My story!
My name-Antonio Portilla AKA “Combatpainter” also known as “The Most interesting painter in the world.” “Send me your lead my friends!” Well, maybe not. My passion-painting miniatures. I have a beyond a masters Degree in Historical Research and I am pursuing a Doctorate at the moment. I live in a small border town in Southwest Texas not far from where Judge Roy Bean acted as judge, jury and executioner. I have lived in New York, the Caribbean, Florida and Spain. I gave up lots of good careers to see the US and enjoy learning about new places and people. What I love the most is history and movies. This recession has hit my family and I rather hard but we are getting by and hope things will soon improve. But today I live in Texas.
I paint and research historical uniforms, weaponry and equipment ffor a living. I live history and bring it to life for others on a daily basis. I like models with easy access to faces and hands. I particularly like painting flesh. My favorite periods are western, WW2, pirates, ACW, WWI, pulp, modern military, mostly US and insurgent types. I usually paint these over and over. Also, ancients and medievals but not so much the knights. I do camo. My favorite is the different variations of ‘pea dot’ for the Germans. I especially like to paint DAK. I like the whole mystic of the desert war. I watch countless hours of old films of men at war in this theater. I don’t really enjoy painting Napoleonic as much simply because of the dress. I requires so much research and just don’t have the library for it.
My favorite models are probably made by the Foundry, Bob Murch, Copplestone, Artizan, Crusader, Battlefront. In that order. I haven’t painted any Peter Pig but I am dying to do so. Another hobby of mine is watching movies. I try and rent one at least 3-4 times a week if I can. I am particular to horror genre. I particularly enjoy zombie films that are well done. Some of my favorite movies are -REC, 28 Days Later, Dead Snow and Shaun of the Dead. I enjoy the slasher films believe it or not. I did at one time watch a lot of the Asian horror but that is really intense and not really as predictable and started giving me nightmares. I had to stop that for a while. I enjoy almost all movies that I find worth seeing. I also like comedies and historical films such as Saving Private Ryan and Stalingrad. These are just some of my hobbies.