Paper Miniatures: Why I made the switch?

Paper miniatures are definitely not for everyone but for those who don't have the time, patience, money for a secondary hobby of painting miniatures, or don't want to commit to a rule set just yet by buying a bunch of miniatures, they offer an alternative. While they aren't as impressive on the battlefield as say a fully painted metal/plastic army, they do have their own charm.

Personally, I discovered paper minis around six years ago. I printed some off, glued them together, cut them out, and didn't do much after that. Then in 2017 I had a significant health issue and it changed my life permanently and I really didn't feel like painting anymore but I still wanted to enjoy the games I played. Subsequently, after some searching, I saw that there were many more artists publishing great works and I was hooked. I set aside my painting brush right then and there!

There are benefits to paper minis. One big plus is the price! I can download a PDF of say wood elves and print as many as I need for a few bucks and print them out. You can also find plenty of stuff for free online! One Monk Miniatures is an excellent source for free minis and is where I got my start. Just go to the download section and check out the forum hoards and other free things. They also sell a wide range of Sci Fi miniatures and fantasy figures. Additionally, you can get a wide range of bases here as well for free.

Now for my favorite artist, David Okum! He has many different lines of ever expanding figures through his Patreon projects. He's got fantasy and sci fi all of the way up to old west gunslingers and supers to zombies and survivors. In addition, he has multiple layers for customization of colors and a vast majority of his models contain a full sheet of bonus material. Can't say enough about this guy! He seems to pump out figures at an amazing rate! If you join his Patreon you have access to a mountain of downloadable minis depending on what tier you are at (I do the $5 a month!).

Next up we have the paper miniature line of Darkmook. These are mostly just horror survival based miniatures but they're still fantastic. While he hasn't done any work for a while, it's still a nice source for zombies and survivors. He has several free downloads as well.



As I said, you can get many different sizes and shapes of bases here at One Monk Miniatures for free or you can go on to Litko and buy some plastic bases. I like the Litko bases as they're clear so they adapt to any terrain. Another thing I like about these is that you can write down pertinent information about the figure with dry/wet erase markers. Pretty neat, at least to me!

I may write up a tutorial showing what I use and some tips on properly gluing and folding. We will see!