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Friday 13 September 2019

Whats on my palette?

Bless me readers for I have sinned, it's been over 6 months since my last confession! I've had quite lot of structure to what I've been doing so it didn't really require an overview to keep track.


But with the new hobby season I Feel like I've got a lot on my plate, but not stuffed with things I don't like - a huge buffet of delectable treats that I want to sample and gorge on until my plate is empty! So where am I at? Having just completed my two sets of Ferron Fire Firs and then varnishing the original set I already feel like I'm off to a great start, even though their potential use is thoroughly limited. Now I'm still using my Trello list which is a little odd as covers most of my To Do List but has extras/missing elements. However, it's nice to have a variety of tools to keep track of what's what, this is another one afterall! I'm even considering deploying Post-It notes in the mancave of each job and creating a tactile physical representation of what is being done/completed.


Anyway I had shared a Guardian article about how to tackle your To Do List, with the primary rule being doing attempt more than 3 jobs at a time as any more can be overwhelming. However, I'm currently in a position where my painting project amount to six items:
  1. Genestealer Abberants
  2. Genestealer Iconward
  3. Genestealer familiars
  4. Blood Bowl Humans
  5. Callidus Assassin
  6. Extra Knight weapons
There's a disparity in the amount of work in each of these and some are almost complete but I just can't/won't push that final furlong with them. But reconciling the issue of just 3 asks is based on shared elements. The Aberrants had some grey areas to do, so I slipped in some quartering of the Blood Bowl Humans. I hate doing that job but once again I'm using the crest of my current positive hobby mojo to motivate me to get these bits done. Any time I feel it's tedious I just stop and go on to something else. 

This has all made me think quite hard about the variety of rules and tips I've lived by to keep hobby momentum. I really think I need to formalise them to help. I think they could be like a set of commandments [but more like guidelines] but then the more I think it feels like a process diagram with if/and/or states because there are no hard and fast rules to keeping busy. From my experience sticking to just one approach is one of the hardest ways to maintain your hobby. But, there are loads of people ho would swear blind that a systematic strict way of working is what gets them results - so you see no single solution to this varied hobby.

Now on top of that painting list I've also sculpted, yes the Tyranid Void Shield Generator has had some DAS clay added to it. I had been putting it off, for over 3 years now, purely because I wanted to video how to do some of the tendon bits. I finally did a clip and I desperately want this complete , so there's quite a competition for my limited hobby time.


What I have realised is that by attempting so many jobs simultaneously I'm actually making inroads into my Big Build from last season, when in reality it would be best to have those to do over Winter - I really need to build more now, which I suppose makes the VSG a good fit. But I also have the remaining GW Manchester painting challenges to do, as well as Dreadtober and that means there will be a lot of chopping and changing in these priorities. Whether that kills momentum n some of these tasks has yet to be seen but I hope not.


One other key observation I've made is setting a task for the evening and completing it is a real buzz. If you really want that hobby high then that's a definite tactic, for instance I set myself the tasks of  matt varnishing some of my Ferron Fire Firs, painting the bone elements on my Abberrants and some small colours elsewhere. To set that goal, go out and achieve it felt so great. Progress is always a key motivator and sometimes the tasks we set are a little difficult to perceive in isolation on a model, but when presented as a task and that task is ticked off at the end of the session it becomes immaterial what it was, just that it is complete. Once again it's mind games and tricks to keep going when you might start to lose confidence, hence why I switched in the Post-Its. I could have easily used a tick-list but by mixing things up it feels fresh and organised in a different way.

2 comments:

  1. Good call on breaking things up. I recently wrote a list of all the things I had in my projetline and it seemed insurmountable.

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    1. It's possible my Hobby Season To Do List can descend into that kind of stumbling block, which is why I always use it as a guide only. It's not to be strictly achieved, just used to direct focus when I have none. Luckily I usually have choices and urges to complete one task or another so my list never feels like a millstone.

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