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Carbondale lawyer conquers the miniature world

By Adam Testa, The Southern

Saturday, March 8, 2008 10:10 PM CST

Tim Capps said there's enough lead in his house that "if the balloon goes up, my family will be safe from nuclear radiation."

No, the Carbondale defense attorney hasn't been stashing thousands of gallons of paint in his house since the 1970s; one of his favorite hobbies has brought hundreds of miniature lead figurines into his humble abode.

Capps discovered the hobby of miniature gaming, and subsequently painting, while in high school. Through the years, he's seen several changes, including a shift from using actual lead to pewter for the tiny figurines. He's also taught his children to join in the fun.

"It's still fun," he said. "It's still exciting to get new miniatures. You feel like a little kid again."

James Cox of Murphysboro also fell into the hobby with school friends. While "bored in class" one day, he and a friend discovered the game BattleTech, which used futuristic figurines for players to wage war with one another.

"Being 8-year-old boys, giant robots with guns were really, really cool to us," Cox said.

Playing various games has remained part of Cox's life and daily routine, but for him, painting the figurines seems to be the most rewarding part of the hobby. Though he carries a toolbox-style container filled with dozens of paints, he usually sticks to the basic colors.

Cox completed an apprenticeship with a classic oil painter earlier in his life and learned the art of mixing colors. Now, he uses these different shades to decorate his miniature armies and even model some of them after his friends.

"It's like asking someone to tell you what it's like to play the piano or what it's like to drive a sports car," he said of painting. "It's just something I enjoy because of the time and the precision that it takes - that I can look back at something that I've done five or 10 years later and go, 'Wow I did a good job on that.'"

Since H.G. Wells drafted "War Games," the first real rule book for miniature gaming, in the 1890s, dozens of product lines, rule sets and games have emerged, said Scott Thorne, owner of Castle Perilous Games in Carbondale.

Hobbyists and gamers can find themselves fighting with dragons and elf lords, robots and cyborgs or Civil War and World War II soldiers, he said. The painting side of the hobby has seen a shift toward people purchasing army-based war game figures.

Cox and Capps said the time spent on painting miniatures, sometimes up to six or eight hours for one 30-millimeter figure, pays for itself in the end. The hobby allows them to fine tune their artistic abilities, relaxes them and provides a sense of pride when finished.

For Capps, there's an additional benefit to the hobby as well.

"It lets me work out my aggression in a safe way," Capps said. "It lets me satisfy my desire to conquer the world."

adam.testa@thesouthern.com

351-5031