Self-Care and painting amidst the "Everything"

Good tidings to you all fellow wargamers and welcome.  It's been a rough year so far for the world with everything that has been going on here in the US and globally and it's been challenging for many to cope.  So I wanted to take this post in a slightly different direction than I usually do because of what's been going on and while I could write as if nothing is going on it would not be fair for you dear reader to not acknowledge the reality of where we are as a people.  So without focusing on doom and gloom here, we go!

When I originally wrote some form of below it was during a time when the "biggest issue" was the outbreak and spread of the COVID19 virus.  Since then we have been through A LOT of other things here in the US.  It's been a really tense and stressful time for many people.  Myself being a counselor in the mental health field, have been working with folks dealing with new stressors and their own mental health pieces.  It's been challenging for many, and myself with my own mental health challenges have been figuring out how to navigate everything so that I can help those who need it.  That's partly why I've not kept up with this blog as I would have liked, but here we are in hopefully what is a moment of calm to shelter from the storm at large.

As wargamers, I would dare say that there are many of us who are struggling with some of these issues right now.  Therefore I want to help encourage you in this time and offer some insight into parts of our hobby that may not have been considered therapeutic before.  With that, I have to throw out the caveat (thanks to our litigation-happy nation) that this is not intended to diagnose/treat/provide any services to anyone who is suffering from mental health conditions.  If you suspect that you suffer from mental health concerns and need additional assistance please consult your local provider for referrals to services as available in your local area.  This article is not to be taken as mental health advice/research/treatment/etc but a source of encouragement and some considerations to be taken.

A big thing that I am going to advocate for in this time is the concept and practice of self-care.  It's a pretty common buzzword I hear a lot online that for many translates to "treat yourself" or "spend money on spa days/chocolate/whatever."  Self-care is simply making sure you take care of yourself and get the things that you need to keep going.  There is a lot of stress/anxiety/depression going around and that has an impact on interfering with self-care practices. We can easily forget at the moment when folks are faced with new challenges, old stressors, and the events continuing to take place in our world, that part of regular mental health care includes practicing self-care.

Self-care as we clinicians help clients with often incorporate things like making sure you're eating well, getting good sleep as much as possible, getting some exercises in, socializing to some degree, engaging in activities, etc.  It's about taking care of yourself in these trying times and not some sort of fantasy that society thinks you need to do.  Self-care is a personal/individual thing and while these are some suggestions for you feel free to adapt things as you need to for your routine.  I want to caution that doing self-care isn't the same as getting actual treatment or help.  This won't treat depression quite like a counseling session would, or get to the root cause of issues.  What this will do is help the foundation of "you" being at a stronger place so when those things do hit then you're hopefully in a better spot to handle them.  These things are bad enough as it is, but it's even worse when you don't feel great in general already and then it hits you.

So I've found in my experience hobbying, specifically painting, has an interesting effect on anxiety. Now I preface this with: it works for me, and I hope it helps you but if not then that doesn't mean something is wrong with you.  I've noticed that for me painting has a grounding effect on my anxiety. What I mean by it being grounding is that anxiety has a tendency to push people into this zone of "what ifs."  You know it's like you start going "what if X happens, and then what if Y happens, what if I do Z," and so on.  Grounding techniques can help bring you back down from that zone and back to your 'normal' sort of state.  You have to focus on the here and now instead of the "what ifs," so things like the colors/textures/shapes/painting can help manage some of these anxious feelings.  Personally, I found that painting plus some audio medium like a podcast has done wonders for my stress and anxiety.  It's helped bring it from some pretty high levels to something more manageable, and that's truly the goal of self-care is to make all the stuff more manageable.

Like I said it may not work for you, but if it's something you're able to do and need something to help focus on something then give it a shot.  You might find something new to help out in times of great stress you never thought of before.  It's a wild time right now with a lot of uncertainty, fear, confusion, stress, and so on so please take care of yourselves.  Do the self-care and be safe out there.  If you are reading this and you feel like you need additional help then I encourage you to go talk to someone whether it's a local counselor, crisis worker, or whatever it is you have in the area.

Well, folks, that's all I got for now.  Take care of yourselves out there, it's a crazy time and my hope is that we get through this with our health (mental and physical) intact.  Hopefully, some of this stuff helps you out, if you're already practicing it then great!  If not then I hope that it encourages you towards keeping yourself sane and floating in these times.  Next time I'll go back to the usual hobby posting and help give a break from the real world.  Until then folks stay safe out there and take care of yourselves.

NoVA Open 2019 here I come!

Greetings and well wishes folks!  What a wonderful end to the summer and I hope that your time in the hobby has been well spent.  I will be brief tonight because I am off tomorrow to head on out to NoVA Open 2019!  So I've got some pictures for you all and just a couple of quick talking points, so let's begin!

Right to the point: I met all of my hobby goals for this convention.  That's right, all of those models painted up...and then some!  I hit a slump earlier in the month of July and I think it was because I ran into some problems with the A Song of Ice and Fire models.  Everything I tried just didn't go right.  Priming went bad so then I had to strip the models, which ended up not working as well.  Then the color scheme went funky and so on.  It was discouraging at first but after a small break from painting I went right back and picked up Infinity.

Two Yu-Jing starter boxes later I started on my Aristeia team, managed to paint up some figures for some folks I know, painted up a Battletech started box birthday gift, and here we are: the night before NoVA.  It's a good feeling when you get everything you wanted to painted up and done.  Might just need to get another event to motivate me for certain projects...but we'll see.

Without further ado here are some pics of the stuff I've painted up in no particular order:

It's been a blast painting up some of these models.  My only complaint with the Aristeia models is that the plastic they use makes it annoying to clean off properly.  Still, I feel my progress in knocking out the horde of grey/white/black unpainted models is going well, and I look forward to continuing the trend and seeing where I go from here/

That's all tonight folks.  I must continue to prepare for tonight and hopefully, if I can remember to take some pictures I will share them with you!  Until next time folks game well and happy hobbying!

It's popular! Yet another Contrast paint post!

Hello, fellow wargamers and tabletop enthusiasts and I hope you are reading this under good fortunes.  It’s a little early for my bimonthly post, but as the title suggests there have been some big changes to our hobbying world with the introduction of the new Contrast paints from GW.  I managed to grab some for myself and like many others, I’ll give my opinion on them and show some stuff that I managed to get painted in a pretty rapid pace (compared to my usual that is).  So without further ado, here’s yet ANOTHER Contrast paint opinion piece!

I won’t lie, I have been hyped with these paints since I heard about them from the beginning.  I like I imagine some other collector’s out there, have a stupid amount of unpainted models.  Like an embarrassing number of them.  The kind of number where you might say I have an addiction problem.  So an advertised method was with less effort I can get tabletop quality standard pretty quick, and that certainly has my attention.  Then I started seeing what pro painters had been able to do, then the pictures of random folks online and their results, and so on and so on.  I had not only bought a hype train ticket but I upgraded to first class and have been counting the days, but despite the hype, I also have some aged wisdom and wanted to secure some of them so I can see what I can work with.

After I painted the first model here is my emotional reaction:

With the test model completed, I then started on a Malifaux crew I had that was lightly primed.  I usually prime my models black and leave it at that, but for a brief period, I did some models in grey with a zenithal white.  I have to admit, I did not like how the priming turned out because I felt that the grey had a gloss kind of texture to it while being flat in color, and the white was a satin finish.  So bear that in mind with these pictures, but I have to say that the paints did wonderfully!  In the time it would have taken me to finish the set of Witchling Stalkers I was able to knock them out, some Freikorp Specialists, the Purifying Flame, and a model from Heroforge for Pathfinder!  They did their job well and I was able to apply a single coat down and get a pretty good overall effect.  I did some minor blending with the paints on the Purifying Flame to get the flame effect and while yes it’s not a perfect transition it did get the job done in a matter of minutes.

Now I am not naïve enough to think that these paints will do everything and anything I want them to do, but damn if they didn’t perform up to par with what I had hoped they would do.  Most of the models shown, except for the Heroforge model, had some extra work done to them to finalize the appearance.  A couple of edge highlights here, some weathering pigment here, and some additional shade washes there made the models go from basic TTQ to maybe a slightly better TTQ (I’m not sure, you be the judge).  I think these paints will shine with the more organic textures than they might with armor plating, which appears to be the general consensus amongst the community, however, I’ve seen some seriously good with on armored models like Space Marines and Stormcast.  Cloth, fur, leather, skin, and so on will probably be the textures that don’t require any special attention, whereas armor might require some attention to things like excessive pooling.  Another thing of note is that they didn’t seem to be forgiving in that if you paint over where you intended to then you’ll need to either slap on some covering paint similar to your primer or touch it up with a layer paint similar to the Contrast.

I’m sure veterans and new painters alike will be able to take advantage of these paints, but I can’t help but to also think about the people in our community who don’t have the time to paint or just aren’t able to paint well.  I’ve got some friends who are colorblind or struggle with hands that shake to a degree that the prospect of basecoating>shading>highlighting>blending>etc with traditional acrylics can be somewhat daunting or challenging and in some cases off-putting.  What about the veteran with arthritis in their hands so that they can only paint for so long before it becomes excruciating?  So a paint that can help some people overcome those challenges and help those who struggle with the mechanics of fine detail painting achieve some level of TTQ that they can be proud of to bring to the table is definitely a good thing in my book.  I also think some tournament players who want to use the new or updated armies and want to use them solely for the game purpose but have to paint for the tournament will enjoy these paints as well and ideally will cut down the time to be ready for the next event.  Folks like me with a ton of models who just want them painted will probably also like these paints if it presents with an opportunity to clear the paint queue some.

Now in the span of 2 days, I am almost done with my Malifaux crew and I have to say it's been great to paint with.  Now one thing is for certain in that the undercoat does have a HUGE impact on the quality of the paint.  Like I said before these models had zenithal priming with some areas obviously not primed.  In those areas, I had to go back with acrylic layer paint and do some touch-ups and/or paint over the Contrast.  Regardless I think the overall effect has been positive and in 2 hours I knocked out 4 models that I might have taken a couple days to work on (a day is about 3 hours on average during the workweek).  So I stand by my original statement that these paints, for me, are a big time saver and will help me go through that model queue real quick.

On this last one, you can see near the bottom of the lab coat the primer spatter not covering the entirety of the coat.  Will it matter from 3 feet away? Nah.  However, it's something to take note.

That’s all today folks, I hope you are making progress in your projects and enjoying yourselves.  If you also picked up some of these paints feel free to share a link down below and share what you’ve been able to get done with them.  If you didn’t pick up any of the paints, feel free to share a link down below and share what you’ve been working on.  My next trial with these paints will be to see how many Crucible Guard models I can knock out before a Steamroller event on Saturday.  I’ll be back at the end of the month with my overall update on what I’ve been painting and how it ties in with NoVA.  Until then happy wargaming and happy hobbying!

Painting progress and the fight between motivation and discipline.

Good tidings to you my fellow wargamers and miniature enthusiasts and welcome back for your bi-monthly reading here at my den of ramblings.  It’s been a couple of months since we spoke but a lot of things have been going on so we have a good amount to discuss.  I hope things have been well for you all in whatever you are doing in life, and so with that let’s get to chatting.  So get a drink, sit comfortably, and relax while these slow beats soothe your soul…or let these pictures do something for you.

So last time we talked about my painting progress, some goals set out because of NoVA/other events, and saw some work being done.  I’ve been putting in some work on the projects, but I have to say these past few months have been semi-slow in terms of progress.  I’ve had some stuff going on in the real world that it made painting take a back burner and in turn caused a slow down on my overall progress.  It’s not been necessarily a bad thing that real life has taken priority, but it is what it is and as a result I don’t feel like I’ve gotten as much done in terms of model count as I had the period before.  Add in the fact that I ended up spending a lot of time assembling models and having to wait for bits and bases to roll in, time just keep plodding along and I was not making a lot of progress.  Though I had a lot of things going on, and I felt like I had excuses, there was something else in the back of my mind and heart that was inhibitive of my overall progress.

Which in turn has made me introspective when it comes to my hobby time because I certainly felt a difference in mood and outlook this period than I did before.  Before I felt like a machine, churning out models (60 some odd iirc) at a pretty intense speed from what I’m used to doing.  During this period I felt more like a grazing cow, sometimes taking a bite but otherwise just moving slowly.  When we look at this period and see I have reached about half that number, which admittedly I probably painted about half of those days, I knew something else was at work.  While I can point to a few things going on that slowed my progress down (studying for a state credentialing board, visitations with family, a friend being deployed, and house maintenance) I also recognize that there were more than a few days that I didn’t pick up the brush because I just…didn’t want to.  Like my motivation was suddenly…dried up and withered away at times.

Motivation is a funny thing like that, especially for me in this hobby and I feel like painting is in a weird spot in the hierarchy of this.  Motivation in general can be a great start to a task and is a great opportunity for growth in a particular area.  A lot of things can motivate us to begin projects or to continue past ones.  For example I can read a novel about the Horus Heresy and then I’m motivated to start working on my Thousand Sons and bring their tragic story of hubris, honor, treachery, and sadness to the table!  I can watch an episode of Game of Thrones and then I’m motivated to clean and paint up some A Song of Ice and Fire models so that I too can bring the raw fighting prowess of The Mountain to my enemies’ lines!  Motivation! Yeah!

Within the past couple of weeks I saw a meme/quote about motivation compared with discipline and in this time in my hobbying life it truly resonated with me.  You know how sometimes you see a quote and it does nothing for you until you find yourself in a new spot in life and next thing you know it’s like “ohhhh…there it is?”  That was me in this instance and I realized that instead of relying on motivation to keep me going (because that’s obviously worked before right?), I would need to start cultivating discipline to paint on the regular.  Then if you think about it, painting regularly probably requires the most discipline out of the other aspects of the hobby (for me at least).  When you assemble models there’s an end result that happens relatively quickly and there’s several rewards attached to it.  You have the model assembled and you can start playing games with it.  If you choose not to do anything else then most of the community won’t say anything because they too have unpainted models.  Painting though…painting takes some effort.

With painting you don’t get immediate results like you do with assembling and unless you have some great skills then you sometimes risk your model looking vastly different than you intended it for it to be.  If you are a slow painter then that squad of 10 guys might take you weeks to finish and when you look at an entire army it starts to look like a yearlong project instead.  It’s very easy to get discouraged with painting, especially with the advent of social media the great miniature painters can show off their amazing work and make it seem like they woke up one morning and painted a masterpiece before their morning coffee is done.  So it takes discipline to not only keep painting despite not necessarily wanting to and to continue even though the results are not immediate and are risky.

Couple that mindset of discipline>motivation with that I am to enjoy my painting time versus making it a secondary job of churning out models, I think I was able to find my painting groove again.  Maybe not at the same speed as before, but I even felt like some of those models had lost quality due to time constraints.  So with my shift towards discipline I am also shifting towards making the models good quality instead of quick quality.  Will this mean I will hit some of my deadlines?  Probably not but I will plan accordingly so that the armies that NEED to be painted (i.e. my Zone Mortalis force) will be done by the event time, and then I’ll return back to the others as needed.

So a quick update on where the projects stand:

·         Zone Mortalis (Warhammer 30k): 

o   32 models

o   Progress/Pitfalls: Models have had their assembly finalized and their insignia from Pop Goes the Monkey came in.  Army specific paints have been acquired.

o   Current status: Ready for priming

·         Aristeia!

o   4 models

o   Fighters outside of the core box have been acquired and a team of 4 has been selected.  They have been cleaned of mold lines which that ranged from hardly present to “holy crap that’s a lot and annoying to clean.”

o   Current status: Ready for priming

·         Infinity After Dark

o   A 300 point Yu-Jing force

o   Progress/Pitfalls: I was short of some models but due to some generosity from WaaarghPug I now have enough for 300 points and then some.

o   Current status: Some models are ready for painting, the new models require assembling/cleaning/priming and so I am about 50% ready

·         Blood Bowl:

o   Dwarf Team of 18 models

o   Current status: Painting and basing are complete and pre-varnishing has been finished leaving the final matte varnish spray.

·         Warmachine:

o   Crucible Guard 75 points, 2 list format consisting of 67 models (!!!)

o   Progress/Pitfalls: Models were assembled but had to wait on MDF base inserts from Laser Craft Workshop LLC (great customer service btw) but they are ready for painting.

o   Current status: 20% of the army has been painted but basing is being reserved for a final “done with the army” phase since I plan on putting in some effort in making some dope bases.

I’m overall pleased with my progress and as much as I have been enjoying painting up the Crucible Guard I know I will have to pause the overall project to take care of the NoVA Open projects.  It’s a situation of “do I keep working on the Crucible Guard until the event,” or “do I get those NoVA units out of the way first and then go back to my other stuff afterwards?”  Not sure on the answer to that just yet but I’m sure I’ll figure it out in the near future.

As always I want to extend thanks and appreciation for my local fellow wargamers to including WaaarghPug, The Ordinary Wargamer, and Mininomicon for being sources of painting and hobbying encouragement.  Insignia for the Thousand Sons can be found here again and the bases I used for my Crucible Guard can be found here again.  I want to also thank you the reader for spending your time here on this blog and reading the article, if there are any questions or comments please leave them and I assure you I will get to them.  Thank you for stopping by and I hope your wargaming and hobbying adventures continue to prosper in whatever format you want them to be.  Until next time, happy gaming folks.

A lot happens in 2 months

Good tidings my dear wargaming friends!  I hope things are going well for you all and many greetings to you and yours.  It's been a couple of months since the last update and it's been a busy time not only for myself but a lot of my friends, co-workers, and family.  Work has been killer so obviously the answer has been to turn to pursuits of relaxation and hobbying, and what a time it has been!  Hopefully it's not been as crazy for you all as it has me, but in case it has make sure to grab your favorite drink and take a few moments to relax as we dive into a shared hobby together (it might get long up in here).

So like the post suggests a lot happens in a couple of months.  For me there's been a lot of things going on in my own life that makes you appreciate the times you can snag to enjoy hobby time.  The career has been progressing in a great ball of crazy fire and times have been rough.  So what does that mean for the hobby you ask?  Well I've been putting in a lot of work on painting up models!  That's right I've been actually engaging in that oft-forgotten aspect to our hobby, at least I feel like it's the most neglected part.  It's like the icing on the cake in a lot of ways, it's not necessary for the cake to be functional but it's the difference in being great.  I felt particularly motivated to start painting at some point where a mix of staring at the horde of primed plastic/metal/resin, longing for color and creativity, and the desire to paint as part of my Blood Bowl league came together and caused me to just...start.

That's the hurdle isn't it?  Starting the process.  It's awkward at first when you've not painted for a long time but soon the fine motor skills get back to their old spot and you can even start to improve in some ways.  So I decided that I am going to try.  I won't promise to make myself do something everyday, because that's not reasonable or feasible in my mid-30s.  No, all I can say is that I will continue to make an effort to try and paint more.  I want to paint more.  I want to show up to events with painted models (because we all know that they roll better when painted amirite 😉) and not continue this cycle of buying more models without painting some first!

So now every couple of months I'll come back and let you know how this promise is going.  With that in mind I want to share with you my progress:

Blood Bowl Orcs

Blood Bowl Nurgle

Blood Bowl Humans

Necromunda Orlock Gang

Current WIP: Blood Bowl Dwarves

As you can see there is a common theme and since I've been playing Blood Bowl like a lot, it only seems appropriate to keep the pain train coming.  In total that makes 61 models I've painted in two months!  That's about a model a day, which is pretty good in my books because it was originally 0 models a day...or a month...or two months...it's been awhile.

It's a pretty solid routine to get some painting done when I get home from work and it's been lending to progress overall.  One thing I've had to learn is to let go of some high standards I have in my mind and just paint to the best I can right now.  So far I think the results have been working out and I've been able to try out a couple things, especially weathering on a couple of the Necromunda pieces/bases.  I also have been looking for opportunities to just try new things out, and I feel that Blood Bowl has some good models to be experimental with.

So while I am working on the Dwarves I am of course looking ahead for the future and I think no greater motivation can exist than attending a con.  Specifically:

Except totally not 2018

Yes sir/ma'am it is the NoVA Open.  I went last year with my brother and some friends and I had fun...buuuuuuuuut I didn't sign up for anything so really I went to watch people play games and let's be real with each other: it's not as fun no matter how hard you try.  A good break from your own game sure. Maybe to watch a friend, sure.  To watch games without really playing any yourself?

So this year it's going to be different!  I've signed up for events (yeah!), and I've got my schedule (aww yeah!), but now...now I have projects (oh).  See a lot of these events want your models painted and so now I have several goals in mind.  So to run down my list of events and accompanying model count (estimated):

• Zone Mortalis (Warhammer 30k): A One Thousand point list of Thousand Sons (heh).  
• 32 models
• Aristeia!
• 4 models
• Infinity After Dark: So it's a DnD style Infinity event where I am not sure what the model count will look like.  So I will just paint up my Yu-Jing and hope for the best.
• About 12 models?
• Blood Bowl: I haven't decided my team yet but it's an all day tournament.  I am probably going with Dwarves, but if I had access to Dark Elves I might swing that way.
• 18 models (including tokens)
• Guild Ball Regional Cup: A Guild Ball tournament you say?! WELL I NEVER.
• 0 models (I already painted my Morticians)
•  Godtear: Steamforge's new game but I don't need the buy any models or do anything other than show up.
• 0 models

So overall I'm looking at about 66 models which as I have shown myself that I can get it done in about 2 months.  So once I start the paint train I do believe I can get it done before the deadline in late August.  That and I have some plans for airbrushing the Thousand Sons and maybe the Yu-Jing that will help speed the process up.  For Thousand Sons I plan on using the method outlined by Epic Duck Studios (link right here) because not only is it reasonably quick but also I reeeeeeeaaaaaaaaally like that color scheme.  For the Yu-Jing I am looking at sticking with my usual palette of cool colors as I am used to those and would like the models to look semi-decent. I've got some friends, a couple of which are fellow bloggers, WaaarghPug and The Ordinary Wargamer, who are also going so it's going be a solid weekend I am sure.

I have another event I am going to try and get models painted up for and that's a local Steamroller in June and I've recently acquired some Crucible Guard!  With some trading done with WaaarghPug I have acquired a new project to get into and hopefully if I time things right I can assemble and get these buggers painted before June...before I paint everything else for NoVA...hoo boy.

Well that about sums up my current project completions as well as my future paintings.  I will be sure to take plenty of pictures so that with my next update I will have pretty models (and hopefully better skills too).  I hope you all are doing well and wish you best of luck in your own hobbying.  Until then, happy gaming!