Remembering Mikey

My brother Michael died eight years ago today. When we were kids, Mikey taught me how to play games - checkers, chess, Avalon Hill board games, and a myriad of pen & paper RPGs. I fondly remember game boards being upended by the sore loser of the moment (we shared those fairly equally), but I can now appreciate all the strategies and tactics my brother shared with me those many years ago.

Mikey took up D&D again with me and my gaming cronies in the year or so before he died. Of course, my cronies were all Mikey's friends and classmates before they were mine, so he pretty much fit right in, just like old times.

The last character Mikey ran was a human wizard, if I recall correctly. I think I have the character sheet around here somewhere - I'll have to dig around a bit and see if I can round it up. Anyhow, to represent his character, Mikey chose the following miniature from my collection:



I guess the paint job on this mini is at least 10 years old - I had recently been working with inks and washes for the first time, so you can see the results for yourself. His clothes and cloak turned out decent, but not his yellow garb. And the skin-tone ink makes his face look blotchy - oops. But what I remember most about this mini is how Mikey described it. "He's NOT wearing a fez - he's really wearing a traditional pointy wizard's hat. You just can't see the top half of it because it exists only in the astral plane."

Thanks for a lifetime of gaming memories, and also for being my big brother. If you were still around, I think you would have liked watching your oldest nephew paint minis, and had fun playing D&D with both your nephews and your little brother.