I’ll be honest, I have not done any painting since some time in August, 2020. While that’s only 5 months ago, it feels like so much longer than that.
Like a lot of other hobbyists (I imagine anyway), this whole worldwide pandemic thing has sapped nearly all my motivation to do hobby stuff. It’s ironic though. All this “free time” and yet I can’t bring myself to pick up a brush and work on anything and that saddens me.
March, just before everything hit, I played my last game of 2020. The Blood Bowl league I’m in was just getting into the playoffs after one of the funnest seasons we’ve had. Then, 1 week after the start of playoffs, everything went to crap and we haven’t been able to play since.
Being unable to play Blood Bowl has really put a damper on my motivation for the hobby. Even though I was painting busts unrelated to the game, gaming just keeps my mind focused in the miniature hobby and without it I lose that.
Also, back in November of 2019 my wife and I lost our cat of 16 years. Cinnamon became sick very quickly and we had to make that gut-wrenching decision to not let him suffer any longer.
See, we were never able to have children; that’s just what life threw our way. Cinnamon was our baby. I brought him home as a kitten on Christmas Eve the first year my wife and I were married and he was my first Christmas gift to her as her husband.
Losing our child of 16 years has been a huge kick to the gut. Then you throw in a pandemic to the mix, plus some other life events, and it’s been a bitter cocktail to be sure for the past year.
To loop this around, gaming is my mental break from the world. Without gaming to occupy my mind it’s hard to not mull over the unfortunate circumstances of late, and nothing about it makes me feel like painting anything.
However, during all this I have been gaming, though not in the miniature sense. I have been playing two games on PC: Classic World of Warcraft and Minecraft.
Not to turn this into a PC gaming post (though it’s not like this post is anything more than me chatting anyway), but I played Vanilla World of Warcraft back on release in 2004. Some time around 2006 I had stopped playing, just before the first expansion The Burning Crusade.
When Classic was announced a few years back I was interested. My problem though was I didn’t have a machine that was new enough to run the game. This past July I finally got a machine capable and have been playing since. Being able to escape to another world for a few hours here and there has proven invaluable to me.
If anyone else is playing Classic WoW, then look me up on the Westfall server on my Alliance Hunter named Thorruk. Oh, I also started a small blog covering some stuff in WoW, namely Hunter stuff.
Minecraft is a game I have played off and on for about 8 years. I’ll play the hell out of it for a handful of months, eventually get bored, stop playing for months at a time, and then get the urge to play again. I love the freedom of Minecraft and the creativity. In fact, Minecraft is how I’m soothing my creative nature since I’m not doing any miniature painting.
My other hobby that I got into a while ago and never talked about here is knife throwing. My friend and one-time author here Kamui got me into it. Specifically we do instinctive no spin throwing. So, not your traditional knife throwing.
In fact, that’s the only thing I get out of the house to do for fun these days. I go over to Kamui’s place where he has a great knife throwing setup he built. We drink and we throw knives. Drinking and throwing knives is totally the advisable way to do it too. Look it up. I have a few scars to confirm this.
I really just felt like blogging and since I’m not creating tutorials or showing off my work, I figured I’d chat a bit and hopefully I haven’t bored anyone.
I enjoy writing a lot and that’s what’s made the miniature hobby a great venue for me as it gives me something to write about. Lacking the latter has left me wanting to write but having nothing to write about; hence this post.
I’m alive and well and that’s something for this year we’ve been having.
How about you? How are you all doing? You finding any ways to stay busy and have fun?
I love painting miniatures and teaching people how to paint. I also really love blogging, so I’ve combined those two passions here.