Lizardmen and the best age to start collecting...

.. and the best age seems to be almost 6?

I had put up a post a while ago concerning me starting in an escalation ( kinda ) league at the local GW store. With a Buy it, Build it, Battle it campaign.

And how I also painted up a test subject for the army to see how it will do.

Well May 15th was the starting date in which we can buy, and begin the building process!

So after school, I picked up Junior. Fed him some pizza, and then headed to the local store to pick up our starter box for the impending series of events!

Reason for the lizardmen as the starter army instead of say Daemons or Orcs/Goblins and adding to what I already have is that this will be his army! And everytime we have gone into the store, he has been looking and asking for the Dinosaur army.. Who can resist that then eh?

So we picked up the starter box, and the Skink Priest as the main forces to use and paint up. I only need 800 points so this will do more than nicely to begin with.

Junior is already setting his eyes on the larger ones, but we will hold off ( for now! ) on those until we get in a couple of games with the existing forces. And more importantly.. getting them all painted up! May as well teach him proper here on buy, build, paint, then repeat the process.. not just getting stuck in the first phase or 2... like his old man has been stuck in for years!

And although I have been sick a lot lately, I have had the energy to clean up, de-mold, and assemble the force ( or at least most of it ) Thursday night, and Friday. Allowing us to do some work on them over the weekend.. which turned into mostly a Sunday exercise as Saturday I was in bed or on the couch under blankets :(

The force begins to take shape.. WIP shot from Thursday night!
So Sunday morning.. after Mrs Lee took off, we descended upon the dining table with newspaper in hand, glue and brushes on stand by, and a tub of sand/cork pieces ready to be put to bases!

Junior was quite eager to get started and begin to paint up the models, but prep is everything as we all know so we had to get the basing materials down first. So I equipped him with the latest in brush technology ( or rather one of my older brushes... no W&Ns yet for this padawan!!! ) we tackled the basing!




As you can see, he really got into it and began to really start pouring through the models to get that sand fixed to them. Plus he had his Fruit Shoot drinks to help aid him in his thirst as the work continued!




Tough work that is.. though he was thankful for a bit of assistance from his old man here to get the army finished up and to help with the super gluing of the cork pieces to the bases.

And after a short ( or long depending on attention span! ) time we had the entire force based up!


Huzzah! Last thing to do at this point however was to wait for the glue to dry, and then prime them out in the nice English weather we seem to be having!


On standby with the primer!


However the heat, nice weather, and smell of the primer drove Junior off to play footie in the yard instead.. so old man Lee here at to take over. Not much else was done after this as all the running around in the backyard almost killed us both ( damn exercise! ) and so we vegged on the couch for the remainder of the evening.

But we can call it successful as the army is now primed and ready for paint! So the adventures will continue very shortly on this project and will see how Junior does with the painting aspect! Heck.. we are even going to attempt to use the airbrush! Oh the Humanity!!!!


Enjoy the army shot so far.. and enjoy the Monday... if you can...

Comments

  1. It's lovely to see and indeed very possible with an attentive modeller parent to assist.

    I will say - from experience - that 10-12 depending on the child is probably the youngest they could *independently* start the hobby but with HobbyDad/Mum help no reason at all not to :)

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    1. Agree with you.. normally I would hold off more, but he is really liking the dinos and what his old man is doing these days. So why not combine the 2! And hopefully I can keep him in line enough to make it work for us all :) Let's see how this experiment goes!

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  2. Its great to see the young bugger getting in on the action, though from some of those shots I was imagining he was looking forward to the phase 1 and phase 4 (Play) phases and skipping the steps in between - he looks positively daunted in one of those when facing the 'never ending' rows of models to be based.

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    1. I will teach him the ancient art of line batching! But most likely I will give him a model to paint up while I go and line paint the rest ;) Will see.. but am curious on how he will get on with the painting sure enough ;)

      And yes.. I think he is already looking forward to the playing aspect of the process... that should be a fun article to write up of his first game ;)

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  3. Yeah a Dino Army. Every thing is better with Dinosaurs! I would have held on until last year of junior school UNLESS he has friends already involved. Obviously depends on the child though. And you lad has a HUGE advantage over many others as he has you in his corner!

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    1. He doesn't have any mates that play it, yet! But why not start in Year 1 ;)
      Hopefully when his mates do get around to playing it he will have the leg up on them, and a nice safe place for them all to play. But let's see how it plays out and how long his patience lasts for it all ;)

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  4. Hola
    Muy bueno el pequeño,es una buen edad para coger los pinceles
    Yo disfruto mucho las tardes con mi hijo de pintura
    un saludo

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    1. Gracias JD
      Tengo la esperanza de que podamos tener unas buenas noches de la pintura o algún que otro juego los fines de semana si puede continuar con esto. :) El tiempo lo dirá!

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  5. Replies
    1. Ha! Thanks Simon.. let's hope it will be a nice little adventure with Junior also!

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  6. It's great to see you two have such a good time together!
    Currently our daughter is full of interest for my painting hobby although she'll turn only four this summer. Actually she loves to paint anything she gets a hold of. Anyway I really love to see her dealing with some of my old sorted out mins and maybe she'll keep this concern. I hope so... ;-)

    Cheers and all the best for you two fellows
    Stefan

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    1. Ooo 4.. good luck! Hope the attention span is good enough.. my little guy got bored after a while.. took too long he was saying..
      But it was a good afternoon of mucking about, and let's see how it holds up next weekend!

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    2. I just take it as a chance to spent some time with her and share kind of activity together. She's just so enthusiastic and it's pure fun to see her painting. I don't try to teach her anything yet and her results are age-related but yesterday she manages to paint some orc boots brown without too much variance.
      If she keeps her enthusiams for daddy's dollies then we'll start real painting when she's much older...

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    3. Thats great! And the same thing I am hoping for.. quality time away from things like the PS3 or cartoons. And get him a bit more active in arts also!
      Will keep an eye out on your blog about how that progresses for yourself though!

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  7. Bravo Team Lee! What a great choice for a stating army for as we all know, everything is better with dinosaurs!

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    1. Exactly! It must be hardwired into our genes as little ones.. Dinosaurs = AWESOME! So it was an obvious pick to start with..

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  8. Wonderful post,and a great choice for his first WH army!

    When my son was 11, we painted Orks n Gobbos together so kudos to you for the early start! Enjoy it, it will be a blast.

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    1. I wish the little guy liked Orc/Goblins.. have a massive Goblin force that I would have loved to add to ;) But at least with starting a new one he will have something of his own to play and display in the future!
      Plus.. yes.. Dinosaurs.. can't go wrong there!

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  9. This is great, I will be eagerly looking forward to your army building adventures and experience with the aspiration to put them to good use once my little one comes to age!

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    1. Indeed. Trial by fire at the moment, but he is eager to get them painted and be able to play them so let's see!

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  10. A lovely post. Always nice to see a father son project. ^_^ I have been trying to get my son interested in miniatures but I am fighting a losing battle to world of mobile electronics. :(

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    1. I am also fighting against the army of electronics in the house... but this was one that he actively was asking to do so I figured it was a good chance to jump on it while he is keen! Hoping it lasts a bit before he gets too bored..

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  11. lucky Kyle...i need to stop my hobby after boys but you can make him a gamer too... jealous :)
    maybe it will work on Ata too :)

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    1. I think Ata could be a gamer... worst case skip him and work with Ates ;)

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  12. That is so cool! I wish my dad would have bought me so many dinosaurs. I had some but not from GW ;)

    Rock on you two!

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    1. Cheers Roman.. let's hope I can keep him interested in it though.. will most likely "need" to purchase some of the bigger guys before too long :)

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  13. Very exciting! My son (8) is also spurring me forward. I am putting some together for him as well.

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