'The Hobby Matrix' or 'How to beat your hobby slump' or 'Getting your hobby Mojo back'

The 'hobby matix' is a concept I've been mulling over for quite a while. Its a tool for understanding how you prioritise aspects of the hobby and by understanding what gets you going when you feel de-motivated or have lost your mojo then you can review your matrix and hopefully find some spark to set you off again. It's funny though that I finally write this piece just as my own mojo is suffering but therein lies one of the princeps of how the matrix works - when you cannot find motivation for one aspect to the hobby then switch to another. Before we get into it though understand there's nothing scientific about this, I've just made it up so I can try to analyse whats going on when nothing is going on, but it could also help in time managing your hobby activities too.

So the first step is to assess what you enjoy most about the hobby, to list each aspect and rate from 1-10 how important it is and how much you enjoy it, these are your hobby priorities. I think most people would have the following 4:

• painting
• modelling
• terrain
• gaming

That's about as simple as it gets but you may even have more priorities and these could be:

• blogging
• forums
• youtube watching [battle reports, painting tutorials]

If you don't do any of these things you could omit them completely from your priority list or you could add them as zero areas, aspects that you don't participate in but are part of the hobby. The point being that just because you don't have them as a priority doesn't mean they don't exist and by acknowledging them you can always dip into that acticivity and who knows? that may be the spark to rekindle your mojo. Even the smallest spark can start a fire and that's the primary reason for doing this.

So with your priorities rated you end up with a table like this [although a simple list could equally suffice]:

Hobby Priorities (out of 10) Painting Modelling Gaming Terrain 7 6 8 3

Or if your a visual person a hobby matrix that looks like this:

or this:

However, I see the matrix as a fluid beast, whereas the priority table is your general fixed point - your baseline to judge the matrix.

For instance I believe my hobby priorities would look something like this as a list:

• painting - 7
• modelling - 7
• terrain - 9
• gaming - 8
• blogging - 6
• forums - 9
• youtube watching [battle reports, painting tutorials] - 3

and my baseline matrix would be this:

But I can tell you now that's not where my mojo is currently focussed. I like most of those activities but you'd be hard pressed to correleate the quantity of my blog posts with those priorities. I find painting quite tedious in some respects but it's a necessity and can get decent results, hence why it features so much on the blog but really only rates 7/10. Meanwhile, I love doing terrain, I can visualise and think about terrain more than anything, but reality means it sits way down on my list of things to do [yeah that's common with everyone right!]. Therefore it's a priority of 9 but when we look at my current matrix it would look more like this:

 

And this illustrates that your priorities are not always what you prioritise, because you end up prioritising the necessities. Having a fully painted army is a necessity. I need my Dark Angels done so I can stop focussing on the nids and fulfill that goal of painting them. Of course necessities turn up and shift and change and that is evidenced by my 'to do list' being added and amended throughout the year.

Of course the next step to seeing your hobby in chart from and recognising where your priorities lie is to then allocate appropriate effort to those things you are motivated to do. That can be done with a pie- chart of my baseline matrix:

And then once that's figured out you can then factor in your hobby time to the situation in that if you've two hours of hobby time then the breakdown of what your doing in that time could be:

• painting - 16.8 minutes
• modelling - 16.8 minutes
• terrain - 21.6 minutes
• gaming - 19.2 minutes
• blogging - 14.4 minutes
• forums - 21.6 minutes
• youtube watching [battle reports, painting tutorials] - 7.2 minutes

Which is wholly impractical that you could try and fit a 20 minute game into those two hours, or that once you've started watching one 10 minute painting tutorial you would stop 7.2 minutes into it because you had 14.4 minutes of blogging to do. But if you were to anally record what you were spending your hobby time doing you could then see if ti correlated with what you thought you should be doing.

However, I think I've definitely discovered something over my time blogging these last [nearly] 3 years and that's you always need to 'go with the flow' whatever is enjoyable at this moment in time then do that. The hobby matrix is really just a last resort exercise, a way to formalise what you like and by accepting those interests you can forcibly kickstart your mojo, but in a direction you already know it wants to go - trying to put a round peg in a round hole, instead of a square peg!

One last option is at least if you have that list you can always dice off what you're going to do with your hobby time!

But where does that lead me and my situation? Well, worrying about my lack of mojo seems to have overshadowed the fact I've recently been brimming with excitement and passion to do print and play terrain. I found my first set of efforts extremely rewarding and I know that for a short time at least I will get a lot of it. Unfortunately I can foresee a point where thats going to prove less rewarding. Investing time that should be spent on things that 'need' to be done should be my real world priority, which goes back to what I was saying about painting not being a priority but sitting high in my matrix. In the eman time though I'm enjoying it and therefore I may well be sharing some of the progress on the blog as I would any other project, as opposed to my usual terrain posting which is 'hey look what I've just completed'.

Best music video of all time!

I've also been helping my brother paint his lizard vivarium so although that's not 40k and actually feels a little pressured - it needs to be done this week as his shift pattern changes next week and I won't be able to do it, it's no different from when I could foresee how long it would take to make my Tyranid Bastion but I know that the end result will be equally impressive. So I may share some pics of that too in due course.

So feel free to comment below if you think this is all a load of pseudo-science claptrap, but in the world of 40k I think it makes certain sense, you really need to feed and treat your own 'machine spirit' and then it'll repay with mojo.

1500pt battle report - nids vs Eldar

Been a while since I've played against PeteB and his Eldar so we had a little 1000pt battle on a 4'x4'. He'd painted and flocked both MDF boards but the further one was warped so he ended up turning it upside down. Having planned to go MDF in the future and my mate Ben looking me in the eye and honestly asking me 'will it warp?' I think I'm having second thoughts about my answer. Still at 10% of the cost of a Realm of Battle board its still an attractive option, anyway, moving on

Psychic Powers Tervigon CC HQ Tervigon Plain Troop  Enfeeble Life Leech Warp Speed Smite

The low down:

• Emperor's Will
• Dawn of War
• Pete won deployment, and went first
• Warlord Trait - +1 VP for each Character my Warlord kills in combat.

I had a stripped down list, no Doom, a Spore Pod with Devgaunts, 2 Tervigons, 2 Hive Guard, 2 Biovore and a Trygon for a change. PeteB had a Couple of Vypers, 3 Jetbikes, 5 Wraith Guard, and Avatar, a Wraith Lord, bunch of Guardians and their Weapons platform and some Warp Spiders and an Exarch.

PeteB got to go first, my objective is in the ruin and PeteB's is inbetween the three outpost platforms at the back.

The Vypers headed forwards.

My Hive Guard were stupidly positioned in sight of the Vypers

and despite the cover were gunned down turn 1 - First Blood to PeteB!

Whilst the Trygon was also exposed

And paid the price with 3 wounds, it's amazing how lethal shuriken weapons and other Eldar weaponry can be. I was suddenly fearful like their Dark siblings make me and I hadn't even faced the Wraith Guards weaponry yet and that made me even more scared!

My turn and I spawned out on 10 for the plain Tervigon, typical as that's the side I had my objective, while the CC Tervigon spawned 8. My gaunts and assorted shooters felled two Wraith Guard before 9 of their number made it into combat after overwatch. 8 got to assault and I killed another for one loss. They remained locked in combat!

The Avatar was tar-pitted also and he'd taken a couple of wounds, which would have been better if the gaunts had just been in range by 1 more inch and benefitted from my Tervigon's Toxin Sacs - see that's why I don't take them if they can't keep that 6" range what's the point? 5 of their number remained at the end of my combat.

Bzzzp, the Warp Spiders appeared, nearly off the board, despite the deviation they wiped the Biovores out of existence with some carefully placed shots. You can just make out the Trygon behind the tower, his move through cover was like 2-3" and his run move equally pathetic and fleet got me the same pitiful inch or two. Fat and lazy - as always playing against PeteB.

Even with Warp Speed the Tervigon was getting very far fast. It took 3 wounds from the Guardian who I'd hoped to barrage with the Biovores next turn given their optimum bunching but that plan was obviously scuppered byt the Warp Spiders.

The Wraith Guard managed to kill off some of the Termagants who were then out of Synapse, failed morale and were over run. Jet bikes moved up to be a pain in the behind.

My turn 2 and things were dire, however th vanilla Tervigon managed Life Leech on a Vyper and got a 6 to pen and a 6 on the damage chart blowing it up. We debated whether that was possible on a vehicle but it doesn't stipulate it's not, its a weapon profile afterall but common sense would suggest no wounds could be replaced from such an attack as vehicles don't have wounds, not that it mattered my Tervigon was untouched at this point. Sadly the Stinger Salvo couldn't remove the other Vyper.

Some more gaunts were spawned into the melee with the Avatar, he took another wound thanks to being in range of Toxin on the Tervigon

But in the following turn it was shredded by monafilament, Wratihlord weapons and shurikens!

The Wraith constructs advanced up the centre of the boardkilling the Trygon and then with no synapse to bolster the gaunts theyr were slaughtered and over run by the Avatar

In my turn I'm still trying to work out if I can win, I still have the Spore Pod to come but it fails to arrive so I try and take out the Vyper, but think I fail.

Warp Spiders put the hurt on the Tervigon.

And the remaining Eldar take 4 wounds off, good rolling there.

The pod arrives, finally, in the only place I can make a difference. If I can shoot the guardians and they flee I can capture the objective, hopefully hold off the Avatar somehow and also get Line Breaker.

However the weapons platform is the nearest model and manages to soak up all my heavy hitting firepower from the Spore Pod and there are still 5 'fearless' Guardians left in control of the objective.

Only 1 Wrait Guard remains, having killed the other with Life Leech gaining a wound back on the Tervigon. I think I must have killed the last one with a Stinger Salvo, given it's lack of presence when the Warp Spiders repositioned alongside the Jet Bikes. I seemed to think I could contain this situation, how wrong I was.

The Avatar steps in to meet the Devgaunts who lose 5 to Shuriken fire.

The Spore Pod is mushed by the Avatar's ranged attack.

And the Tervigon is killed allowing the bikes to happily secure the objective.

The Avatar is down to one wound, so close and then everything opens up wiping out the Devgaunts. The only thing left on the table is a missed spore mine which was removed also - tabled.

This was utterly brutal, everything I had was in the wrong place or the dice roll had put them in the wrong place. I have to say without Endurance or Iron Arm everything is so fragile, I think I'd been blessed previously with an abundance of those powers, making me more durable  - without them and especially against weaponry that cuts through my armour save then you're resorting to moving from cover to cover and that slowed everything down. Even when most of the Eldar were on foot they seem to move, shoot and move so they end up being far more mobile than the so-called quick Tyranids. 

It was a bit of a wake up call, I really thought 3MCs would be tough for PeteB but clearly not. Going to have to think tougher next time, not that I'd choose wildly different for a 1000pt battle. Still, he joust got a mint copy of Epic Space Marine for a bargain so we may have a different game to play next time :)

What's on my palette?

So where the hell am I at the moment. My head is in total disarray with my hobby mojo barely idling at the moment. I have done some bits and bobs:

• cut mounting discs for my capillary towers
• prepared the capillary towers - foamboard and pop bottle chitin plates
• done a few bits of weathering on my chaos cultists
• mounted my 5 devastator marines on slate bases
• some highlights on  my Dark Vengeance Librarian

But almost all of these have been so minor as to not even warrant photographs, which gives me no content for the blog! And each one of these steps forward has led me to a point that requires a decision, and as we all know making decisions is usually thing that prevents progress. There's so much decision making going on in my head on 'how to do such and such' or 'which colour should this be painted' or 'which rust colour goes on first and last' that it's become a big ball of non-activity. Hence why I'm progressing so slowly as I try and push on regardless. Even 20 minutes of painting is 20 minutes less when I finally, hopefully, get my hobby on.

The sad thing is there is so much I WANT to actually do, I just can't get for going. With the blog coming off the back of a few months of record hits and followers I'm desperate not to go on hiatus but I really need content and not worry about the blog, even though the blog helps keep the mojo flame burning, like a pilot light. Maybe what i need is a little more direction of what you guys like the most. Is it the battle reports, painting tutorials, freebies or scratchbuilds? Perhaps if I'm doing something I know people are desperate for it will help to motivate.

Saying all that I have been inspired to do some more terrain pieces. Despite promising Mitchell Hargreaves that I would scale the Targus Assault Blockade to the 'official' dimensions what I went and did is look at my 40k Ruins and consider adding a texture to the background so you could just 'print and play' [thanks Evan and fritz40k for that term]. But instead of just going with it standard I went and combined it with some of the architectural elements of my Inquisitorial Vault. What I've got is a textured building with some crude shadows and elements in place to make it stand out. I could have gone to town and made them more realistic but the simplicity of Illustrator means I can just swap the pattern out and it's a different coloured building. I could still probably do it all in Photoshop but thanks to the process I've actually got one building done in a brown/sandstone colour. When I say one building I mean:

• A 150mm wide x 200mm tall 2 storey building
• A 150mm wide x  280mm tall 3 storey building
• A 220mm wide x  200mm tall 2 storey building
• 2 sets of floor tiles for each storey

And having done that I was then able to swap the sandstone pattern for a black marble, with the same design [more or less] now I'm looking to do a black/green marble but I may tweak the design. So, how soon do you want them?

 

Meanwhile, if anyone has the original epic Space Marine buildings - the smaller ones that had different coloured buildings - yellow/gold, green as well as your standard greys, blacks and steel. I'd love to have scans of them so I could recreate them.

And the next big thing to think about milestone-wise is what will I hit first - 200 followers, or 300,000 views? Only you can determine that one :)

suport your local blogger - decay-miniature-model-arts

I stumbled across this blog the other and I think I found something truly special with how decay has painted their Tyranids. They've managed to create something truly alien, there are a whole slew of colours going on here but they all seem to manage to hang together. Not only that they look like a semi-irridescent sheen that you would get on some insects so I really dig how that's been done. I was captivated by this picture first:

The metallic reds and blues with their satin/gloss finish makes it look like really hard chitin armour and then all the 'soft tissue' comes in bright pink and turquoise and then you have the bone talons. Awesome vibrancy, variety of finishes and techniques too.

Even the little gribblies get über detailed too. Check out the little yellow and orange markings, an extra colour that's added to the scheme and yet it still manages to work as a whole still.

And the variety continues with the genestealers

And these crazy different Mieotic Spores with their bleached colour scheme completely draining all the colour around it and yet still managing to fit within the colour scheme when you see them in the group shots.

One last pair of picture to tempt you over to the website is the crazy conversions, taking a Tyrannofex/Tervigon and Trygon kit and making two mad beasts out of instead of the perfectly serviceable but pedestrian original models:

 

All of the Tyranids are here: http://decay-miniature-model-arts.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/live-to-serve-hive.html

And more step by steps under the Tyranid tag
http://decay-miniature-model-arts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Tyranids

http://decay-miniature-model-arts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/tyranids-wip.html#more

And check out the white on this TAU:

Go check it out! http://decay-miniature-model-arts.blogspot.co.uk