There already have been a few threads of late, with proud dads showing off their offspring's tentative first steps in the hobby, but I could not help myself to do the same after this weekend.
Normally, I paint in the evenings, when my 2.5 year old is sound asleep (or makes sound when she should be asleep
), but every now and then, I find some time to pick up a brush when she's up and running around.
The past couple of months, the little princess has been very interested in seeing what I'm doing, and regularly pushes a chair up, to sit and watch how daddy paints 'dollies and airplanes'. So, yesterday, maybe inspired by those other threads, when she sidled up her chair to mine again, I asked her if she would like to paint as well.
Obviously, the answer was a very enthousiastic 'yes!'. So I broke out her painting apron, an old cutting mat, some old brushes and a couple of minis I would not miss; some EM4 orks and a couple of badly painted old space marines I got as side products when buying entire lots.
I let her pick out a colour, squeezed a bit on a palette and let her go to town. At first, I gave her some pointers and just proudly watched her attack her first miniature with both utter concentration and enthousiasm. But pretty soon, she directed me to paint as well ('you too!'), and we had a very fun hour or so, of painting together.
In that hour, I did some inking and blocking on one mini, but she managed to coat no less than 5 minis in a dizzying array of bright colours (pink was in there, obviously). I was really amazed at how concentrated she was throughout (I had to tell her it was time to stop).
It's obvious she has been observing me really well the last months, as she's already pretty adept with her brush, very gingerly dipping it into the paint on the palette (even though she then really mauled those poor brushes on the minis to get into the crevices
).
From now on I will have to start guarding my paints, brushes and minis as thoroughly as I already do my knives and files, because now she knows the way around my desk. And I fear she might otherwise, in an unguarded moment, lavish her artistic administrations on the poor, not-so-redundant miniatures on my desk...
At any rate; the indoctrination process has begun!