Ben Leach | 11 August 2025
Greetings!
In this article, we’re looking at a question that many board gamers and war gamers ask when they first get into the hobby: why paint miniatures?
Temptation for me came in the form of the Blackstone Fortress starter box. The hobby shop next to the station had a copy in the window, and after a few weeks of it calling to me as I walked by it, I finally caved in and bought a copy.
It wasn’t my first exposure to the hobby, as I’d slapped thick coats of enamel paint onto my fair share of space marines as a teen. But after university, I made the foolish decision that I had to stop and do ‘grown up stuff’ instead. Fast forward twenty years and that copy of Blackstone Fortress caused me to fall back in love with the miniature gaming hobby faster than Greet looting a tomb. Although it was the gameplay that first drew me in, rediscovering the painting side of the hobby has been particularly rewarding. It’s given me hours of fun and has ended up playing a surprisingly large role in my wellbeing.
Not every game demands you paint the miniatures before you can play, and that’s one of the things I love about modern tabletop game design. Whether you’re saving the galaxy in Core Space or thwarting the plans of evil magicians in Maladum*, we’ve colour coded the plastic so you absolutely do not have to paint the minis if you don’t want to. You can jump straight into the fun without picking up a brush at all. But I’d still like to make the case for giving painting a try anyway, even if it’s after you’ve played a few games.
So, why paint miniatures?
The most obvious reason is that even a basic coat of paint gives you a personal connection to the model. It’s no longer just a game piece, it’s uniquely yours, and I find that really adds to the stakes of the game. (Of course, some law of the universe means that the newly painted model, which you are really proud of, tends to be the target of every attack in its first game!) Painted miniatures add a satisfying level of extra immersion when they are on the board too. This is especially true when you have a whole batch of them painted up. Combine this with the 3D terrain included with our games, and it brings the game to life even more.
However, the real benefits for me are found away from the game table. First of all, the process itself is just really satisfying. There are always opportunities to learn new things, it provides an important creative outlet when I’ve been staring at a screen all day, and it’s great to take a bit of plain plastic and really make it your own.
In short, it’s just really fun**.
I’d make the argument that the benefits go much deeper than that though. Most of us are living pretty hectic lives, and carving out time to get away from screens and making time to unwind is incredibly important. Whenever I’m painting, I find that the stress of the day ebbs away and my brain switches off from whatever it was fretting about. Shortly after I started, and almost without realising it, I discovered that painting had become an important release valve for stress, and a useful tool in maintaining my wellbeing.
The surprising thing is it’s not all about sitting on your own at your desk either, it comes with a fantastic community too. Whether it’s picking up tips along with your paint at your friendly local game store, sharing progress with your club over Discord, dropping into a livestream on Twitch, or getting inspired by posts from the miniature painting community online. I’ve found that it’s pretty uniformly a positive and supportive experience.
That’s why I think you might like it too. My experience is that painting minis is worth the time. You end up having more immersive games, it’s great for your wellbeing, and it connects you with some fantastic people. But you don’t just have to take my word for it. I’ve spoken to some members of the mini painting community, and they’ve kindly shared their experiences with us. As you’ll see, whether they’re a beginner, or an award-winning mini painting veteran, they are getting much more out of it than just pretty models.
Read on to find out how…
*or at least making some decent money while trying not to get killed.
**except when the cat knocks over your whole paint of wash again.
Dan Mennell
The Professional.
Dan is a member of my local gaming club and is a commission painter. He also runs painting tutorials when he’s not busy winning awards for his amazing miniature painting. If you are ever looking for some painting inspiration, his Instagram is a great place to start.
Website
“I first started painting back in 1999 when my friend told me he was playing Lizardmen, and so I had to play High Elves. Like many people, I had a long break when I became an adult. Then, about six years ago, my wife was away and I was bored, so I picked up a box of miniatures to paint. Now I paint miniatures for a living!
What I love about painting miniatures is the community, it gets you out of the house, meeting like-minded people and gets you away from screens. It’s also like a kind of active meditation. The world just goes faster, and faster, and faster, but painting lets me relax, take time to slow down, and create time for myself.
My advice if you are just starting out with miniature painting is to remember that it’s only paint! If you are frustrated with what you are doing, you can just paint over it or try a different model. Feel free to ask for help: people in the community at your friendly local game store, club or online will be happy to offer advice. There are now lots of amazing painters posting online, but I’d advise that you don’t compare yourself to others. All of those people started out as beginners too, so just enjoy what you are working on now instead of becoming discouraged by the work of other people.
When you become more experienced, I recommend taking pictures of your work. It will often feel harsh and show up the mistakes on a model that you thought you’d done a good job on, but it’s just showing you areas where you can improve. I also think everyone should enter a miniature painting competition at least once. It raises the ceiling on the quality of your work, so it also raises the floor too, meaning that you can do the basics more easily.
It’s been great to win some awards for my work, but what I’m most proud of is sticking at it, constantly improving, and now getting to a point where it’s paying my bills.
Miniature painting has genuinely changed my life for the better.”
MilliE Paints
The Content Creator.
Millie is a UK-based commission painter and content creator who loves Warhammer and all things fantasy. She has a fab Twitch stream that is very beginner friendly and you should check it out when you’ve finished reading this!
Twitch
“I’ve been painting miniatures since 2020. I originally picked it up as a way to connect with my husband’s love of tabletop games, but it quickly became something I genuinely loved for myself.
Painting gives me a sense of calm and focus that’s been hard to find elsewhere. It’s a creative outlet that’s helped me understand myself better, it gives me space to recharge and process things at my own pace. I enjoy going into my own bubble and shutting out the noise of the world through painting.
The main thing I get from painting is a sense of belonging. The miniature painting community can be incredibly welcoming. Sharing my work online and seeing others grow alongside me has helped me feel connected, supported, and part of something bigger.
I’m so proud of the number of people who’ve told me my tutorials gave them the confidence to start painting, or to try a technique that had intimidated them. That’s what I love most about what I do – helping people realise they can do it too.
Don’t wait to be “good” – just start. It’s easy to look at amazing painters online and feel inadequate, but they all started somewhere too.
Every paint session is progress, even the ones that don’t go too well, so just have fun with it.“
Tom
The Beginner.
Tom is our very own marketing guru at Battle Systems, and although it’s safe to say he’s been a nerd for a long time, he’s only recently picked up a paintbrush to paint miniatures.
“I’ve only been painting miniatures for about 8 months now. I’d always been interested in the idea of it, but had shied away from it because I didn’t play anything that had miniatures in it. And felt that I would perhaps have to read three big books of lore before I would feel ‘allowed’ to enter the hobby. There was also a dramatic lack of nudge or peer pressure to get my first set as I didn’t know anyone in the hobby.
More recently, it’s become important to me because it’s something my son and I do together. But prior to that, it was important because it’s a relatively low-stakes hobby that I can just keep improving on. Even if I’m looking at a mini that I don’t like the finish of after a couple of hours, it’s easy to pick out bits where I’ve improved and still feel fairly happy with it.
Painting miniatures has reignited a level of curiosity that I’ve lacked in recent years, and it has given me a safe space to fail in. There are so many scenarios in life where it can feel like I should have all the answers and just know what automatically know what I’m doing. But with painting, I feel none of that pressure, which is surprising especially as I’ve painted a couple for the sake of use on our expo stand and in our photography.
As someone with several hobbies, some of which I only keep because I enjoy the friends involved, I’d say it’s important to make time for them. But it’s just as important to find balance. The vacuuming and washing still need doing, after all.
Anytime I sit down to paint, my head can tend to lean towards the idea that I should be ‘being productive’ if I have some downtime. And, weirdly, I have to give myself permission to take time off from doing other things and actually stop to do something just for me.
My advice to someone interested in starting painting is to make sure you’re doing it for you. I paint what I want, how I want, because of how I want it to look. Pick something you think is cool even before there’s any colour on it. The people telling you “you should paint these” or “they have to be this colour scheme” won’t be the ones sitting with you for hours while you work on them.
If it’s for a hobby it should be for you, whatever colours, whatever style you like. Aim for that, and the enjoyment will be endless.“
Norse Paints
The Mental Health Champion
Norsepaints says that he uses miniatures as an escapism tool from life’s anxieties and toils. In addition to being a talented painter, in my opinion, he also creates some of the funniest content on Instagram. Go and watch some of his reels. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
“I have been painting miniatures for some years now, and I even had the old 5th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Bretonnian / Lizardmen starter box. After a break, I got back into it to battle PTSD and insomnia during the COVID pandemic.
Since then painting miniatures has become more and more important to me. Both because it helps me manage PTSD and anxiety, and because I have acquired a community I sorely needed in my life.
It’s been important to be part of something. I have been in contact with so many broken and damaged souls. We all see each other and none of us want anyone to feel like we do. So there is a very positive, loving community, because we all wish each other the very best.
In short: If no time for hobby, there is a lot of room for sadness. A lot of time for hobby, little room for sadness.
I have acquired friends for life. Some of them are excellent huggers too.
My advice to beginners is to paint bravely. Don’t rush the process and don’t let anybody dictate how or what you should paint. The rule of cool always applies!
And make each hobby session the best one. Be it tea, music or snacks that puts it to the next level.
The hobby session is yours. Enjoy it.”
Please be sure to go and check out all of the links in the above article.
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