A history of Kevin James White as seen through the eyes of his long-suffering wife, Sally

Kev White is a young(ish) sculptor living and working from a small village in Suffolk.

At the age of seven Kev was labelled as a having ‘criminal tendencies’ by his primary school teacher.

When he was eight years old a more understanding primary school teacher read the young Kev and his classmates ‘The Hobbit’, his imagination was hooked.

As a young boy living in the middle of nowhere in a village with no social scene and no friends, he turned to the rewarding hobby of cutting up and reassembling toy soldiers to make his own ‘special friends’.

About 1983/84, Kev bought his first Grenadier miniatures from the local model shop. It is these that he has been selling on Ebay in the last couple of months.

In 1991, Kev went to art college in Cambridge. He enjoyed making sculptural anatomically correct forms from clay, but really didn't enjoy the ‘conceptual stuff’ which was what his tutors has decided he should spend more time doing. Kev finally decided it is was ‘load of balls’ when as a piss-take he divided the classroom up along a line from east to west with aluminium edging strip and labelled it to the exact degree according to the atlas. His tutor said it was great and was his best work yet. Kev thought "sod this for a game of toy soldiers" and went to the GW store up the road (figuratively speaking) and asked for the address of the studio in Notts and applied for a job as a painter of miniatures.

In March 1992, Kev was employed by GW as a mini painter under Mike McVey. So it's him, Rick Priestly and Mr Gillingham (Kev's primary school teacher) who are mostly to blame for unleashing Kev and his style of miniatures on an unsuspecting public.

By August 1992 Kev started trying to make his own minis and was given advice by Jes Goodwin primarily and also later a lot from Gary Morley.
(side note…..Kev once told Jes Goodwin that he was going to be the best in the world and that he had better watch out !!..Kev really hopes that Jes has forgotten that one!)

During Dec 1992/Jan 1993, following a series of abuses of privilege by a fellow painter, the management of the studio were forced to crack down on people working on their own miniatures in the studio during lunch breaks and also before and after work. Kev was told that he couldn't design his toys anymore (poor Kev). He was given some writing work for White Dwarf to keep him out of trouble (they didn’t know him very well….did they??). Jes, Gary and Dave (Andrews) were all very supportive (He'd been getting tips from them all) and assured him that it probably wouldn't be for long, just until the offending painter buggered off.

However on 15th March 1993 Kev was told by the Studio Manager at the time that "they" thought he didn't have it in him to be a designer and that he should concentrate on his painting and possibly the White Dwarf stuff.

16th March 1993, Kev resigns from GW.

Freelance work followed, mostly for GZG and Jon's stargrunt range of miniatures that he wanted to start properly. Later he got talking to Dean Edwards and he offered him a job.

1995, Kev Worked for Harlequin. He left them after about 10 months, because he got burned out by the amount of miniatures Harlequin wanted him to make and also he was still pretty screwed up over the death of his sister in 1994.
(Little known fact: Kev did a massage course at college with a view to doing that as a career after his burnout at Harlequin)

This change of heart didn’t last too long however, as Kev’s creativity kept making an appearance and in 1996-97 he went freelance again. He didn’t earn much until John Robertson came along and gave him loads of work.

April 1998, Kev went to work in Edinburgh for Target Games under John Robertson (not literally!). Enjoyed being back within a creative team.

May 1999, rising bills (irresponsible now-ex wife and a new baby) meant Kev couldn't survive on what Target paid, so he moved back to Suffolk with wife and child with a view to earning more in the local meat packing factory. Before he could do, Chaz Elliot pops up for Wizards of the Coast and offers him more money than the young Kev could imagine. They flew him out to Seattle with 3 days notice and offered him a job. He accepted ( well who wouldn’t??). A ‘money-dazzled’ Kev flew home and told John Robertson of the offer.

A day later Kev gets an offer for more wonga (English expression meaning lots of dosh) from Target. So after being employed by Wizards for 2 days he then resigns and works for Target again.
(Note from Kev…..”It must be said that the lack of cash from Target in the first case was not J.R’s fault but it was the restrictions placed upon him by the directors of the parent company in Sweden, only him leaving made them take notice and provide him with more funds.)

Early 2000. Target U.K heads the way of all things and goes tits up. i-Kore rise, Pheonix-like, from it's ashes and we're cooking on gas (English expression meaning very very happy Kev).

Very happy at i-Kore until the last year when again Kev's creativity started to nag him and he became discontent to always work for others. He started to experiment with his own range, and on November 17th 2003 the first ‘Ogre’… now called ‘Mjolnir Haxlefrei’ was issued for sale on Ebay. 'Liberty, the Axewoman' and the Demonette were then put up for general release at the end of December 2003.

Also in December 2003, Kev does a couple of Warcasters for Privateer press and will be doing some more freelance stuff for them soon.

All of the above takes us more or less to the present day. Please watch our ‘News’ page for weekly updates on WIP (works in progress) and release dates.

Thanks for reading!

You can e-mail Sally at: mrshasslefriesian AT hotmail DOT com