End of the year post....time sure does fly!

First off, hope everybody had a great Christmas and will be having an even better New Year. I've been having plenty of fun with tons of cocktail shrimps, a fair share of champagne and general holiday wackiness.

Still, yet another year has nearly passed and I haven't much to show for it hobbywise. In between work, studying and trying to piece together some usable army materials I seem to have build, yet not painted a lot of materials. The number of games I got in has also been staggeringly low, which together with another interest post by Ron over at From the Warp (link) got me thinking about my hobby antics.........does the hobby still mean to same to me?

In the post I'm referring to, Ron discusses how he's gradually been loosing touch with the game. Slow, but surely difting further and further away from being a gamer and closer towards being a hobbyist and painter. This is a development that has also been happening to me, also gradually, over the last 2-3 years. Back in the day I was an avid Magic, Mage Knight and Warhammer gamer, shifting between periods of frantic gaming and hobbying on a regular basis. Yet, over the years things have indeed changed: the old crew of my fellow wargaming misfits have drifted apart both hobby- and geography-wise, my free time has being ever increasingly erratic and my hobby focus has more and more focused from 'battlefield potential' to 'coolness factor'.

Recently, as a result of my codex Necron review, I also got to have a chat with Pat from the 11th Compnay Podcast (link), which resulted in a rather nice conversation and deeper insight into the inner workings of inter-continental phone calls ;-)
We talked a little bit of shop about w40K wargaming here compaired to the US, as well as my thoughts on the Necrons. Pat also asked me about my blog and what I hoped to do with it, to which I replied with something along the lines of 'logging my current hobby projects, armies and sharing whatever helpful ideas I come up with'. For some reason this question has stuck with me ever since and has got me thinking about 'the hobby'. I know what I want to do with my blog, yet it seems I am far from certain what part of the hobby I want to focus on.

Generally I've found that I both enjoy the building and painting, as well as the hobby in general more when I shift away from trying to build a large force. I have enough stress in my work life, don't want to mix it with my hobby antics. For example I did a rather (in my opinion) nifty Chaos Spawn conversion a few months back, but never got around to finishing it due to the utter pointlessness and unlikelihood of it ever seeing use. That mini has been a thorn in my side for months now, with me even moving it out of sight. Seem rather silly, right? Given that I don't really play anymore, why wouldn't I just be able to just roll with a cool idea, colourscheme of fluffy concept?

If the bloggers on blogspot have taught me one thing then it is that there are a ton of different ways to approach and participated in the wargaming hobby and community. Why linger on the past, why not simply make a little shift a focus and have some fun? I dont really game anymore, so why should such concepts as a force organisation chart and squad organization even influence my hobby time? So, for the coming couple of months I'm going to try a different approach to the hobby - no army focus, no rules, just fun, cool stuff.

This will give me a chance to turn up the wacky-level and do a search in my miscellaneuos miniature pile. Cue pointless, yet fun miniatures and boy, oh boy, do I have a ton of those.

Time will tell how this works out, but I do feel that a change of perspective and pace will do my hobbying good. Besides, I'll be graduating for the third time this coming new year and going on a jobhunt, so a more relaxed approach to my hobby time seems like a good idea.

Well, it's not all pointless miniatures of course. There's still another batch of Vespids I need/want to finish for a friend and I'll certainyl keep the reviews coming. It is a blog and not a diary afterall.

And that rounds up 2011 for me, thanks to everybody for reading, sharing your own hobby hobby ups and downs these last 12 months and have yourselves a: