This Warhammer 40K painter gives back via fixing fans’ favorite dudes

polygon.com:

Warhammer 40,000 is a wargame that has been re-imagined through the mediums of books, animation, video games, and audio dramas. But all of those works come from the tabletop miniatures that play out endless iterations of epic battles. In order to play Warhammer 40K, you need to assemble a collection of plastic miniatures. A YouTuber named Maverick Nicolson is a content creator who shows off custom builds, paint jobs, and teeny tiny dioramas. But his most wholesome 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 to create their own takes on the factions of 40K. There are plenty of canon armies and book characters to marvel over, but an important part of the hobby is the idea of “your dudes” — 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,” says Nicolson in a call with Polygon. “I ended up having to quit my job as a firefighter. And basically, you sit around at home. I lost all of my hobbies. I couldn’t do anything physical anymore because of my back injury. And with that, I needed 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 with painting models, and when other people started asking him about his techniques, he accommodated them with tutorial content. “I got that feeling of helping someone again, which was a really nice feeling to have,” 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