Hello World

Hello, Dear Reader. Welcome to the very first post of Fighting Filament (working title), introducing myself and the blog. I am a tech enthusiast, 3D printing nerd and Warhammer enjoyer. I decided that I need an outlet to share my projects, motivate myself to make progress and see if anything I find cool interests others as well. Therefore, why not a blog?

What is Fighting Filament? Well, it's a concept of a blog / fanzine site for miniature wargaming, hobbying tutorials, project showcases, 3D printing, and the occasional philosophical rant. The social aspect of this hobby is amazing; there are so many amazingly creative people who I'd love to put my work and thoughts in front of. I've found myself in a hobby rut as of late, and I figured this could really jump start something cool.

I wanted to take the advice to start "building in public" as said in the startup world. I'm not (yet) a master painter, I'm rocky at telling a story, but I still think what I can produce is worth sharing. For now, I'm hoping to use it as a forcing function on myself to produce. The goal is one post per week with something tangible to share.

A big inspiration for me and the site is Kenton Kilgore's "The Jungle", a long running 40k fan site detailing the escapades of the Fighting Tigers of Veda. Kenton is an amazing story teller. He doesn't know me of course, but his site entertained and inspired me throughout some formative years of mine. Every week I would have to check in on the Jungle to see the latest updates. As you saw from the title image, I am working on a force of true-scale firstborn Fighting Tigers of my own.

You'll notice the "Filament" in the site name - I am a big 3D printing enthusiast. I think 3D printing is the future of this hobby. It melds artistic and engineering skills into a beautiful hobby. I am a big fan of FDM printers - it's interesting to push them to their limits for tabletop miniatures and scenery. r/FDMminiatures is a growing community and movement which I follow closely. That will certainly be an area of focus for mine, and I hope to share any tips and tricks I pick up along the way.

A bit more about my hobby backstory - I learned of 40k when I was in middle school, when I happened upon the original Rogue Trader rulebook at a library book sale. I saw the cover art and was instantly hooked on the amazing grittiness and excitement of the setting. After obsessing over every page and detail in the book, having fully formed in my mind what 40k "was", I decided to look up Warhammer 40K online. Much to my dismay, Warhammer was now in its 4th edition and looked just a tiny bit different than what I expected. To this day, the original look and feel of Rogue Trader lives deep in my psyche, and you can expect to see inspiration from it in my own work.

Fortunately, 40k was still incredibly cool in its newer, streamlined 4th edition form, and I still wanted to play. I received the incredible Battle for Macragge starter set for Christmas that year, which my brother and I both poured over. I very carefully tried painting the ultramarines as the 2nd company from the box art, with mixed results. Over the years, I followed 40k's updates throughout the 2000's and 2010's, although mostly enjoying it from the sideline as an observer rather than active participant.

Come high school, 40k was dropped from my life. Given my lack of funds to purchase models and a host of other reasons, it was easy to drop and replace with Magic the Gathering. When college rolled around, Magic was again replaced with PC gaming (League of Legends... never again.)

Finally, near the end of college and start of my professional life, I decided to satisfy that itch to play and hobby that had never fully left. It started with some games on tabletop simulator with my buddies, and then evolved into fully blown collecting and painting, starting with my beloved Leomhann Eldar which I snagged from a great eBay auction (Iyanden Yellow is still my favorite contrast paint.) I even tried starting a commission miniature painting marketplace business over the pandemic... which went as well as you'd expect that to.

That leads us to now - I have a blog. Time to start building. I guess that wasn't as brief as I imagined earlier, but here we are. Thanks for reading and I'll see you for next week's edition.