Tome of Minis

Hobby Fest is off to a great start; Frankie, Krystal, and James have done a great job of putting together a line-up that has something for everyone. It started off with the Nerd Princess stream where we got to see what the prizes would be for the various categories of the painting competition. Frankie has really outdone herself there, it looks like the winners are in for a real treat with some classics such as the Warhammer Siege book! It was a stream filled with so much chat from people excited for what the next few days would have in store for them. There were cheers, and gifted subscriptions which really helped with the community feel of the evening. https://www.twitch.tv/NerdPrincessOfficial

From there, it was then severaonto's stream on painting non-metallic metals. This stream interested me greatly as it's something I've been trying on and off to do for a year with very little success. This was a long stream weighing in at over 4 hours, with the first 30 minutes covering the different attempts he's had to get to where he is now. This then moved into planning and just as he started a base layer of purple, the WarHamFam raided, adding so many more people to his views and sharing the love there. If you missed it, go and catch up on it!

Alongside this stream was another from Artai Celticus which had a level of preparation you don't often get to see. This was a talk, with slides, on Warhammer 40,000 RPGs. If you've not been in the hobby long, you might not have heard of them, so this also doubles as a bit of a hobbying history lesson. The Warhammer 40,000 role-playing system from Black Industries (a Games Workshop business that was later closed), and then later under license by Fantasy Flight Games. It covered the background, and the scope of the system, and how it gave enough detail to jump straight in, but left enough room to make up your own corner of the system too.

The hugely talented Alfhild Windrunner had a hobby chat session about cosplaying, and making your own costumes. During the session she did work on one of the shields she currently has on the go. Yes, one of, it seems she's working on more than one! We also got to see a very cool finished shield, and some very large molluscs (real ones).

Frog Lane Studio did something a little different - it started off with demonstrating the weathering of a bolter rifle for his McFarlane Primaris Intercessor, but then this was a stream where people were playing Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War on PC. It's a bit of a classic game now, but it doesn't diminish how fun it is to play. It's interesting to see how other people play it, so it's worth a watch, and maybe it'll get you playing it too.

DMStretch did some Dungeons and Dragons miniature painting. This was from the Tomb of Annihilation expansion, and I believe the miniature was a lich named Acererak. Whilst a lot of this corner of the hobby community is centred around Games Workshop, it's nice to see something different as well. I remember the days when Ral Partha had ties to both Citadel Miniatures, and D&D. So getting to see some D&D mini painting was nice.

Housenflou the Darklord was the last stream of the day (in BST time), and has a nice relaxed stream where he assembled the Sigmarite Mausoleum whilst having a chat. The audio in the VOD is muted in places though due to Twitch detecting music.