Creating little nerds

Being the proud father of 3 children, 2 of which are old enough to walk and talk can give you some awesome moments. The highlights thus far have been when my oldest, Ben, was asked by his Uncle Dan what letter he made out of bristle blocks. Ben responds without missing a beat, "TIE Fighter." This is at age 3 or so. Sean his younger brother was asked who was on his shirt and he responds, "Darth Vader, koooosh kshiiiiisk, kooosh, kshiiiiiisk"

Awesome-sauce!

Well, raising little nerds continued this past weekend. The boys have been watching me paint Malifaux models over the last month or so and have been interesting in what is going on. Ben decided he wanted to paint up some models as well. Figuring this is a typical, "I'm bored" response, I put him off until the next day when he would forget about it and move on to other things. Turns out, he didn't. Next morning (Saturday) he comes up to me after waking up and says, "Daddy, are you going to find models for me to paint now?"

With that kind of commitment, who am I to say no? So I dig through a closet upstairs that contains a bunch of stuff that we have never really unpacked and the wife has relegated to the long lost extra closet and I find some old Space Marines. Mark 6 armor. All plastic. From like 15 years ago. Nice set of models where you could get like 600 marines for $30 or something. Now, Sean not wanting to be left behind is also interested in this activity so I have two painters to satisfy.

When you get down to it, his new interest in painting models is actually a win win for me! I get to paint my models, they get to paint their models and mommy can't complain because I am ignoring my family to paint. Score!

I set them up on the dinning room table. I move from the desk to the table and we go at it. I give them some of my older, lower quality brushes (better than the plastic ones they had) and they use some paints from previous arts and crafts projects to go at it. My wife was kind enough to point out that my model paints at $3-$3.50 a pot were probably a little expensive to waste on the various things the kids were going to put them on besides the models.

As you can see, good call by the wife. There is paint all over Sean's face, arm and everything else. Ben is a little neater, but not by much.



After about 15-20 minutes, Sean (age 3) got bored and went off to do something else. His first model is below:

Kind of a jungle themed marine, who looks like he got caught in a paintball fight.

After about 30 minutes Ben (age 5) got bored too. His first model below:

Don't know how to characterize this one, but he had an awesome time (also I think this guy is in Mark 7 armor).

All in all, it was a great experience. Ben and Sean have painted about a squads worth of marines by this point. None of which look anywhere near close to the same color / theme. Now I just have to find some cheap models for them to continue painting so they don't get bored and quit on me! Daddy needs his painting time too!