, precise and invaluable to unlocking all the creative and created worlds. In my case the worlds I created just happened to be miniature.