Paint & Ramble: Hobby Pressure

Ultimate Goblin Mode

This is my new favorite way to paint—hunched over, extreme back pain, goblin mode. It’s strangely comfortable until it’s not.

The Hobby Pressure Spiral

I was talking to the Ice King about hobby pressure. Here’s what happens: You have 10 minutes waiting for a meeting, can’t paint for real, but you could build a guy. You think it’s better to do something than nothing.

So you build three guys today, five tomorrow. Suddenly you have a second army ready to paint when you haven’t touched your actual project. Now you’re excited about the new thing.

You get an hour to paint and you prime the whole new army instead. Then you’re back to having no time to paint, but five minutes here, ten there—you build more guys.

Do this for five years and you get tons of half-built, half-primed, half-painted army projects going nowhere.

The Paralysis

Now I’ve found time in my life to paint, and I sit there with so many cool things looking at me. How do I pick one? I spend all my available time just thinking about that.

More Than Just a Hobby

This hobby is a lifestyle. It morphs your life. This is where you find joy, creative expression, where you fill your bucket back up. We’re artists here.

It’s not like sitting down to play a video game. This is my spiritual practice. This is what I do to survive. It’s that one thing that’s for myself, by myself.

It keeps you sane—until it doesn’t. Until you have a pile that weighs you down and owns you. Then this thing that should be nothing but joy becomes stress.

The Arbitrary Deadline

Finishing these goblins before October was an arbitrary deadline. I don’t have anyone to play Old World with. I’m going to use the Hobgoblin solo rules. It doesn’t actually have to be painted—as soon as it’s based, I could play.

But for some reason, I prefer to stress myself out. That doesn’t make any sense.

The Plan

I’m going to do a purge. Sell everything I have no chance of painting this year. Sell what I could easily buy again. Keep sentimental stuff and what’s already painted for display.

Going into next year with a fresh slate, no hobby pressure. Pick a single Warmachine faction and stick to it. Really focus on getting good at painting—maybe only paint 5-10 models next year, but make every single one display quality.

I want to do something else that makes money so I can pursue creative things however I want, without tying a price tag to painting. I can just enjoy it.