Self Reflection and Story Time

Transcript

This could be kind of a serious one. I’m looking around and now I’m in like the sort and categorize stage to get all of this like finalized and cleaned up. And I’m just like looking at it all and like—how did this happen, right? Like, mess, mess, junk. Like this is—especially this—all of that under there is not trash. That’s like boxes that I tipped over. And obviously the table is crazy. And I’ve just been like thinking like how one, how do I get myself out of this, but two, how do I just not go right back into this? And I’ve just been thinking and reflecting about like how I even got here because like this is just—this is crazy. I was even like debating not even putting it on camera. I’m sure there’s been glimpses of it in the background, but…

When I was 24—and I’m 35 now—so 24, 25ish, I was in the process of moving and I was moving into an apartment. And I put almost everything I owned into a storage shed. And I’m sure you can tell where this is going. I literally had—obviously I have some stuff, like you’ve seen some stuff I’ve had from when I was a kid—but I maybe had like two Subaru Impreza car loads at this apartment and everything else I owned was in the storage shed. And I don’t even want to get into like what was in the storage shed, but let’s just say it would have been life-altering to have been able to have that stuff—one, to give to my kids and two, to sell, especially with the price of Pokemon cards and Magic cards during COVID.

But anyway, I don’t want to get into that. Everything I had in that storage shed—due to a little bit of malice on one person’s part and a little bit of negligence on another family member’s part—it was all stolen. So I lost everything. Like literally everything that I owned except for two hatchback loads that I had like literally just moved like a week into this apartment. I was going back and the storage shed was this way and where I worked was this way, and so, you know, I didn’t think it was like that pressing to go and get everything, which was really my fault. Like, one, I shouldn’t have trusted who I trusted to use that storage shed, and really like I just should have got it out anyway. I can’t really blame anybody else for that.

But that was a moment in my life where I kind of embraced this idea of radical accountability—that no matter what happens to me, it’s my fault. And that was a lesson that I took away from that and a couple of other experiences I had when I was early 20s.

So I kind of started just rebuilding the collection, you know, like a little bit of chasing stuff I had when I was a kid, rebuilding the Warhammer stuff. And I’m just going to pace around and ramble. I started rebuilding the Warhammer armies that I had. And obviously in my head like I wasn’t going to be able to jump right back in and just paint. Like I didn’t think about the countless hours and years of painting all the stuff that I had. So I immediately just kind of jumped back in and I was working. At that time, I had just met my wife. Like, we were freshly dating, so I was kind of making big boy money then. But anyway, I was able to just like do what I wanted to do with my money with relatively low responsibilities. So just kind of immediately started just buying like the books and the books, the video games—not really video games at that point—but just like the books, the toys, the Warhammer stuff, the hobby stuff. Really just kind of trying to just regain all that.

And then bought the house that we’re in now, which sucks. I’m grateful and thankful to have a house, but it was a bad decision—very bad decision to purchase this specific house. And then like getting married and having kids, the only way that I really engaged with the hobby was buying stuff. Like I wasn’t playing, I wasn’t obviously painting. Occasionally I’d build stuff, but really the only way that I was engaging with this thing that I love was buying, and not even taking care of it obviously. Like it’s in piles. It looks like trash, you know? Like this is just a straight up—like I should be on an episode of Hoarders, which is also like pretty embarrassing too honestly.

So I’m using my shame to clean. I mean it’s not like dirty, you know? It’s just like I keep it clean but it’s just like clean piles of junk. So I got to keep going through this. And I’m at the point now where like I have a relatively good idea of what I’m going to do with the space and I’m going to organize it. But to actually change who you are and what you’re doing, you have to think about the reasons of why you’re doing it and like how you got to that place. And you don’t want to just go right back to it. Like I could spend—I’ve already spent like two weeks cleaning and it’s still this—to give you an idea of how bad it really was. I don’t want to spend the rest of the month getting this workspace all cleaned back up again only to do the same things that got me here.

So it’s just time to change. And it’s like it’s time to address like why I have these flaws and where they came from and why I’m doing these things that I don’t want to do anymore. And a big part of that is buying—like I got to stop buying. The next wave of Dusk, the Fane of Neroth, comes out in June of next year, June or July. So not buying any Warmachine until then. Sorry, Steamforged. I love you guys, but I think I’m done on the purchasing department there. I have everything I need to play Dusk to 100 points. I might not be like a meta-list, especially with things changing, but worst case, I could print—I could print the rest of Dark Operations. Or Crucible Guard looks really cool, but I don’t want to project hop. See, I’m doing the thing again that I do.

But I have enough to play all the games that I want to play. I don’t need to purchase anything else until June. And my like 6 months—really like we’re pretty much in my mind we’re in the new year because I got to do all the prep that starts today if I want to actually hit the ground running in the new year. So just not going to buy anything for at least 6 months until June until Dusk comes out. I have more than enough stuff to do in the meantime. More than enough projects.

And I really—I want to paint, you know. I want to get really good at Warmachine. I would like to start playing Infinity and I want to get really good at painting. Like really really good at painting. Maybe like set a goal of actually going to like—I don’t know, probably spending like the next three years trying to think of like when realistically the kids could handle like me going somewhere or maybe even coming with me. So two to three years of like painting every day with the intent of getting very good at painting and then maybe going out to a Golden Demon. I think like I’m pretty good for an average painter, but I have a long way to go to get up to where I’d like to be. So I think it’s time to start that.

But it starts with this workshop and getting—turning this into a studio. I call it the dungeon because I’m down in a basement and it’s very much a hoarder’s dungeon right now. But it’s time to turn this into a studio and a place where I can clear my head and be healthy and be at a place of creativity and creation. And it starts with just kind of like looking at these bad habits within myself, figuring out why they’re there, and now like having the discipline and the mental fortitude to not go back and do the same dumb stuff over and over again.

Okay, hobby-wise, I fixed everything that was broken from the starter set. I think that’s actually the expansion set—it’s whichever box Hazeroth comes in. So I got all those guys fixed and the support lines removed. Got the cat magnetized. I got to clean this shelf off—it’s pretty dusty. I just brought this in from the garage actually.

Dusk-wise, I just got to do the Phantasm. And the Phantasm is like 75% done. A little bit more magnetizing I need to do, but I got everything that was broken or warped and all the supports off and everything sanded. All the stuff that’s like a pain in the butt done and just a little bit more magnetizing to do on that. So I’ll get that done today too.

And so the goblins—I haven’t abandoned them. Really just my mentality with the goblins was those are how I make sure that I get brush on something. So I’m really like—I don’t know, maybe like 15 minutes a day, like probably like I finish like two goblins a day lately. And I think before the end of this month I’ll sit down and however many are left I’ll just bang them all out and then that’s when I’ll make the final goblin video.

But I’ve been thinking—I get so sidetracked building stuff and not hobbying that I think it’d be good for me to just build everything that I want to paint next year and just have it all knocked out. So that’s really kind of what I’ve been doing, which maybe sounds crazy, but it’s kind of like the same mistakes that I’ve been making, but like optimizing the mistake and making the most of it.

So I’ve got—I’ve built all these Infinity guys. Yeah, I built these. I got all those guys built. I’ve almost built every Infinity model I own. I only have like four or five Infinity models left. And I’m going to use the Infinity to like practice painting just because there’s so many different textures. It’s a smaller scale, so I think it’ll be harder. And there’ll be a lot of opportunity to learn and try new techniques. And also they don’t all have to look uniform. I’ll do things to like tie the force together, but I think I’ll be able to get away with trying different methods and different things on them. The Dusk is here.

Then what else was I building? So in the closet, all the Orcs are built. Obviously, all the Vampire Counts—all the vampire hobbits are built. I’m going to build the Mordheim—he’s built. But I found—look at this—I found the zombies, so I got to do the Undead Mordheim warband. I need a necromancer, so I’m on the lookout for a necromancer in my collection somewhere. I don’t think I have the official one. I know I don’t have the official one, but I think I have some cool ones somewhere in here.

Somewhere in here is 80 painted Gripping Beast ghouls. So I pretty much got the Mordheim Mordaband covered.

Got to build this. If you know what this is, I’ve been waiting too long. This is definitely on the list for next year to paint. Miscellaneous RPG models that I’m going to—I’m not—I don’t plan on painting all of these, but there’s just like a various assortment of them that I want to paint for all of these because I definitely—I just want to start doing role playing games more too. And I’m not going to build these right now, but it’s going to be like the last kind of the last project I have that I want to do for next year.

But Lord of the Rings—multiple Lord of the Rings armies. I really want to get into that game really, really badly. So, like I said, I’m not going to build them. I’m going to keep them in the box for now. But next year, next year for sure.

So I think I’m being pretty ambitious with my with the amount of projects I have. So I’m not going to worry about anything else. I think maybe I’ll do one more Trench Crusade warband. So, boom—these guys, they’re all primed and ready to go. And then obviously Mòlley Crew is staring me in the face every day. But I think that’ll be—that’s like the next year of this YouTube channel. So if none of that stuff interests you, stop watching, unsubscribe.

I think I’m sure there’ll be like little bits—like the Necromunda stuff. I’ll piece in little bits of conversion stuff here and there, but I really just want to get all the building for the next year done. And I’m pretty much there. Like I said, less than 20 figures to build and I’ll have everything I want to paint for the next year.

And Kingdom Death. Kingdom Death is going to be rough. I got to get all that built. But other than that, I’ll probably build Kingdom Death just because I can start playing that immediately. I want to get more into like solo playing just because it’s looking like I’m probably not going to be able to leave the house for a bit. So I’m going to get good by playing Warmachine at home and on War Table and looking into like solo play opportunities because I have time where I could play, but I don’t have time where I could like leave the house a ton.

So that’s the vision for the channel—is really documenting my progress on one, like getting good at a game. And I’m going to try to make that apply to any game—like the steps you take to get good. And the other thing is like getting really good at painting and solo—hopefully not all solo—but solo role playing games. Just because I think like the storytelling and the creativity—and that’s really where my heart lies.

And then other than that, I don’t know what the future has. Casting stuff is somewhere.

Oh, also for the toads, I didn’t realize that Tuesday was a holiday and I shipped them out of my office. So the UPS guy—or the post office guy—didn’t come to pick it up. But those are—I manually—I didn’t realize that until this weekend when I was going back through and looking at stuff. So sorry about that, but they have actually shipped now finally. Very sorry for that. Totally blanked on—I had them at the office. Usually the USPS guy picks up packages for us from there. But those are good now.

One more—I’m going to go hard on Relic Blade. I have been a big fan of Relic Blade for a while, but just haven’t gotten around to actually painting my stuff. So that’s also—Relic Blade’s also on the list for next year.