A new, locally owned and operated hobby and game store has opened its doors in southeast Colorado Springs. Hobby Smith, l3029 Jet Wing Drive,  opened this month  and will offer a wide selection of table top games, model kits for those games, paints and building materials.

The store, owned and operated by Jessica Tucker and Rafael Rodriguez, will hold a grand opening celebration on July 5. While the two are still waiting for some products, there are a number of Warhammer 40,000 and Bolt Action sets in stock.

Their store will also be the largest distributor of Gamers Grass,  a fake grass product for dioramas, in the state and the only distributor of Colour Forge spray paints in the state, Tucker said.

The building is more than a storefront and offers table space for game nights, though details on those will be revealed in the future, Tucker said.

Over the past few years, Tucker said she’s seen a large increase in the popularity of table top games. Warhammer 40,000 especially has seen an explosion in popularity since it was created by Games Workshop in the late 1980s. Over the decades, it has evolved from a game with miniature armies of soldiers, war machines and aliens to a multimedia empire: There are movies, TV shows and video games all set in the universe.

And a large number of fans are younger people, Tucker said, who are putting down their electronic devices so they can build and paint the minis.

One big draw? The customization. While a builder can paint their minis to look like what’s on the box and build an “in-universe” army, sometimes people forge their own, ingenious builds, Tucker said.

“I’ve seen people who do Hello Kitty themes and Toy Story. … One person did a Buzz Lightyear space marine, that was pretty cool. … It’s just fun,” she said. “My fiancée, who does the Bolt Action minis, painted a Pink Panther mini just because he says, ‘Why not?’”

Tucker and Rodriguez met in 2021. The two are planning to be married in October.

Rodriguez introduced Tucker to Warhammer with a small starter set and the next time he saw her, she’d acquired and built three more. Tucker started to create custom resin dice, which she said people really enjoyed.

“We started setting up at markets and slowly started to grow from there. … Our space got bigger and fuller,” Tucker said. “We did more markets and conventions, but after a certain point we had a goal that we wanted to open a gaming store.”

And that is now a reality after the two found a place to rent and made some quick renovations. The two are planning to bring more products to the store, including Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons.

“Our goal is to support the community as much as possible, so we want their opinions on the different gaming products we should carry,” Tucker said. “We’re not just going to buy whatever we think and say ‘well, take your pick or leave.’ We want to know what they want.”