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| Zarg the Terrible |
We
made plans to meet for coffee,
and a few weeks later we met at a cafe and had a great time, reminiscing about old
friends, old haunts and good times gone by. Just as we were about to part she gave
me an envelope that contained a few Polaroids from back when we were
together. Among those photos was one of me wearing a cheesy pair of
Foster Grants, posing behind a mushroom-topped stump with a trio of
little lead miniatures atop it. They were in fact the very first miniatures I
had ever painted. I was speechless. I had completely forgotten that
this photo had ever been taken and it made me laugh aloud.
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| 'Zarg' in the red circle. I'll pass on the sunglasses but gosh, I wish I still had that hair... ;) |
I'll give you a little context to this photo.
I was raised in a very, very small town in northern Saskatchewan,
where the nearest hobby store was around 120 miles away. My best friend
Gary and I mail ordered our 1st edition Players Handbooks, DM's Guide,
Monster Manual and several lead miniatures direct from TSR in Lake
Geneva. When they arrived it was like Christmas in summer. I
was so excited to paint the figures that I used enamel car paint from my dad's shop and my mom's
toothpicks and push-pins to apply it to the figures. Yup. Pretty
primitive I know, but sometimes you just can't beat raw enthusiasm.
Anyway, after
I got the photo from Lois-Anna I spent an afternoon searching through my
lead shed and managed to find my character figure - the very same as in
the photo. Yes, 'Zarg the Terrible' emerged in all his glory. (It's
funny, even back then I was a complete cynic as I came up with his name
as a tongue-in-cheek reference to my ability as a player.) Anyway, poor
Zarg had not weathered the intervening 33 years very well, so I didn't
even bother to photograph him as I found him. Rather, I just brushed
away the paint (yes, the 'benefits' of high lead content and absolutely
no primer)
and began afresh. So, here he is, 'Zarg the Terrible' in all his
splendor, painted by a middle-aged version of that boy from 1982.
Zarg and Curt 33 years later.
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