Chris ‘Peachy’ Peach has stopped caring about whether he’s quoted correctly or not. As a legend of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Warhammer community, he’s been the subject of countless articles and interviews, not least in the pages of White Dwarf itself. I first read Peach’s potentially-misquoted words in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Games Workshop’s magazine’s Tale of Four Warlords column, but it was so long ago I can’t rem꧂ember which army he painted. I thought it was a pale blue Eldar force, but Peach himself believes it was Necrons. I’ll defer to his judgment, I was only a 🐷kid at the time.
Peachy is a legend in Warhammer circles. When I was𝐆 reading his articles in White Dwarf a decade ago, he was already halfway through his career at Games Workshop. Having risen from store manager, to army painter, to video producer over his 21-year career at the premier miniatures company, he was a familiar face on Warhammer TV and at Warhammer World, where he still goes for a pint to catch up with old friends at Bugman’s.
But playing such a 𓄧big role in Warhammer 🌼does have its downsides.
“I'm so used to being misquoted, because they used to do it in White Dwarf all the time. I'd say stuff and then [writer] Dan Harden would go away, write some stuff, put it in, and I'd be like, ‘I've never used words like that! Where’s that come from?’”
Most recently, he’s been misquoted in an online interview that attempted to exacerbate issues that led ꦦto his Games Workshop exit, but he’s beyond the point of caring now. As long as I don’t put any hate speech in his mouth, he tells me, I can say what I want. Still, I’ll try my best.
But his experience hasn’t made him confident 🐷or cocksure. In fact, he has the opposite problem. “I have massive imposter syndrome,” he tells me, taking a sip of his brew. “I always have, I always will. Who wants to follow a 40-year-old bald guy who paints really fast and looks a bit like an egg? But apparently people do.”
Since announcing his split from – which feels like the second time he’s gone solo now – Peach has launched his own YouTube channel, Peachy Tips (tea pun very much intended), where he’ll upload painting guides for all manner of game systems. The community support has astoun﷽ded him, but also offered vital backing at a time when he’s taking a huge risk.
His already has nearly 20,000 subscribers less than a week after its launch, despite the fact he’s yet to post a video other than the announcement. He has 350 paying patrons in the same period, who have received their first painting tutorial. This community backing has done wonders to assure Peach that he’s doing the right thing, and helped persuade his wife that he’s no🍌t committing career suicide.
“Patreon has definitely helped to give myself and Mrs. Peach the confidence to know that there's financial support there,” he says. “And it's crazy to think people just want to give £3 or £5 a month to see you succeed. It's amazing.”
Content creation can often feel like a young person’s game, but Peach has a 🦄family to support, and a mortgage. There are benefits to it, though, like being able to work around the school run and edit videos in the evening. In fact, aꦍ yearning for freedom is exactly why he left both Games Workshop and The Painting Phase, albeit more of a creative freedom.
“I think once a month I want to do one 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars video, one historical video – that could be Napoleonics, World War Two, or Ancients – one 40K, and one 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Age of Sigmar or Warhammer [Fantasy Battle/168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Old World] themed video. They might be shorts, they might be four long videos. But my disclaimer to this is, it's taken me a while to learn editing so it might be slightly less a month, to start off with.”
This freedom is a stark contrast to his role at the Painting Phase,ꦉ where he points out that 32 of his 43 painting guides were 40K. He wants to move away from the algorithm and hไave some fun, building a community that likes him for his videos, whether he’s painting a Space Marine or donning his suit of armour and paints a miniature to match its heraldry.
However, that seems his only real problem with the Painting Phase – ther𓄧e were no fights with his co-hosts in the car park. It wasn’t like his time at Workshop, where he grew disillusioned with management after ideas were continuously shot down. Peach maintains that he loved his work there, overall, or else he wouldn’t have stayed for over 20 years, and that the bad managers were not those above him at the time he left. Nevertheless, there’s a hint of bitterness (or is it sadness?) about every cool video he could have made there, every opportunity missed.
Need help painting 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:an army of tiny Dreadnoughts? Check out one of Peachy's tutorials on black armour.
That being said, he wants to get the band back together. As well as diversifying his content in terms of games he covers, he’s got room in his office for two people so he can make more of those interviews with Workshop legends that were so insightful on the Painting Phase. He wants to collaborate with fellow Warhammer TV alumni Duncan Rhodes, who was the firs꧟t big name to controversially leave the channel, and former Citadel Colour Masterclass host Louise Sugden. If his Patreon is successful enough, he even wants to hire his old video editor from the Warhammer da༒ys, Dermot McDonald.
It’s Sugden who has helped 🐼him🌞 the most already, he explains. She recently went solo too, and has a very successful and Patreon, along with her own range of goblin miniatures.
“I would like to express my deepest thanks to Suggs and Rob [Sykes, known as The Honest Wargamer] because they've been so supportive of this. Editing-wise, Suggs had me over, she did a crash course on editing. They've been there as moral support as well.”
Peach seems genuinely humbled by the support he receives. From coworkers, from family, from Patreons, from subscribers. But it’s no surprise that he’s at the centre of such a positive, kind community. He’s a veteran of the ‘old days&rsquo𓆉; of Games Workshop, a pers🐽onality ripped from the pages of White Dwarf in a time before it was one big advert. And he comes across as a genuine guy. He doesn’t hold grudges, despite what misquotes might have you think. And he wants to give back.
When I ask him what his long-term goal is, whether 🌳he has a certain subscriber milestone in mind or if he wants a Golden Demon trophy, he laughs. With all t🎶he freedom that going self-employed comes with, he wants to eventually open up a communal streaming space for aspiring creators. He’s just spent the majority of his savings on camera equipment and lights, so he wants to open the door for future generations.
“I want to have a space that has lots of cubicles or rooms which are streaming rooms for people that don't have a space, don't have the equipment,” he explains. “The equipment's all going to be there, or at least some of it will. So if you’re starting off in a streaming environment, you want to get a painting channel going – or even like any kind of gaming streaming, I suppose, to a certain degree – there will be a space where you could come and rent it for a period of time and then, if you grow, you can go off and find your own space.”
Peach𒐪y’s under no illusion as to the costs of his 20-booth studio, but it’s a long-term goal that’s incredibly selfless, a way of giving back to the community that has supported him so much. Of course he’d earn through rent and a proportion of stream earnings, but that’s far cheaper for a burgeoning creator than buying your own streaming PC, webcam, and equipment – as he’s just f♉ound out himself.
From decades at Games Workshop, to striking out on his own (twice) and the launch of Peachy Tips, Peach has fostered a good-n꧙atured community of wargamers who eschew the expectations of toxicity that still linger throughout the online fandom. Peac꧋h’s story is one of mutual support, of kindness, and of the power of the Warhammer community.
