Monday, December 19, 2016

The Importance of your Hobby Space and Future Content

Happy Holidays everyone!  Today I wanted to take some time to discuss your Hobby Space and give you some insight to future content I will be putting out (with help) to the community in the coming year.


Where the hobby happens...


Above you will see my new dedicated hobby area (Video Tour here).  There is still more lighting to add as well as general improvements due to it being my basement, but that will come with time.  While it will always be in constant development I could not be happier to have my entire hobby (except models I am displaying) consolidated into one space.

My hobby space, like most, started out as some newspaper on my kitchen table.  Sometimes I miss that simplicity of those times.  Just sitting down with a model, some paint, and a worn out brush and taking a few hours to myself to create what I felt was top quality work.  While I enjoyed this time of my hobby career there was a lack of commitment on my part.

As I grew within my abilities and commitment to the hobby I eventually put in a permanent table opposite my computer desk.  I felt this finally legitimized what I was doing with my hobby.  I was able to make a mess without care and leave projects on my desk until I finally completed the project.  This space gave me a constant reminder to build and paint while giving me a comfortable area with which to work.

The one unexpected benefit of a dedicated hobby space was the bubble of hobby it created around me in that dedicated space.  Times when I didn't feel like hobbying were easier to overcome when I sat down at my table.  I knew the space was for building and painting miniatures and just by being in that space got my hobby juices flowing immediately.

A while ago I took up Airbrushing and that meant I needed to set space in my basement strictly for airbrushing.  This worked splendidly, but I only did the minimum with my airbrush due to it being so far away from my main hobby space.  I can tell you lugging models from my basement to my second floor and back again began to get old quick. So I made the decision to move everything to the basement and I have not been more energized to paint in a long time.

Thankfully part of the set up is an old workbench that was in the house when I moved in.  After moving my upstairs hobby table to the basement I opted to build a third table for a bit of extra space.  I have only had this space set up for a few weeks, but I have already begun painting and building and I am happy as can be.


Having a dedicated hobby space  really allows you to grow and offers you a constant reminder to keep the paint and glue flowing.  If you do not have the space to set up a full table for your hobby I would recommend purchasing The Citadel Hobby Box (or other MDF/Plastic options that you can buy around the internet)to give yourself a small space that is easily stored to allow you to get up and hobbying quickly.  Sometimes the setup can be the biggest hindrance to wanting to hobby.  Get creative and you could build your own setup to suit your needs!  If you do I would love to see pictures in the comments below!

Until Then Happy Holidays and Happy Hobbying!


Future Content Update:

Hey again everyone.  I wanted to take a moment to fill you in on some of my plans for 2017.
My initial goal is to move this blog from monthly to weekly.  I tend to keep my posts short and instead of a longer monthly post I would rather offer the shorter length more often.  Please expect this to take place in January 2017.

My other goal is to begin putting out content via Youtube in the form of Tactical Battle Reports, Breakdowns, What if scenarios, etc...  While this blog leans toward a hobby focus I cannot lie that I am a competitive gamer at heart.  I will be working with a very good friend to get this going sometime within quarter one of 2017.

I have also tossed around the idea of doing a monthly podcast with my local group in a open talk format to discuss our games and hobby, but at this point it is only an idea as I do not want to over reach my time constraints, but who knows what could happen.