Tyranny of Dragons
Elemental Evil
Rage of Demons
Monster Menagerie
Storm King's Thunder
Monster Menagerie II
Tomb of Annihilation
Monster Menagerie III
Waterdeep Dragon Heist
Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus
Volo & Mordenkainen’s Foes
Eberron: Rising From the Last War
Mythic Odysseys of Theros
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! Please read.
Hey Chris:
You've made a wonderful site here, but I thought it would be interesting to get an idea as to why you decided to start it? Were you a member, or still are a member of any other mini sites? I'm sure there was a reason for you to take the steps to create such a site and I'd love to hear the reason.
Thanks Chris!
John - A.K.A. Magister Arbados
That's kind of a long story, but here goes...
I started collecting PPMs when Harbinger came out (oh so long ago), and started using a spreadsheet to keep track of what I had and what I needed. As the number of figures grew, and Star Wars was added, the spreadsheet became too cumbersome to work with. So, I moved everything over to Microsoft Access, which worked a little better, but still had some limitations.
At the time, I was working, first as a web developer, and later as a project manager. I was at a fairly large publishing company when the bottom started to fall out of the entire industry, and as a result of downsizing, I found myself laid off. I knew that project management positions were drying up, and I didn't really like the work anyway, so I decided to learn some new technologies, get my development skills back up to snuff, and move forward as a web developer again.
As I was re-learning the job, I put together a number of websites, and my miniatures database was one of them. By then, the market had cooled off a lot (I think this was around the time that Dungeon Command was out, so there wasn't a ton happening in PPMs for RPGs), so I didn't really think about making it public. It was a mess anyway, with my making a lot of wrong choices as I learned, but it was good enough for me, and good practice, so I kept fiddling with it.
Pathfinder miniatures arrived, and the hobby started to feel fresh again. I fiddled with the site a little more, added some features that I thought would be helpful to me (like tagging), and eventually realized that there might be enough other collectors out there who might want to use the site too. So, I fiddled, upgraded, fixed a lot of mistakes, rebuilt, and eventually launched the site as you see it today. I had no idea then if anyone would even use it, so I'm very pleased to see that it's beginning to be embraced by the community.
Oh, and as to your other question, I was a member of MaxMinis back in the day. I didn't post a lot, but when I did, it was under the name Yukon Cornelius.
SoB, I recall the name Yukon Cornelius quite clearly back in the days of Maxminis!! I remember that site quite well and it will always be considered the originator of the boards for pre-painted plastic! I'm very glad that you've added your site for all us users. It is great and thanks.