Fictional Histories: Christopher Hollowell

Fictional Histories is a Fine Art project that seeks to analyze the world of tabletop gaming and looks to use the voice of the hobby to tell the stories of the men and women who engage in the hobby community. This work was among 4 others that were displayed at the Gatewood Gallery in May of 2017. 

This is the third of those pieces presented in the show, here showcasing an interview with one of my long time friends and opponents Chris formerly from "Sippin' on Paint Water" now contributing to the blog-o-sphere through Gloria in Morte. Chris is a skilled painter and modeler, the resident "how did you paint that?!!" guy of the group so to say, it's not uncommon to see intricate unit badges on the sleeves of 15mm soldiers, or to look at his host of carefully converted Death Guard with horrifying disgust. While his recent move has taken his forces appearance on the blog to a reduced regularity, we still find time on occasion to throw tiny plastic warriors into pitched battles. When I talked to him about the most memorable moment in gaming for him he pointed more towards a time period, a stretch of time around the release of 6th edition 40k, that spanned around a year where the group of us began entering into the 15mm generic sci-fi scene. I chose to capture that time period by looking at one of the absolute earliest battles between the two of us, the Battle for Sellas. 

Christopher Hollowell

I can't speak to any one person's reasons for playing a tabletop game, or becoming more involved in a wargaming community. I do think that it has something to do with a sense of camaraderie or  shared interest in a creative outlet. I think it's good in general, more people means more money in the hobby, a broader variety of interests to fuel the hobby's expansion. I think we'll see more and different ways that people choose to integrate it into their interactions with others, especially in a digital way.

I've had some long term projects, I've had large projects, but I think the single best gaming experience had to be when I started into 15mm sci-fi as a genre of interest. It's got less to do with science fiction and collecting lots of cool and affordable miniatures, and more to do with my exploration of that community as a digital presence and in a more real way with my close friends who started into that process at the same time. It allowed me to experience it as an individual, as part of a small group and with a sense of belonging to a sort of hobby diaspora.

so you would say like the PGCC and the stuff we did as part of that rush in the beginning was more rewarding because it was entirely our thing. like because it was crafted entirely from our small group it held more significance than it would have if we had moved from mainline 40k play to like infinity or something

Yes, not because the bigger games lack value, or good game design, but more because there is a certain amount of organic enthusiasm and creativity in something that is less polished. 15mm sci-fi is more of a sandbox setting for gaming, there are rules but no one set is king, there are great minis but the companies that make them don't have add budgets or marketing just a product that gets people excited and wanting to share it with folks who like it as much as they do. It might not be the best formula for long term success, but it is earnest and engaging in a way that something more established can't be.

Fictional Histories: Stewart Boughtflower

Fictional Histories is a Fine Art project that seeks to analyze the world of tabletop gaming and looks to use the voice of the hobby to tell the stories of the men and women who engage in the hobby community. This work was among 4 others that were displayed at the Gatewood Gallery in May of 2017. 

This is the second post of those 4 pieces that features an interview with fellow blogger Stewart Boughtflower [aka. Zzzzzz] whose in-depth approach to storytelling and narrative expansion has been a key influence on the Jornath campaign. In this diorama, I attempted to capture the drama of the Battle of the Cudlip Line, a mighty apocalypse game featured on Mr. Boughtflower's blog Devos IV, in which Imperial troops sought to break through Traitor forces to gain control of the Colil Promethium Refinery. For the diorama, I thought to look at the mixture of traitor forces after their defeat in the engagement, part of what makes Devos IV particularly compelling is the immense history and character of the forces involved in the fighting. I thought to show a cross section of the rebels regrouping in scattered pockets at the edges of the refinery complex. 

Stewart Boughtflower.

“What tabletop games do you play and how often?”

40K, used to be max 3 times a year, now haven't played for over two years. I've been playing the same MERP/RM campaign since 1986; this went through a renaissance in the Mid noughties where we were playing once a month for a couple of years. Again, due to the same reason (children) this hasn't happened for a few years either.

“What is the most memorable thing to happen to you during a tabletop game?”

In living memory, there was a game with Col Corbane and Admiral Drax which involved most of my collection.  I got four consecutive blog posts out of that one.  But just seeing over forty Leman Russ and two Warhounds on the table (along with the rest) was absolutely fabulous.

“Can you tell me more about the lore, setting and context of the game you were playing during that memorable event?”

There was an attack on the Cudlip Lines defence network, this was supposed to be a diversion by 17 Korps to divert attention from 18 Corps attack on the Colill Promethium refinery.  One of 17 Korps Divisional Commanders, a Vostroyan General whose name began in with a P, identified the Schwerepunkt and committed the Corbainians to an assault.  The Neighbouring Division (my precious DKK) had to support them or they'd have been wiped out.   In the event, with the late arrival of the Warhounds, the attack succeeded and the Vostroyan General whose name began with P was promoted and sent to another warzone whilst the Corbainians had lost so much that they had to be withdrawn from the ORBAT.

“Can you tell me about the character/s you were playing or that participated in that event”

I had the thrusting knob end of 902 Division of 17 Korps of 72 Army Group on the table - DKK 19 Armd Regt, Armageddon 22nd Armd Regt, Saranian 5th Inf Regt - the armoured heart of 17 Korps.

“What does tabletop gaming mean to you?”

It's a social thing - I only play with people who bring their armies to Devos IV in order to be a part of it. The RPG group has remained largely unchanged since the 1990s.

“What do you think the upswing in the number of people playing tabletop games, both in person and online means, in social terms?”

There's been an upswing ?  Who knew ?

Fictional Histories: Jonathan Hedgecock

Fictional Histories is a Fine Art project that seeks to analyze the world of tabletop gaming and looks to use the voice of the hobby to tell the stories of the men and women who engage in the hobby community. This work was among 4 others that were displayed at the Gatewood Gallery in May of 2017. 

This is the first post of those 4 pieces that features an interview with my long time vengeful opponent JD. Whose forces featured in the Road to Orleans campaign, as well as the Siege of Lychke, and many others. Presented below is the interview and photos from his diorama.

JD Hedgecock

“What tabletop games do you play and how often?”

I play Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons and things of that nature, multiple times a week

“What is the most memorable thing to happen to you during a tabletop game?”

I and my friend Aaron, were playing a set of rules called Valor Steel & Flesh, and it was between two characters that we had created within the game, and through just sort of the random chance of the dice these two characters had become rivals. Well in one of the games, there two characters met on their own outside of their units above this hellish carnage. It was a really cool moment because it was just this really cool moment that came  about through the rules and through just talking outside of that. It was very cool because it was just this sort of collaborative story that happened very naturally.

“Can you tell me more about the lore, setting and context of the game you were playing during that memorable event?”

The setting I think was an extrapolation of the 100 years war, that we took and expanded out into the victorian age, and gave everyone magic and steampunk tech.  He was playing the British, and I was playing the French.

“Can you tell me about the character/s you were playing or that participated in that event”

One of them was Commander Bosch, which was mine who, felt that he could change the course of the war by gaining enough prestige and momentum through success in the army to eventually usurp the government and bring the fighting to a halt. The other was Captain Teague, who was under Aaron’s command, he was also very prideful and nationalistic but i don’t really recall too much else

“Can you tell me about the character/s you were playing or that participated in that event”

One of them was Commander Bosch, which was mine who, felt that he could change the course of the war by gaining enough prestige and momentum through success in the army to eventually usurp the government and bring the fighting to a halt. The other was Captain Teague, who was under Aaron’s command, he was also very prideful and nationalistic but i don’t really recall too much else

“What do you think the upswing in the number of people playing tabletop games, both in person and online means,
in social terms?”

I think that people are looking to find more common ground between themselves, I think that areas of creation, of sports and games. You get all of these things in Tabletop gaming, the creation arts, the camaraderie and competition of sports, and i think that all of those things harbor the feelings people are really looking for.

Fictional Histories - Fine Art about Tabletop Hobbies

Perhaps some of you will know, and some won't. But I've had the immense privilege to attend undergrad at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro for the past four years, as a member of the New Media and Design specification in the School of Art. During the time that I have spent in college, I like to think that I've grown as a member of the global academic community as well as an artist.  While I shy away from putting artworks up on this blog, as it's dedicated to my exploits in Tabletop gaming, I have found my professional and private interests strangely brought closer together.  Specifically during an intensive photography study that I participated in during the summer of 2015, which was exhibited in the Big Visions show in the fall of the same year.   During the final stages of that project, I was struggling in trying to find a connection with Southern France and my life in the United States, around the same time I discovered the Games Workshop store in Aix-en-Provence, and hung around the place in my spare time as a sort of lifeline to home (the cafe' across the plaza also had excellent espresso, which didn't hurt matters)   Up until that point I had drawn a pretty hardline not to include things from "nerd culture" in my work, I had this opinion in my head that it was unprofessional to incorporate things like miniatures gaming or hobbies into work.  After a very enlightening discussion with my professors, they convinced me to branch out and really explore how miniatures gaming could influence my experience of France. While I never ended up putting those French miniatures photos into the final show, they were crucial to altering how I looked at my entire experience of the place.

Fast-forwarding a bit, we come to the present and my last semester at the University. Having incorporated bits and pieces of miniatures gaming in abstract ways into my works since France, for my final project with the school, I opted to actually dive in and explore something that I've always wanted to know.  I have often found myself fascinated by the amount of time and effort that gamers are willing to exert on building their settings, I'm reminded of blogs like Palladian Guard or Devos IV. that recorded in painstaking detail the names, stories, and planets of men that do not and have not ever existed in detail that would make some historians blush.  Of course, we look at men like Tolkien and his Mythopoeia for a classical example of this behavior. I have often asked the question of myself, (readers of this blog will know I'm also quite guilty of this behavior) what inspires me to create so much content and data for a fictional history to be consumed by a small sub-group of the social scene around me, especially in the face of misunderstanding or hostility even from my girlfriend and others who sit outside the hobby community.


My last project is titled Fictional Histories and seeks to ask others that question of themselves, as well as to get a glimpse of the settings, memorable games, and thoughts of other people who are as committed to tabletop gaming as I am. The plan is to conduct an interview with a tabletop gamer, ask them a few questions, foremost amongst these is a memorable moment in tabletop gaming, and then I will create a diorama of that moment, pair it with the recorded or transcribed interview as well as any documents (things like army lists, stories etc.) miniatures or props the interviewee might be willing to loan for the duration of the project and then display the diorama, its interview and its ancillary material in the same way a museum might display information about a real historical event. The hope is, we explore the people that are involved in the hobby, and also de-mystify it a little for the people that see it but maybe write it off as immaturity or weird.



If you think you'd like to participate in an interview with me for this project then please feel free to...

Email me:     impcommander@gmail.com   [w/ Subject "Fictional Histories"]
Call or Text:  3369061755