Sunday Sermon: Taking a break

  

That looks like such a very good idea!

Sometimes in our hobby lives we can face burnout. Whether that's from painting way too many Dark Eldar in a short space of time, I'm looking at you Sorrowshard. Or because you've just quite frankly been playing way too many games of whatever current game it is you play. Now I know what I'm about to say is considered in some quarters sacrilege, tantamount to treason, but it is true... here goes... I played far too much Blood Bowl and Necromunda and actually can't stand the idea of ever playing them ever again. There, I've said it now. Don't get me wrong I have a lot of love for both game systems, but there was a time where I was playing at least 10 games of Blood Bowl a week and possibly 5 or 6 games of Necromunda while I was finishing off A-Levels and then in my first year at University. It's still a bloody miracle I got any coursework done in that first year, let alone to the standard I did.

But, this isn't the only hobby burnout I've faced in my time. My first High Elf army with all those original one piece plastic spearmen and archers totally killed my painting mojo. That was possibly my first period of hobby burnout I ever suffered. My second was painting all of my various friends 'free' Goth Orks from the 2nd Edition 40k starter set. I wasn't interested in the game initially, but all my friends wanted space Marines and brought the starter set. So I ended up with a bloody Horde of Free Orks and Getchin (oh God the Gretchin), so they could play something other than slightly differently coloured Space Marines. Painting them all also killed me a little inside. But it seems I didn't sodding learn now did I? Nope, I've done it again and again in my hobby over the years. That is, I've bitten off more than I can realistically chew. My Wood Elf army with brass etched foliage on every base... argghhh!!! God I can still remember all the little cuts they gave me in my finger tips. It looked lovely when completed, but God did I resent that army, so much so I eventually sold it for a tidy profit.

But did I stop there? Oh hell no. I went for further burnout! A few years back I tackled about 4000 points worth of Dwarfs to be painted in under a month. I actually managed to get 3000 points worth painted. Or thereabouts. But that killed me too, and I hardly played with them now. I must have been a glutton for punishment though because I decided to tackle an even bigger task! I took on painting the entire first, second, fourth (in drop pods) and tenth companies of the Ultramarines. Because I was fed up of seeing badly painted Ultramarines in my local shops. Plus I'd never done a Space Marine army. EVER! So I set about this mammoth task with quite some vigour. I actually got quite far into the task before I started loathing the colour blue and wandering why I was applying 3 shades and 3 highlights to the blue. And just why the hell was I using 5 colours on the red lenses? I'd done it again. I'd bitten off more than any sane person could chew. So I was left with two options as I saw it:

1. Carry on painting and go insane!
2. Stop painting and take a bit of a break!

So what did I do?

Well I went for option two. The whole process had left me completely and utterly deflated to the point of hating the part of the hobby I had the most love for. Painting. I've tried abortively re-kindling my love of painting a few times over the past two years now. Each time it's ended in abject failure and misery. I think it's fair to say that my over ambitious and over zealous projects have almost trained me Pavlov's dog stylie, to associate paint brushes with mental anguish and physical back pain. How the hell do I get over this? Honestly, I'd like to be able to sit down and paint again and remember what it was I loved about painting miniatures in the first place. I've tried just sitting down and breaking the 'pain barrier', with it has to be said quite mixed responses. The amount of half finished projects I have kicking around now is actually laughable. Some I'm unhappy with where they are heading because I tried just rushing them. Others I just got bored with or had the mental pain barrier thing kick in and I feel like I can't go on. I'm struggling to push these project's over the finishing line.

So take this Sunday Sermon as a word of warning or some friendly advice. If you feel tired, knackered or in some way close to breaking when doing something hobby related. Stop. Take a breather. Just step away from it before it's too late and you end up resenting a certain aspect of the hobby you used to love. Trying to push on through that pain barrier can just make things  worse for you in the long run. Please believe me, you can have too much of a good thing. Because when that good thing turns into a pain in the backside you know you've gone too far. When it starts feeling like a chore, or a second job, you've gone too far. So will I ever be able to sit down and paint again? I hope so, and I guess it leads me onto another aspect of potential burnout within my hobby. In the month of January this Blog has had some pretty awesome articles if I say so myself, and on a very regular basis too. I'm guessing this is the reason it was my most successful month in terms of hits and comments. I'm proud of that, and I'm grateful to all of you for reading and commenting.

But I'm concerned that if I keep pushing out articles at the rate I have been for the last 7 months, that I might yet again face some sort of 'hobby burnout' with my Blog. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to be one of those Bloggers who wrote for nearly a year and then just stopped. Never to return. So I'm going to slow it down a little bit on here for a while. I might only look to do maybe 2 or 3 articles a week for a little while. Because honestly it's becoming close to having a full time job for me. It's also one I'm not getting paid for, and that's not a healthy way to think about things is it? It might also give me the chance to actually try and rekindle that love I have for painting, get some further gaming in. It'll also give me the chance to focus my energies fully on finally trying to get a bloody job as I've got some training coming up next week that I need to devote myself too fully. Then there are the family issues, with a very sick relative who I need to look after I got to devote more time to them. I'll still be thinking about my Blog and what it means to me and why I'm doing it. How I can integrate it better into my hobby while maintaining my output. Perhaps I can't, but I'm willing to give it a go. Peace out!