We were lucky to catch up with Lyn Orzech recently and have shared our conversation below.
Lyn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?
The story of how my passion for miniature painting started goes back to the 90’s, but the actual birth of Metalhead Minis was in July of 2009.
During the economy crash 2008/2009, I was laid off and fell into depression. Painting always made me happy so I went to local game stores to sit and just paint. While sitting and painting at the Reaper Game Store in Denton, Texas, I was always complimented on my work and told I should get paid for painting. One day a gentleman that I gamed with named Ernie asked what it would cost to paint his dwarf riding on a boar. I gave him a price, he gladly agreed, and when I brought the piece in the next week completed, he LOVED it. I was so proud of how that piece came out. Then the commission orders just kept coming in and still getting fully booked to this day 14 years later. Painting for clients all over the world and for multiple miniature / scale
model manufacturing companies.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
It all started in 1997, when Lyn was introduced to miniatures thanks to a friend named Mark. Mark used to play D&D in high school and noticed that Lyn had an interest in fantasy characters and stories. Upon this discovery, he figured he would show her his collection of Dungeons and Dragons books and miniatures. Mark was kind enough to show her how to paint the miniatures, and right away she was hooked. From then on, miniature painting became part of her life. There were a few times in life that miniature painting became a saving grace when life threw her challenges. One of those times, she decided that she wanted to share the hobby with others and be one of the leaders of growing the hobby community. One of the ways that she accomplishes this, is by teaching classes at conventions and local game stores as well as sharing ideas and teachings via online (I.E.- social media, magazine articles, and YouTube channel) and in person when she is at conventions and gaming events.
Metalhead Minis Commissioned Miniature Painting and Consignment was established in July of 2009. Over the years, what started out as one person just painting miniatures has become a full-fledged company that provides services such as miniature painting to other companies and clients all over the world! Along with an awesome crew that is family. Combined, our crew has decades of experience with all different genres of gaming, miniatures, and miniature gaming.
In addition, the Metalhead Minis team gets hired on for event coordination and directing in several areas of gaming conventions and events.
Services include:
-Commissioned miniature painting for table top gaming (single characters, NPC’s, armies, and terrain), collector display, and dioramas at a reasonable price. Quotes are given on a case by case basis depending on size, amount of detail, preparation and assembly, quality of paint job, type of basing, etc.
-Consignment sales of Miniatures, table top war gaming supplies, other gaming related supplies, and collectibles.
-Metalhead Minis Hobby Classes at conventions and local game stores.
-Private lessons.
https://linktr.ee/metalheadminis
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
When I first started getting commissioned to paint miniatures, I figured that I would get in enough work to do things like purchase, extra groceries, get extra things for the children, perhaps even treat myself to extra make up and designer sunglasses. From the time I took my first commission job, I was constantly getting booked to paint pieces. My work was spread from other people sharing photos of my work and “word of mouth” (which is still to this day the best type of advertisement you can get is word of mouth and referrals).
Later, I posted a painted mini for sale on eBay, and a gentleman who is now a friend on mine named Ernst, asked me about selling extra models for him.
We agreed on a system to help him sell his pieces, and the consignment store part of the business was born.
As for the hobby classes part of the business- I have been teaching and training people in jobs and skills since I was 12 years old. While working / volunteering at GenCon 2009, one of my friends wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t teach a class and asked if I would cover it.
Then I was not only hired on as an instructor at multiple conventions and events, but I also now direct and hire on instructors for multiple conventions and events.
Just keep shining my friend, you never know where it will take you. 😊
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Owning Metalhead Minis is not the first company that I have ever owned. I’ve actually started owning businesses when I was 18. Starting with a guitar shop in NY. Throughout that time, I would not only get discriminatory treatment for being young, I also got it for being a woman who owned / owns businesses in realms that are known as “a man’s world”. What’s worse is, you would *think* that women would lift each other up through something like that. However, that is not always the case. Sometimes they are the worst. One such woman who was known in the gaming industry used to purposely try to embarrass me in-front of others, and told me I would not accomplish anything. Now years later, you mention her name and almost no one knows who she is.
The point is, being a person who supports and lifts others is important. If you have an agenda to step on people to get to the top you won’t get far, that’s not real leadership and that’s not success.
Throughout your journey, you will have people telling you that you can’t, you shouldn’t, etc. the only person who knows what you are capable of is you, if you believe in it and are passionate about it, then go for it and keep going.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/metalheadminis
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/metalhead_lynsanity?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lynstahlartist?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyn-stahl
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/metalhead_minis?s=21&t=AqnPxa1eAAiDvGCrBsqQPw
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@MetalheadMinis
Image Credits
The photos are my own.