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Sinister Hobby, Athens, PA (2026)

05/30/2026

Look How Far We’ve Come!
Practice? We Talking About Practice!?

So today was a lovely day here in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and despite having a tendency to spend weekends wallowing as a hobby troll, I took advantage of the weather and got out for a couple-mile hike at a local state park.

Along the way I stopped by my dad’s house, and after feeding his lich-like cat, I stepped into my childhood room. There sat some of my earliest pieces of DIY terrain. The oldest was quite literally me duct-taping twigs to a 2-liter soda bottle as a “hut,” but these were from the period when I first started monkeying around with foam and slowly improving as a painter.

All of these pieces were made from scrap foam, wood, and whatever other materials I could scrounge together. As a poor college student, I barely had enough money to buy the secondhand minis I was fielding, let alone fancy terrain or the ideal materials to build it.

While they’re considerably rougher than my more recent work, it does make me smile looking at them and remembering when they were quite literally the only terrain pieces I had.

All of them were built for Warmachine/Hordes, and hopefully you can see how they correspond to the Trollbloods, Circle Orboros, and Convergence factions. I know there were others too, including a large Trollkin shrine and some kind of Convergence power generator... thing. Those were either sold or thrown away. I honestly can’t remember. They may even still be lurking somewhere in the garage. 🤷‍♂️

The foam work is rudimentary. The paint jobs are rough. The materials aren’t necessarily ideal.
But it makes me smile seeing these old friends.

Despite Allen Iverson’s famous aversion to practice, I do think mine helped me grow as a hobbyist, and taking a look in the rearview mirror every now and then is kind of neat.

Who knows? Maybe in another twenty years I’ll look back at the things I’m building now and see all the ways I’ve improved.

After all, none of us start out making our best work—we just keep making things, and hopefully get a little better along the way. 😁

Journey before destination, am I right? 😅

05/29/2026

Finished Friday #19
Sneaky Snakes

To state the obvious: I like miniatures. I enjoy finding new ones and different ones that fill potential gaps in encounters and scenarios. I’ve got fancy boutique resin ones. I’ve got overpriced plastic ones from self-serving companies. I’ve got “old school” metal minis. I’ve got fragile 3D-printed ones. And I’ve got cheaper board game plastic ones.

Today’s focus is on the cheaper board game minis.

I decided to share the Viper Tatzylwyrms I painted from Privateer Press’ Widower’s Wood board game. Like all of the enemy minis in the short-lived Iron Kingdoms Adventures board game series, these guys came in garish blue, red, and purple plastic. As board game minis, they were also fused to soft plastic bases—many of which were noticeably warped.

When I work on softer plastic minis like these, the first thing I usually do after washing them is cut off and toss the original base. Mounting the miniature on a proper hard plastic base goes a long way toward the overall glow-up.

Then? Paint like normal 🤷‍♂️

For these guys, I painted half in an orange scheme and the other half in a light green. Both were based on official color schemes from Privateer Press sourcebooks and gave me an excuse to experiment a bit more with Contrast/Speedpaints. I still highlighted everything traditionally afterward, and while I don’t think those paints will ever fully replace standard layering for me, they definitely helped speed things along.

I really love seeing the finished result compared to the original oily-looking bright plastic. Once painted, they finally feel like actual miniatures instead of the kind of single-color toys you’d find tossed in a bargain bin.

I’ll always pick up miniatures I like from traditional companies and 3D creators alike, but I also really enjoy mining “dudes on a map” board games for extra variety. Companies like CMON and Monolith often end up hovering around the $1-per-mini range, which makes them hard to ignore.
I’ve absolutely backed Kickstarters purely for the miniatures before 🤷‍♂️

I picked up Ankh, kept what I wanted, and sold off duplicate components without ever looking back haha.

Mileage may vary, but a lot of “failed” or overlooked board games can still yield fantastic hobby value. Many less-popular CMON Kickstarter games eventually hit deep discounts while still containing genuinely solid minis.

A few years ago, Five Below even had Arena of the Planeswalkers sets for around $5. You got something like 20 minis in a box. Sure, some were rougher than others, but for pennies on the dollar they made excellent practice models or NPC fillers.

I’m sure plenty of other hobbyists already use board game minis this way, but if you hadn’t considered it before, hopefully this was enlightening.

Looking at these slithery bois did make me realize just how many serpentine creatures have quietly worked their way into my collection over the years. It’s a lot 😅

What a shock…

I know, right?

Thanks for stopping by as always, everyone! I hope to get up to a few more things worth sharing this weekend 😁

05/28/2026

Execute Order 66
Time to say goodbye?

“Do it!” I’m over here saying with pursed lips in my best (read: horrible) Palpatine impression.

So, like I’m sure many of you can relate to, I have stuff in the old collection that realistically doesn’t need to be there anymore. I’m not talking about the pile of shame or the “I’ll get to it eventually” stuff.

Lord knows you have plenty of both.

Right, but I mean the things you know will honestly never hit the table or desk again. For example: Blood Rage. Had it and sold it. Cthulhu Wars does that game better for me with a stronger asymmetrical focus, and I already have plenty of Viking minis from Mythic Battles: Ragnarok. Warmachine: High Command? Interesting universe I was invested in, but the gameplay felt clunky, so I sold it before it was discontinued.

It’s a balance at times, figuring out where to trim the fat.

So that brings me to my ruminations today. Star Wars was the defining interest of mine for years. Although fantasy trumps sci-fi for me basically every time, Star Wars captured my imagination at an early age and I’ve loved interacting with the franchise in so many different ways.

Naturally that also meant enjoying Star Wars on the tabletop. I had the Star Wars LCG from Fantasy Flight in its entirety and frequently played X-Wing competitively before the 2.0 overhaul.

But then came the Dark Times* and the Purge*.

The LCG was large, time-consuming, and never actually hit the table anymore. Sold.

X-Wing stopped being played locally, and I feel like Atomic Mass kind of fumbled the handoff. Sold.

So that left Shatterpoint as the sole Star Wars game in my collection. I bought it specifically to play with a person who is no longer in my life. It’s an awkward scale, so it doesn’t really mesh with other miniatures. Atomic Mass also more or less dropped regular support by shifting it into a specialist category. None of it is even painted at this point.

Cue the Andrea Bocelli?

I think the right call is to freeze these guys in carbonite—or, more accurately, bubble wrap and cardboard—and send them off to a new buyer.

Yoda did say, “Fear of loss is a path to the dark side,” so maybe letting my Shatterpoint stuff go will help offset the Dragon Sickness?

Probably not 😅

*Both fun Star Wars Comic series Dark Horse put out 😁

05/27/2026

WIP Wednesday #19
The Cult of the New

So with this newer approach of actually finishing projects in progress—and resisting the siren song of paying my tithes to the Cult of the New—I’ve had to fully confront all the skeletons hiding in the hobby closet.

… there are a lot of them.

I had previously shared the two fantasy city buildings I completed using those Michael’s craft house bases, along with the much larger tavern build currently stuck in limbo and three additional untouched shells patiently waiting their turn.

“Patiently” he says…

Considering how much mileage I could get out of these for D&D, Guards of Traitor’s Toll, Frostgrave, Moonstone, and whatever other fantasy nonsense catches my eye next week, I decided it was finally time to start mapping out plans and pushing them forward again. The backlog beckons.

I’m still really happy with the magnetized floor design that allows for interior play, so I’ll definitely continue using that approach moving forward. I’ve also tried to incorporate more elevated playable areas into the builds because I think verticality adds a ton of visual interest to the table.

The large halfway-finished building is intended to become a tavern/inn, and I spent a good chunk of time building up the exterior details this week. Longtime followers might remember this thing originally started as a completely different design before I started to retro fit to match my current builds and it spiraled into my largest city building yet.

You know… as hobby builders do.

Thankfully a lot of the techniques involved are things I’ve already used elsewhere, so theoretically the process should go fairly smoothly.

But as they say “the best laid plans of mice and men…”

I also started blocking out a small guardhouse complete with an exposed holding cell. I think it’ll add a lot of character to the town and should pair nicely with some of the ideas I explored on the modular portcullis terrain piece.

Nothing wildly sexy to share just yet, but honestly it feels good revisiting some older projects with intention instead of constantly sprinting toward the next shiny thing.

Growth. Maturity. Character development?

Let’s not get carried away. … who knows what hobbysidequest derails me tomorrow 😅

05/26/2026

Our follower score is now “good”
…according to the Credit Score Benchmark

Whew! 700 followers is sure a sight to behold, and I’m genuinely thankful for all the comments, reactions, and shares so many of you have contributed over the last few months.

I know my yapping can get lengthy at times, but I genuinely get excited about this hobby. Even though this space started as just a little corner for me to ramble about projects and paint tiny monsters, I’m really glad there are people here who enjoy the ride alongside me.

While I absolutely snag minis from larger studios when it suits me, I also really try to highlight smaller creators and companies making unique, inspiring stuff that people may have otherwise missed. There are so many cool things out there if you keep your eyes open.

So with that in mind, today I’m sharing the Nolzur’s Beholder I painted a while back. Sure, this one comes from the much larger WizKids/WotC machine, but I’ve always loved beholderkin and think they’re one of the most iconic D&D monsters out there.

A lot of studios have done their own takes on floating eyeball horrors, but I grabbed this one right when the Nolzur’s line first launched because it matched the 5E Monster Manual look so well. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt that way either, because for a while the intial lack of reprints had scalpers going wild over what was originally a $5 mini.

I painted mine to match the book cover as closely as possible, and while I’m still not crazy about the sculpted eye designed around the clear plastic insert, I once again had a blast painting a giant cyclopean eyeball. I’ve got a few more beholderkin in the collection too, and whenever I get around to them I’d like to try some wildly different color schemes.

Do you even know where your GF9 Xanathar mini is?

Sure don’t!

All 700 of you—I see you 😄 and I’m really glad you’re here. Hopefully you continue sticking around to enjoy the weird assortment of hobby nonsense I keep throwing onto the table.

05/24/2026

Hey all, my buddy over at The Curated Circus is gearing up for a Kickstarter that may be of interest to some of us here. At the risk of inflating his ego, the guy can craft an entertaining story so I'd encourage you to keep on eye on what's going on over there!

05/23/2026

At First I Was Afraid
I Was Petrified

But I got over it and started my copy of The Eye of the World.

Nate, you sweet summer child—you realize that’s a pretty dense book, right?

Well yeah. I’m not exactly a stranger to dummy thicc fantasy novels. 😉

You realize it’s a 14-book series?

I mean… I do have most of the Cosmere under my belt!

Oooook—so how does this connect to the hobby?

Well alright:
This is my page
Fantasy is clearly my favorite genre
There are going to be minis eventually 😅

There he is…

Yeah. So not a ton of info is available yet, but I did see that Dire Wolf Digital is working on War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time. Naturally that immediately caught my attention.

From what I can tell, it looks like Rand al’Thor and a few companions (plus some mooks) will be part of the initial releases, but nothing super concrete beyond that yet. Though I am generally a sucker for cool minis that show up in Kickstarter campaigns. 🤷‍♂️ FOMO 🤷‍♂️

I don’t know a ton about Dire Wolf Digital beyond hearing good things about Clank! and Dune: Imperium, so even though I’m mostly here for the minis, the game itself could still end up being solid.

I’ll admit, when I watched the Amazon adaptation of The Wheel of Time it felt like pretty bland fantasy to me, and I wasn’t surprised it got cancelled. That said, I know adaptations can shift things a lot, so I’m keeping an open mind.

Two chapters into Eye of the World and I’m enjoying it so far. Once the exposition concludes, I’m curious to see what made this series such a staple in fantasy. Additionally I’m looking forward to eventually seeing how the transition into Brandon Sanderson’s writing at the end plays out. I’m already a fan of his work, so that’ll be an interesting point to reach.

So when I said I was starting this series, some of you probably thought: “Oh no… he’ll crumble. He’ll lay down and die.”

But I’m here to tell you no—no, not I. I will survive.

And probably buy minis in the future.

05/22/2026

Finished Friday #18
Dwellers in the Dark

Despite the stupid things Hasbro/WotC continue to do—primarily because of their money-grubbing approaches—I think most would agree that Dungeons & Dragons is basically synonymous with roleplaying games to the average person. I really couldn’t care less about the overall canon lore and the incessant One D&D / 5.5 nonsense, but I do still enjoy 5E.

Ok come on, get off the soapbox and get to the point.

Right, right. While I do like settings like Dragonlance and specific places like Icewind Dale and Menzoberranzan (Thanks Salvatore!), I’m not super worried about the grand D&D timeline and interconnected lore. I think the game works best as a sandbox where you can pull bits and pieces that fit your table. It’s probably why I enjoy so many disparate third-party settings and supplements. Kobold Press is a favorite for sure!

But one thing D&D absolutely nails is monsters, and some of the creatures from the Monster Manual just feel quintessentially D&D to me.

One of those is the roper.

Little more than a stalagmite with tentacles and teeth, it’s exactly the kind of weird creature that catches my attention far more than another vaguely humanoid fantasy guy with a sword.

Originally Pathfinder Deep Cuts was going to produce a really nice-looking unpainted “Cave Beast,” but from what I gathered, WotC got their panties in a bunch and DMCA’d it into oblivion. 😒

Shockingly, not too long after that, a pretty solid official Roper came out through the Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures line. I’m not always crazy about the smaller pre-primed minis in that range, but a lot of their larger monsters are honestly pretty great for the $5–15 price point.

This guy was a pretty straightforward paintjob overall: simple stone techniques, teeth, gums, and then the big eye as the focal point. The eye especially let me try something a little different, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. He could probably still use a few drops of Clear Eyes, but painting the red iris and sclera was a lot of fun.

Looking back at my painting over the years—and even during the relatively short life of this page—I’ve realized I paint very few humans, elves, dwarves, or other “normal” humanoids.

I like painting everything else.

Monsters are near and dear to my heart.

Maybe that explains some of my exes. 🤷‍♂️😭

Perhaps painting up a million NPCs for Guards of Traitor’s Toll will finally balance things out a bit.

I trust all of you have had a wonderful week, and a special shoutout to everyone who voted on the Moonstone poll! The Wendigo barely edged out the competition, so apparently I’ll be picking up one of those cuties eventually thanks to my son’s infatuation with the Leshavalt faction. 😄

Have a great weekend everyone!

05/20/2026

WIP Wednesday #18
Wait… How Many WIPs Are There Really?

The first half of this week has been an absolute blur outside of work. I adore my custody weeks, but this one kicked off with a whirlwind of appointments, softball, baseball, and dance.

Wait… you dance?

Well, if drinks are involved sometimes—but I was referring to my kids. Once all those activities wrapped up and the wee ones were finally in bed, my hobby battery was pretty fried truth be told.

I did continue threading the little “barbs” into the modular barbed wire sections for the Trench Crusade board, but honestly there’s only so many exciting ways to photograph: “slightly more barbed wire than last time.” The end result should look great, but the current stage is definitely a bit samey.

So, to appease the masses with some shiny new pictures, I figured I’d share one of the many projects that got stranded in hobby limbo but has officially returned to the queue under the new initiative of: FINISH THE OLD UNFINISHED STUFF.

I originally started this floating island build over a year ago before temporarily shelving it out of frustration with the support pillars. The scale I wanted didn’t really cooperate with the foam I had on hand, but now that the 3D printers are behaving again, I should be able to find a better solution.

This project was inspired by a whole bunch of things bouncing around in my noggin at the time: The Legends of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, One Piece’s Skypiea arc, Metroid Prime’s Skytown, and The Witcher’s Aretuza.

I was also pairing the terrain with some Sad Prepaint Repaints™ (thought I forgot about that bit didn’t you?) of the old Mage Knight Solonavi figures, so I wanted a little vaguely Greek-inspired architecture worked into the aesthetic too.

The waterfall support pillar is literally a Pringles can mounted to MDF. I hot glued a bunch of pennies inside the base to help weigh it down.

For a cheap stability solution… it made perfect cents.

Wow. Horrid dad joke.

I then used a hot glue gun on a baking sheet to create sections of flowing water. After sponge painting the Pringles can with several shades of blue, I glued the water sections on and blended the seams with additional hot glue. Once dry, I drybrushed the water with off-white and white before adding teased stuffing near the base to emulate mist.

The floating platform itself uses a lot of the same techniques I’ve shown on the Bull Demon Shrine and modular risers. I cut a slot into the base so the waterfall section could slide into place and used leftover foam scraps to bulk out the rocky underside beneath the stonework.

For the future pillars surrounding the raised dais, I installed magnets into the base both for storage convenience and to allow a little encounter variety later on.

One thing I’m especially proud of is the bridge connection system. I cut slots into the sides of the island and used MDF along with coffee stir sticks (they are free Donnie) to create male/female joints that should eventually let me connect multiple floating islands together.

Glad I didn’t hold my breath waiting for those extra islands.

That’s fair… but eventually this thing is going to look badass.

To add a little arcane flair to the centerpiece, I printed a terrain element from Artisan Guild Miniatures’s Eye-Cult Gryphkin set along with four braziers from Jandro Marquz. I went with a pale purple smoke effect, and I think it helps sell the arcane vibe nicely.

Slowly but surely I’m chipping away at projects that probably should have been finished months—or years—ago. Take heart, dear followers: the pile is not small, yet I remain undaunted by this Herculean task. 😅

As always, I appreciate you stopping by, and I’m glad you’re here!

05/19/2026

The Dragon Covets
Gotta Catch ’Em All

One thing I’ve realized about this hobby is just how much enjoyment I get from finding new and unique additions to the collection. I love painting and building for a variety of settings, and I definitely enjoy having a wide spread of weird little treasures on the shelf.

Now admittedly… do some of these random acquisitions languish in a Pokébox for a while after being added to the Pokédex?

Absolutely.

But unlike some poor Pokédex-filler Raticate, these assorted grails eventually get appreciated one way or another.

Back in college there was a small game store called Nittany Line Hobbies a short walk from Comic Swap. Stopping into both became part of my weekly ritual whenever new comic pulls came in, back when I was still heavily into comics.

Nittany Line Hobbies had one of the most unpleasant employees I’ve ever encountered, but I still remember the place fondly because it exposed me to so many systems I’d never seen before.

Sure, there was the usual GW fare, but it was also where I first discovered:

Warmachine / Hordes
Wargods of Aegyptus
AT-43
Confrontation
Anima Tactics

I dove headfirst into Hordes at the time, but never really pursued the others. Funny enough, years later I’ve started slowly tracking some of them down anyway.

I’ve always loved Chris Fitzpatrick and Crocodile Games’ sculpts, so recently I started picking up some of the older Wargods miniatures. Some of the out-of-print stuff is proving… challenging… to locate, but I did recently manage to snag the limited edition Harbinger of Isis, the Priestess of Eris, and all of the Kickstarter exclusives from the Wargods of Olympus campaign. All of those felt like pretty awesome finds!

I’ve also stumbled across a few other crowdfunding-era things I either missed entirely or passed on at the time.

I think MCDM Productions puts out some really cool RPG material, and while I backed the newest 5E books, I completely missed the older projects. The books themselves are easy enough to grab secondhand, but that also meant missing out on some fantastic Kickstarter Exclusive minis.

Thankfully I’ve managed to add not just Xorannox the Tyrant, but also the Topaz and Ruby Wyrmlings along with the Amethyst and Emerald Dragons to the hoard.

Still hunting for the Sapphire, Ruby, and Onyx dragons. The demons were eventually released as STLs at least… but patience is part of the game.

I also put some store credit to good use when copies of the RiotMinds’s Trudvang 5E books popped up. I love Paul Bonner’s art because it’s so evocative, and Norse-inspired settings are always a win for me, so I’d wanted some Trudvang Adventures material in the 5E collection for a while now. The books are admittedly a little light on interior artwork, but still—mission accomplished! The Trudvang license has jumped around a bit and now that Free League Publishing has it I hope they’ll flesh out the 5E material!

Do I occasionally feel like Thorin Oakenshield slowly succumbing to dragon sickness while staring at my growing pile of hobby treasures?

Yes.

Do I also get immense satisfaction whenever I finally track down one of those coveted grails?

Also yes.

Surely some of you can relate.

…Right? 😅

Sinister Hobby

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