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Hobby Brain Explosion

Today I would like to talk. About how Project Get Things Finished is going. About why I have butterfly brain. About how I react to creative urges when there is no outlet, or direction to them. Also about what I want from the hobby.

Firstly, Project Get Things Finished. This is actually going well so far in the sense that things are getting finished. I can say that so far this year I have ticked the boxes on a Frost Grave warband, and the board and scenery for Frost Grave. I've finished off the few Tabletop world buildings that were sat ready and waiting for the love. Whilst we're talking about scenery I've also got a usable amount of scenery for my desert board as well as starting to clearing out of the backlog of my industrial scenery which should be all done this month. As for models, well we have finished off the Ogre Scrap Launcher that I never got around to, a bunch of German Veterans for Bolt Action, as well as a fairly large pile of Thousand Sons. Oh, and the Storm Raven. So all in all a successful first half of the year.

I still have a squad or two of models to do to get the Thousand Sons finished off and playable. I have an entire German Afrika Korp army to build and paint and a few other odds and sods related to Bolt Action. There is also some undead stuff kicking about as well (there is always more undead to deal with). The Empire I've struck off the list as the only reason I was including them was because there was some spare space in the figure case, and not because they felt incomplete or unfinished. The Tyranids I've also struck off because, frankly, I can't paint them. Simply I cannot find a scheme that balances between the organic style the 'Nids need, the speed required to get through the hundred odd models, and the standard I'm happy with. Which means it's kinda killed the whole project for me and I'm going to be honest with myself and say that I'm never going to enjoy doing it, so no point in forcing it just for the sake of doing it. One has to know which battles to fight I guess.

While I have finished a lot of things under the name of Project Get Things Finished, I've not stuck to the plan as rigidly as I first hoped that I might. Nor have I been quite as focused as I should have. This isn't a complaint, this is me being flexible. I wasn't in the mood to tackle the Undead, but in the mood to work on the Thousand Sons so I swapped things around. Also changing priorities due to need as well. Charlie saying he wants to do part of a campaign in a shipping yard, but doesn't know how to model it and I happened to have a boat load of unbuilt shipping containers say on my to do list (that Charlie didn't know existed). So I've swapped things around based on needs and started working on those instead. This is me being flexible. That doesn't mean I've been totally good about things. I've started finishing things and then not finished them because I wanted to finish something else, or had a mental flap about finishing something that wasn't as finished when I really should have finished something that was closer to being finished first. Anyway, TL;DR shit is getting done, one way or another.

My butterfly brain hasn't made this easy. Nor has the news about Warhammer 40K 8th edition and all the information being released. It's very exciting and has left me with nursing a seriously large creative boner. I've had about a billion and seven ideas for new projects. These include:

- Ork Goff Mob led by Warboss Grommel
- Expand my Dark Angels 3rd company
- Dark Angels from a different company
- Dark Angel successor chapter
- Imperial Fist project (because I found a tutorial for painting yellow that I liked)
- Blood Ravens chapter (because I've not done a red army)
- Make up a totally new Space Marine chapter
- Loyalist Imperial Guard army using Cadian models
- Loyalist Imperial Guard army using Victoria Miniatures models
- Loyalist Imperial Guard army using Mad Robot models
- Renegade Guard army using forgeworld bits
- Renegade guard army using Victoria Miniatures models
- Renegade guard army using Mad Robot models
- Pre-heresy Spire Guard army
- Post-heresy Spire Guard army
- Tzeentch daemons army
- Pre-heresy Thousand Sons army
- A mixed faction daemons army
- An undivided chaos army
- Iron Warriors chaos army
- Tau, painted in blue/white (because I had an idea about a colour scheme)
- Necron army in a purple/gold (again because I liked the colour scheme)
- Some kind of Eldar based project (because I've never really looked at doing an Eldar thing).

That is just a list of the one's I can remember, and just for 40k. I've had similar mental dealings with Fantasy, Bolt Action, and doing static display models. It becomes a cycle of musing on a vague idea. followed increasing excitement as I decide on what models I want, read up on the background, figure out what to get from where etc. Then the sensible part of my brain kicks in and goes through all the reasons is a dumb idea, normally along the lines of: Maisey, you don't like painting Orks Remember? Maisey, not ANOTHER Imperial army, try doing something non-Imperial for once? Maisey, you already HAVE a load of Dark Angels why don't you just add to that? Maisey, you already HAVE a load of Dark Angels, why don't you do something new? Maisey, are you really going to convert all those vehicles? Maisey, do you actually find Tau the least bit interesting? Maisey, Eldar? on so on and so forth. Not only is it mentally exhausting, it's also very frustrating having lots of ideas but never actually following through with them. Either because of practical reasons such as time or money, or silly reasons like how do I explain that I want to do another Dark Angel army? Is it because I think this time around I can do it better? Even though my current Dark Angels are done to an acceptable standard so why am I not satisfied? Repeat ad nauseum for each and every project. Anyway, all of this just leads me to wanting to do a hard reset.

A Hard Reset, where I ditch everything and just start from fresh because my brain has become so clogged and tainted that I stop being rational for a while and the only I thing I think of doing to shaking the whole thing like an etch-a-sketch and starting again. This is because I have, like most people, a few character flaws that contradict each other. The relevant one's are:

1) I have fairly poor impulse control when it comes to toys. Sure, I think a lot of us have this one, it's part and parcel of being a hobbyist.
2) I have a wide range of interests. Oh how I envy those with a consistently themed and focused collection. I really do. It looks amazing, I envy your passion and dedication, and I'm somewhat jealous of it.
3) I have a short attention span. Ohhhhhhh look at the shiny new thing.
4) and this is the big one. I really dislike things getting complicated. I like things to be clean and simple and focused. However, because of the above, just can't stop things from getting complicated.

I know, this is probably a little deep for a blog post about little plastic mens, but I think it does adversely affect my enjoyment of the hobby because I'm stressing myself out over the contradictions in how I wish to hobby and what effect this has on my hobby group (because none of us hobby alone). I do have to fight myself between being expansive and being focused. I'm still trying to find the middle ground, and with every new project there is a little glimmer of hope that this is the one, the one that becomes my all consuming focus. It, as yet, has not.


  1. I am sure we have all suffered 28mm ADHD in the past. I certainly did last year. I personally found selling off old projects (both completed and uncompleted) really helped to unclutter the mind and gave me a fresh empharsis to get stuff finished.

    1. That certainly is an option to consider. Especially for some of those project that seemed like a good idea at the time but just haven't gotten any use since they were finished. Teach myself to focus on a smaller number of things. Also, if I really have a burning itch to do something new that I simply can't ignore, I can always go down the static display model route.

    2. I can very much emphasize with your post. The brainstorming and planning of a warband or army can almost be as enjoyable as the buying and modeling of said army. The allure of finishing a project ebbs and flows but inevitably the Hobby Shame arises, the workbench is organized and something gets done.

      Instead of hobbying on a quiet Sunday morning I visit hobby websites, including favorite hobby blogs, come across your blog from the Mordian 7th Regiment, read through many entries, marvel at your productivity compared to mine, add another terrain maker to my terrain bookmarks when I get to your industrial scenary, get really close to buying some terrain, rationalize not doing so through a combination of cost/where would it go/what would the spouse's reaction be and return to enjoy your hobby progress and read the post I'm responding to now.

      In the end you are a productive hobbyist making good contributions to the wider community while noting that the process is not as efficient for most of us as it could be which is good to be reminded of sometimes. Keep up the good hobby work while enjoying your family and doing really important work that I imagine is more complex than it should be given some people's near constant desire to skip steps or cut corners in complicated or dangerous processes.


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