Transcript
We know the truth: it ain’t the gift, but the thought, that counts. And even though we might want to argue that point in certain situations, I think we all think it’s fundamentally true.
Once you’re older than, you know, like twenty or something.
So, while this idea I’m sharing with you today is about a possible Christmas gift idea is mostly for miniature painters, I’ll toss in an idea for writers and Dungeon Masters too, ‘cause at some point, giving a present often feels way cooler than receiving one and we all have something to give that stems from our creativity.
And this gift idea goes both ways! Cause mini painters are always looking for ways to shrink that Pile Of Opportunity!
Greetings good humans and welcome to Tabletop Alchemy, where sometimes it’s Christmas in July! And we thank our patrons for their generous spirit that happens with or without Christmas, always much appreciated.
So a few months ago I promised you we’d have a bit of Christmas in the summer. Unless you’re in Australia, or, you know, elsewhere south of the equator. Then just, you know, counter swirl that statement.
Yes, I know the flushing swirl thing is a myth, but you know, I’m just riffing here.
So out of my decent sized immediate family, there are only three tabletop gamers – myself, my daughter and my oldest niece. For the record, I’ve got three brothers and four sisters. Nearly all of them have spouses and kids of varying ages. And for those of you wondering, yes, I’m the oldest. Huh, I guess I was born a 19 Delta. That’s an Army reference.
A few years ago, while growing and cultivating my Pile of Opportunity like a good hobbyist, I came across this mini from Steamforged Games’ Guild Ball. Which I’ve never played but I do like quite a few of their figures. Immediately I was taken with the character and the sculpt, which is pretty unique in the skirmish game arena, there’s just so much character in the sculpt and the flying beer is an awesome detail. And before I even bought it I started thinking about my brother who brews beer in his basement. He’s as deep into the homebrew hobby as we are in the tabletop hobby. He makes straight up legit beer that is on par with all kinds of commercial and craft beer. I know. He’s got 10 taps – that’s right, ten – in the dining room that always have something crazy good on ‘em. I saw this figure and I was like, well, that’s my brother’s mascot right there.
So I put that mini in a Pile of Opportunity and just figured I’d get around to it at some point. But that’s the first time I started to think vaguely about gifting a miniature to someone. Fun fact, my brother has a handful of terribly painted minis I gave him probably 30 years ago. I saw ‘em the last time I stayed at his place. They are legitimately awful in that kinda nostalgic “this is a first time painter” sorta way.
But then sometime later I picked up this figure from Privateer Press, it’s a special edition mini and I just thought it was cool. And then I realized that it would be a perfect gift for my brother’s wife. She has basically her own meme going, she’s famous for this exact interaction: “Hey, you want some beer or some wine?” “Yes, please.” I wish I could have inscribed that on the miniature’s base.
Now, I’m probably making my brother and sister in law sound like a pair of dysfunctional party animal alcoholics, but that’s not the case at all. They are an exceptional pair of functional party animal parents and their home is the best place to vacation. And yes, you should be jealous.
On an entirely different occasion, again, years later, I actually needed to give someone a painted mini and I needed some way to format that for them. So I went on Amazon and found these bell jar display glass dome things. And it worked out pretty cool. And that’s when the idea of painting up those two minis to give my brother and sister in law bloomed into my full blown Christmas project. Which is a project you could do too.
Now, as I mentioned, most of my family is … how do I say this diplomatically? Most of my family is unfamiliar with DnD. And if a skirmish game blew up in their face, they still wouldn’t have any idea what a skirmish game was. But they all, to a person, love the Lord of the Rings.
So the first thing I did was make a list of all the folks I was gonna paint up minis for. Like I said, I have quite a few nieces and nephews but I decided to draw a line and only do this particular round of gifts for those over the age of sixteen. Hey, the youngsters get Lego, so, whatever, now I’m jealous.
I had this vague idea about photographing the finished miniatures as a group and it’d be like this family portrait of adventurers or something. So I felt I’d have to also paint up a mini for myself too, otherwise this family portrait would be weird, right? So my full list came to 14 miniatures. But it’s cool, I started this project in August which is why I was able to get everything done on time.
Now the coolest part to me about this gift idea was personalizing each figure for the gift-ee? Gift recipient. And I also wanted this to be a big surprise for everyone. My family lives all across the country and I thought this would be such a cool thing for everyone to share in this communal surprise at the same time on Christmas Day. So I wanted to keep the whole thing as secret as I could and I needed two pieces of information from everyone – one, I needed to pick figures according to what each person might like, thematically, and two, I needed to find out everyone’s favorite color. For the paint schemes, right?
So I contacted everyone on the list separately and asked something like, “hey, if you were gonna be a character in Lord of the Rings, what would you be? Like would you be an elf with a bow or would you be a magical wizard, or an axe-slinging dwarf? Please don’t say you wanna be a hobbit.”
This sound familiar? Course. I used the same technique here as how I approach getting new players into DnD, there’s a video on that right here.
That’s how I went about selecting a miniature for each person. To find out their favorite colors, I went a little bit lateral with my espionage techniques. I asked various people what other people’s favorite colors were, while swearing them to secrecy and making it sound like I was just getting this one thing for this one person. With all the recon done, my list was complete.
I did some shopping and leveraging of the Pile Of Opportunity for the figures and then I spent a couple months painting them all up. This is why you start this project in the summer. Or winter, if you’re down under, right? You want plenty of lead time, ‘cause if any project has a hard deadline, this is it.
Now the painting part is one side of the project, the other is the presentation. There were all kinds of little factors I had to figure out. I wanted to alleviate as much hassle on the recipient’s end as I could. I wanted each figure to ship with it’s own glass dome and all that stuff to stay safe in transit. What worked out super perfect was that a mini wrapped in a nice little burrito of bubble wrap fit inside a glass dome. This meant I could ship each mini and dome inside the OEM dome packaging, which was itself already designed with styrofoam inserts to protect the glass from demented Amazon drivers.
I also wanted an easy way for a recipient to secure the mini in the dome once it was unpacked. And I wanted the mini to be secure on the plinth when it was placed on display. I briefly considered including a chunk of poster tac in each package but that’s not very elegant, it’s subject to user error and it would end up being a mess after a few years cause it like melts right? That’s when I figured magnets would be the way to go, they would make for the best user experience.
Of course that meant I had to counter sink a magnet into either the wooden plinth or the mini base and either another magnet or a piece of steel into the other. It’s a pain in the ass no doubt but overall, it’s worth the effort. It took me some time to figure out what size magnets to use and specifically I was looking for a magnetic bond that was strong but not too strong. I had a, perhaps irrational, fear of someone trying to pick their mini up and some part of it breaking due to the strength of the magnets. I eventually settled on these and I installed one on each of the plinths. And I got these steel blanks, which are really quite thin, and installed them in the base of each miniature. There’s really a whole bunch of ways you could do this and varying sizes of magnets and whatnot, but I went with this combo to alleviate the strength of a double magnet system and also the depth or thinness of each would allow me to fix them where they needed to go without too much trouble.
To drill the sockets for the magnets in the plinths, I bought a set of dremel bits made for woodworking, specifically getting one of these that matched the diameter of the magnets I wanted to use. These bits carve out a flat-bottomed hole that’s perfect for dropping the magnet into. I drilled a pilot hole to accommodate the guide nub on the bit and then just did my best to not mar the plinth and to not drill too deep. Here’s a plinth I messed up on and yeah, I had to order a replacement.
I used thick CA glue for both the magnets and steel blanks and a little bit of baking soda to fill in where I needed it. Once these were all done, everything was pretty much ready. I shot individual photos of each figure and then staged the group shot. Then I packed everything up into the dome packages and then I did one last thing.
I created this little insert in photoshop with this holiday message and the URL for the photo gallery. I even turned the URL into a QR code, just to make it that much easier for people to quickly jump into the gallery. I thought folks might like to see everyone else’s miniatures, especially the group shot. I printed this out on my black and white printer and just slipped one into each package.
The final step was to actually wrap each dome in Christmas wrapping paper, add a little name tag and then I sent out large single boxes to each family’s address. I sent them out early too, I think right at the beginning of December, and on Christmas Day, everyone opened their figures. And it was pretty damn cool.
Now, I think if you’re a writer, you could do the same sort of thing with short stories. Regardless of the medium you work in, there’s just something super cool about sharing your creativity or your hobby with your friends and family, especially those who are not exposed to it. It all just takes a little planning and some enthusiasm to get it done. I think the idea that what you’re working on is a gift creates some energy and drive beyond your normal hobbying engine, so to speak. Plus, you’re just doing more of what you enjoy. How do you go wrong with more hobbying?
So! Go make some gifts. And have fun sharing some of yourself with those you love. I bet you’ll feel pretty stellar about it and I’ll be your gift-ee’s will be pleasantly surprised.
See ya!