This Warhammer 40K painter gives back via fixing fans’ favorite dudes
Warhammer 40,000 is a wargame reimagined through books, animation, video games and audio dramas. But all those works come from the tabletop miniatures that play out endless iterations of epic battles. To play Warhammer 40Kyou need to build a collection of plastic miniatures. A YouTuber named Maverick Nicolson is a content creator showing off custom builds, paint jobs and tiny dioramas. But his sanest project is helping battered old Minis find a new, freshly painted life.
Painting each individual member of your army is an important part of the hobby, and players love creating their own take on the 40K factions. There are plenty of gun armies and book characters to marvel at, but an important part of the hobby is the idea of ”your guys” – that’s not just any Space Marine or Ork Warboss, it’s your Space marine.
“I started painting two years ago because I had a debilitating back injury,” Nicolson told Polygon. “I eventually had to quit my job as a firefighter. And you are actually at home. I lost all my hobbies. My back injury left me physically unable to do anything. And with that, I had to find something to occupy my time, and it was Warhammer.
Nicolson credits Warhammer with giving him a new community, hobby, and passion. He started painting models, and when other people started asking him about his techniques, he gave them teaching materials. “I got the feeling of helping someone again, which was a really nice feeling,” says Nicolson. “I became obsessed with that, and the community of Warhammer is so special, I don’t think you can find anything like it anywhere else.”
Nicolson met other people in the hobby with their own struggles who used the community and the game as a social outlet, a therapeutic outlet and a way to express themselves. These players’ character models were their old friends, and some were falling into disrepair or in dire need of a fresh coat of paint and a little elbow grease. Nicolson started taking these beloved models with touching backstories and sprucing them up for free in a cleverly named YouTube short series called Plastic surgery.
Nicolson strips the paint, gently removes it with a toothbrush and uses a toothpick to remove any excess paint in the cracks. He then paints again from the ground up, applying layers of color, watered-down layers for extra texture and expertly applied small decals. It’s relaxing to watch a second monitor and the personal stories make it quite moving.
Nicolson accepts requests for plastic surgery through social media, but he’s not just looking for commission work. The series focuses on characters close to the player’s heart who need a facelift as a thank you for their long hours of service against space elves, pesky bugs, and all the horrors the distant future of 40K has to offer. Nicolson also publishes painting guides, tutorials, tips and other useful content for those who want to create their own eye-catching figures with eye-catching colors and cool details.