Shamikebab

Hello! My name is Dan (internet/gaming pseudonym, Shamikebab) and I am a noob painter. But then I guess we all are, there is always more to learn!


My journey began much like a lot of people's, stumbling upon a Games Workshop store when I was a young whipper-snapper and walking out the door with Warhammer 40k second edition. I gamed a little but I was always more fascinated with the painting. I started off with Blood Angels and one of my earliest efforts was a quite hideously bad attempt at Commander Dante. Luckily this model is lost in time and no photos are recorded! I then switched to Eldar, and painted up a significant Biel-Tan force. A consistent theme around my early miniatures was as little skin as possible, a habit I'm only just starting to break. It's important to push your boundaries and test your abilities on as large a range of techniques and models as possible.


Anyway where was I? When I was 16 or so I gave up the hobby, the expense was getting too much and I was distracted by other things in life. I sold everything bar a few models that meant something to me (Some of the Eldar characters, my sole Golden Demon entry, a Howling Banshee Exarch) here the story slumbers for a decade or so...


At some point I started reminiscing about painting, I missed it as a hobby. This led to me purchasing a Warhammer starter paint set and painting the Space Marine model it came with. This lasted for about a day and I gave up and stopped again! I learnt an important lesson here, if you don't love a model...don't paint it. Trying to force a paint job leaves me feeling uninterested and questioning my skills. Even if you have to pause a project and come back to it later a paintjob will always be better when you feel something for the miniature.


A few months or so later I picked up some more paints and some miniatures I was actually interested in painting (In this case a box of Dark Eldar Incubi) and fell in love with the hobby again. When I wasn't painting I was reading about painting. Since then I have expanded from Games Workshop and pick out models I like from the many varied miniature lines available out there.


Currently I'm mostly painting Rackham miniatures as I bought a large collection from a fellow painter. Hopefully I can share some of the things I have learned on the road to this point and things I continue to learn as I become a better painter!

To see my work Click here