Sunday 5 February 2012

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!

26 comments:

  1. FG your articles are always a pleasure to read so between 1 a week and none I'll go with the slow den any day.

    So go sit down, relax, chill a little and come back when you feel like it

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    1. Thanks for the compliment, always nice to know people like what you write. Well I'm not disappearing for good. Just stepping back a bit before it gets a bit too much and I start resenting it. I've got some training coming up this week, so I'll not be doing any writing, BUT I've been so prolific over the last 3 or 4 months in particular that I already have probably a good month or so's worth of articles. No doubt other things will crop up in that time too that I'll want to write about. I'm currently committing myself to my Sunday Sermon and at least one other article a week of some kind.

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  2. This year I've taken steps to avoid this very problem. I have a "bet" with a mate where we each declare our target for the month, and if we make it the other person puts £2 into a "hobby kitty" that we collect at Xmas. This year I don't declare the specific models to paint, but just that I'll paint 15 models and I can just paint the ones that grab my fancy. I'm only a month in, but it feels much better :-)

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    1. Yep, I can see that working for some people. But I know I'd manage to develop that into an unhealthy pattern of behaviour. I just need to get things a little bit more organised and plan things out. And just not do too much. Simple. Right? o_0

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  3. Same thing happened to me. Switching to the every-three-days schedule has let me get some control back. It's tempting, when un- or under-employed, to sink all your time into something that feels like work; this, I swear, is the reason World of Warcraft is so popular...

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    1. I think you're right. I've been applying for job after job after bloody job. Although I've done a lot, as I've not been getting results it feels pretty much like I'm not being productive. Ironically this Blog has felt more productive. I've felt like I've actually being doing something that people appreciate. I've got 238 line managers if you will all letting me know what they think of my work. It's also still enjoyable. But I know when something is in danger of becoming unhealthy. I fear my Blogging activity is nearing that. So I'll just cool it a little bit and try and work out a more healthy schedule.

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  4. Ah... so this is why we haven's seen any of your painted models! :)

    I've never had the kind of problems you seem to have although I'm generally bad at getting started with painting. I'm very much the colibri type - flitting from project to project. I don't start a lot of new projects though (well, not /that/ many) so things do progress.

    For me it's been a great experience to switch between scales now and then. It can be increadibly liberating to paint some 15mm stuff when you've done a lot of 28mm figures. Suddenly you can finish a couple of squads in a single sitting! Switching to painting spaceships works as well. Might be worth trying.

    Or the some kind of motivator, like Bargash mentioned. I'm entering into this years Lead Paintes League not so much because I want to win, but because it motivates me to paint at least five miniatures per week. And it really works! On me any way...

    As for your blogging habit; yes please slow down - I think it would be better in the long run. I've been surprised you've been able to keep this up for so long without getting burned out on the whole blog thing. Would hate to see you go. :)

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    1. Partly Martin. I just can't get past painting at most for an hour at the time. I do get pretty bad back pains while painting. Although I have a niggling suspicion it could all just be psychosomatic. It also hasn;t helped that whenever I've sat down to paint lately I've felt really guilty over the fact that I'm not applying for jobs. Or scouring the Internet looking for work.

      In terms of actually writing articles it's really not too much of an issue for me. I've worked in environments where on a quite regular basis I was expected to produce between 5000 to 10,000 words per week in reports. So producing my articles hasn't really been too much of a struggle. On average I'd say they take me between 30 to 45 minutes to produce. Once I know what I want to say or how to say it.

      I'm pretty certain actually that if I could find a role or job or someway of making money out of writing then it'd be a doddle to continue at this pace. I know some people might find it hard to believe but my Imperium as a Metaphor article took 15 minutes from start to finish and was proof read by me once. Although I did then get a helping hand from someone who re-proof read it for me a week or two later.

      I'm hoping a switch to the 12mm scale of Heavy Gear Blitz will get my creative juices flowing again. One can but hope. I've started to write down what I want to get out of my hobby and how I can use my Blog to help me achieve this. I've already got some ideas. I'm pretty sure many of them will work too, if I focus on it. But if this Blog is to continue and I'm going to keep producing my reviews etc. I need to get other things in my life sorted too. Primarily I need a bloody job! :P

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  5. So true, I found out about that with Infinity. When I got a well paid job, it was only the slow schedule of releases for Nomads that stopped me from spending large sums. And all those great models are sitting in my display case, unpainted. You can get fed up with great minis. You sometimes have to stop yourself from buying a whole army at once.

    I tried to diversify my miniatures since then, and I manage to paint some when I find another interesting miniature or system. I also developed some willpower and a cash limit for every month. That seems to give me a motivation to paint what I buy, and only buy things that genuinely intrigue me. The Infinity miniatures are still standing in the case, unpainted... I wonder if I should perhaps sell them to somebody with more heart for them.

    So, enjoy your rest, hope you tie some loose ends in the mean time. Cheers!

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    1. I will enjoy my rest. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of painting.

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  6. I feel your pain about burning out. It's easy just to drop everything and go do something different, but sometimes it's better to keep going and simply change what you're doing just enough that it feels like something different. It's the old 'paint a squad, then a tank' principle.

    How about different types of blog posts? Keep going with the Sunday Sermon, of course, but try some fiction, a gaming-related film or book review. Get your brain working in a different way and you might find you enjoy it more.

    Whatever you do, don't start playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. That'll destroy your free time faster than a Death Star.

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    1. Mate there is very little chance that I will ever let myself get sucked into the world of MMO's. Christ I'd like to keep what little spare time I do have at the very least flexible.

      I actually have been doing some different types of writing. Most notably a little bit of creative writing. I've written a few short stories that I'm tweaking right now. I'll probably put them up on my Blog at some point and I've started writing a novel. I'm amazed actually at how prolific I've been. They're all no doubt complete and utter rubbish.

      I'm not going to step off from writing completely because that way lies insanity. If I walk away entirely I have a serious concern I'd struggle to get back into the swing of things. So I'll keep on going. I'm trying out different types of article right now. Some I'll no doubt scrap like I always do. Others might become permanent fixtures.

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  7. Does this mean you'll stop making me wanna spend oodles of dollars on like, every system out there?
    Oh thank god.
    :D

    Huh...now I feel kinda bad about all those death threats, though....

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    1. Hey, don't worry about the death threats. I'm not. :P

      Yeah, I've slowed my games that intrigue me articles right down. Although I do have a Warpath article to go live at some point in the next two weeks and hopefully a review of Fate of the Forge Fathers to go live.

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  8. Ah, yes, you've put in to words what I think we all feel at some point...

    I've been painting more stuff since I left Games Workshop than I think I ever have before. Quite a bold thing to say, since the increased demands of work, various bands that I'm in, and my girlfriend means that it can be days, weeks, sometimes even a couple of months between painting sessions. This is because I am now no longer restricted to what I've been told to do. Honestly it was hard to keep my own hobby going when I worked there anyway; I had to because it was what you had to do as a staffer, but after 8 hours of talking about Games Workshop stuff, going home and painting some of it was often the last thing I wanted to do. Plus I was at that point restricted by the idea that I had to paint an entire army before I could move on to another one...

    These days it doesn't really work like that for me. I buy some models with every intention of making them into an army, but if it doesn't get that far, it doesn't matter. I've been painting Orcs and Goblins on and off since early last year and I still haven't got to the bottom of the battalion box, but I'm painting them all in dull, flat colours that I don't find all that interesting. I'm painting Khorne Bezerkers as well, although I've painted every model I have for them and I haven't brought anything more just yet. I'm painting Space Marine Scouts, and right now I'm halfway through painting their Captain which I pick up if I think I'm going to have some time left over from my 'main' project. Most recently I've been painting Dwarves, although I've been careful to only buy 500pts worth of stuff that realistically is all I'm going to paint. Because I'm not obliged to paint the same thing over and over again, I find the painting more interesting...

    Not that this is necessarily conducive to getting many games in, but the fact is that doesn't often happen for me anyway. I'm usually busy in the evenings so it's not all that easy for me to go down to Games Workshop and have a game. The one person I know socially who plays games only has a small 40K army, hates Warhammer 8th about as much as you do and is just getting in to Lord of the Rings again, but it's not what you might call sweeping epic battles. So it actually doesn't matter much to me that I've got lots of little armies rather than one big one. And I've got a big enough army of Chaos Space Marines to have a full-sized game in the shop, should I ever get the opportunity.

    I've never really played enough games to burn out in that respect, but I do take your point about the blogs. When I first joined the Black Country Role Playing Society, I joined a game of Pathfinder and did a diary-like blog of each session. However, that quickly became more work than it was fun, and quite honestly I'm convinced that I was the only person who gave even the merest hint of a s**t about it. I haven't done it since, though I do still post about the board games that I play, as I'm not necessarily compelled to do so.

    At the end of the day you've got to do what you enjoy. I'm interested in some of your articles more than others, but I always enjoy the ones that I read as a very intelligent, balanced set of arguments in what can sometimes be a veritable cesspit of spite and attitude within this demographic, which is what keeps me coming back. If you stop enjoying it though, it will start to show, so blog up what you want to talk about. I can guarantee that I for one will always be looking forward to the next one that catches my interest!

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    1. Yep. Do what you can seems to be the way forward. I'm going to try and push a few painting projects over the finishing line this month. I'll probably do a few articles on them if I can. I figure taking lots of pictures is different to writing lots of words. Besides I've got a game to games test for somebody and that will keep me and my friends busy for a few weeks.

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  9. Hah! Painting is just about the only aspect of the hobby I get to practice these days and I can tell you now, I've been where you've been. Several times. Especially with the damned batch-painting that WHFB forces you to endure if you want a painted force on the table. It's why I dropped Tyranids.
    And a large factor of why I'm collecting Infinity. Lovingly concentrate on painting one model over a few days (in between reading novels, watching Youtube and playing Pineapple Smash Crew), roughly 15% of your force is now complete. Paint 20 Dark Elf Spearmen in a methodical prison of repetition over a few days - you've got just under 10% of a 2000pt force. I love my Drucchi to bits, partly because of the effort I've put into them (mostly because of their fluff), but I haven't touched one for almost seven months. Except in the context of Mordheim I suppose.

    Anyway, I'm not sure how qualified I am to give you advice about the hobby, but one way to combat back pains is to make sure the table's high enough that you don't have to bend over it too much. Putting a movie on a laptop on the same desk can help to keep me going (when I watch movies normally, I need something to do with my hands anyway). I do most of my painting while browsing the internet, looking for interesting videos and/or watching box sets of American TV shows. It gotten to the point that I look at a model and I remember what I was watching at the time.

    And for the love of God don't push yourself. If the bile and weariness starts rising, take a bubble bath and listen to some Michael Buble.

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  10. Now there's an incentive; you can either paint some minis or we're going to make you listen to some Micky Bubbles... :)

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    1. Jesus H Christ guys!!! Do you want me to be suicidal? Mr Buble, F'kin hell. Didn't realise you all hated me so much. I'm going to go take a long walk off of a short pier. Been nice knowing you all. :P

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  11. I prefer to listen to audio books while I paint, I've come across some beauties! That's another thing that keeps it fresh and compels me to paint, because I need to listen to the audio books before I have to take them back to the library!

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    1. audio books and me don't really get on. I have no idea why but I can turn an audio book on and literally pick up nothing of what is being said. I find it really hard to focus on them for some reason.

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  12. I could have sworn I made a comment here, but it's gone... weird, weird, weird.

    TheDude and I take breaks a lot more than most, but we almost have to in order to have any juice for our store. I do want to fund something to play on a regular basis, but timing and appropriateness will be the deciding factors for me.

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    1. Yeah sorry Lo, I think Blogger is playing up. I've had comments go missing on other peoples Blogs too recently. I've also had a lot get turfed into Spam. Which although annoying is easily fixed. The stuff that goes missing... well there's sod all I can do about that sorry.

      I think hobby breaks are a more regular occurrence than many people would think they are. I think it can be a healthy thing to do, so long as you start your break before its too late and when the warning signs are just that warnings.

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  13. Wow

    You seem to be chanelling my feelings on the subject again.

    Honestly I believe it IS a negative reinforcement effect, I literally have been trained to hate painting... subsequently I more or less have to force myself to paint which means every time I do I hate it just that little bit more.

    Even the inspiration that Infinity triggered was not enough, I will literally do anything to avoid painting at the moment. (yes, still)

    I have even dusted off some single fig conversions that need painting to ease myself back into the swing of things, repeating the same thing over and over Is horrific.

    I still have loads of DE to do and I'm getting to the point where if I am honest with myself I may never finish them, they sit there accusing me with their unpaintedness, and I cannot paint something I resent.

    The painting burnout has made me feel disconnected from the hobby in some way though and I have been struggling to generate the enthusiasm to play or piddle with lists or even blog.

    I have just had to take a big step back, I'm trying to read more and invest energy in other distractions, hopefully I'll shake this, I hope you don't go over the tipping point with your blogging as you may neve be able to return, just take a break shrink the schedule for a bit do some lighter fun articles, find something new a completely different to do as an aside.

    I only say as I'm starting to think I may have killed the hobby for myself ,it's on life support atm.

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    1. Mate that would be a serious shame if you've managed to murder your hobby. I do hope not. You'll have to pop round at some point and we'll have a chat about it.

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  14. Hey Frontline, I too know how you feel. About the painting and the blogging! From my own experience I can only share the following. Hopefully it helps (I don't want to sound like I think I'm some sort of super advice person).

    Blogging: It's easy to feel as though you have some responsibility to your readers. You don't. You're actually doing them a massive favour, and if anyone pretends otherwise they are being an over-entitled jerk. Write however often you feel like and have fun.

    Painting: I was really struck by your story. Maybe instead of trying to break the pain barrier as you said, you could try remembering why you liked painting in the first place? Your horror stories are just an accident of our hobby. The joy of painting really comes from the creativity and craft, not from the mechanical act of painting. Of course painting a bazillion grots and ultras is a grind. Who would actually WANT to do that? It's torture! :D

    Maybe you could find a model you really like from a system you don't play (hard for you maybe!), or maybe a 54mm model, and paint it as well as you can. No pressure for building an army, or making a "project."

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