Why I do not like hobby butterflies

[sundancer 42976xp 4]

Disclaimer: I’ve written this text in German on my blog and used deepl for translation. Apologies if the language is a bit stiff but I just couldn’t muster the strength to write this text again.

Hobby butterflies. What are they? Well, I for one define them as people who often fly from one project to another in our hobby. From flower to flower, so to speak.

And not only across game systems from A to B and on to C but also with the projects they start for themselves.

First they start a dungeon, then a desert tile, followed by a lot of kit-bash miniatures and on to SciFi terrain.

Rarely does the hobby butterfly stay on a project bloom long enough to finish it in one go. That, in and of itself, is nothing dramatic. However, you have to be able to “afford” it.

And by “afford” I mean not only the monetary equivalent but (and here’s my thought breakthrough) also the space used.

A hobbyist with a dedicated hobby room can afford to have up to a certain amount of projects on the cooker at the same time. That’s what a dedicated room is for, after all.

Enter me. I don’t have a hobby room. I have a room that is actually my study but quickly became a storage room after our daughter was born. And no matter how many shelves I squeeze in, the space is extremely minimal. In order to be able to pursue the hobby at all, I built myself a mobile painting station eons ago. And if I calculate very generously, that’s 0.5m² that I can occupy permanently. Everything else is occupied space or space that has to be kept free all the time.

And what is my problem with the hobby butterflies now? Oh, it’s quite simple: envy.

The important thing here is that it is envy and not grudge. I don’t begrudge (almost) everyone their corner of happiness. But “I want too”. Due to the fact that my space is so limited (and is always reduced when others here in the household put something down in the study to make room for necessary/new things), anything bigger than a simple 28mm miniature is a real act in juggling.

Combine that with my inconvenience of not always putting everything away neatly, and it’s a wonderful recipe for “I don’t feel like it anymore”. If I have 2 hours to paint and first have to spend an hour clearing everything away…. then what’s the point of starting.

I need to get into the habit of:

1) look less at others. Always comparing yourself with others will never make you happy.
2) More discipline. Whether it’s tidying up, necessary writing things or my life in general, I need to organise it a bit better. But I’ve been talking about that for… for a long time.
3) Don’t run after every trend and say: Nice idea, but I don’t have the time/no space/no need for it.

Especially 3) is such a point. Yes, a large Mayan pyramid would be cool as a terrain piece, but what do I need it for? And where do I leave it?

So the motto is: clean out. I already have (what feels like) a smaller pile of hobbies than some others, but there are still things that can be optimised.

I don’t feel like it.

*sigh*

Sorry, that needed to be purged from my system.

[warbossd 4562xp 2]

As a terrible ‘hobby butterfly’ myself, I applaud your clear thinking and discipline sir. The older I get the more I envy those individuals who can focus their time and efforts to dig deep into a few select gaming systems and rulesets without constantly dropping everything just to gawk at the ‘new shiny’.

I’m not sure if the moral here is that there is a happy mid ground or that as humans we always see the ‘grass as being greener’ for those who do things differently.

Hmmm….

[sundancer 42976xp 1]

I applaud your clear thinking and discipline sir

I wouldn’t call it discipline. Lacking space *and* funds really does “help” in focussing. If it’s down to “rent or new starter box of the new shiny” the decision is easy. Most of the times.

I’m not sure if the moral here is that there is a happy mid ground or that as humans we always see the ‘grass as being greener’ for those who do things differently.

I think there is no real moral as such but a thought of “everybody must find their own way of happiness in the hobby”. There is just too much to our hobby to have “one correct way of doing stuff”.

[warzanKeymaster 31125xp 3]

Yeah I unfortunately would fit that ‘Hobby Butterfly’ moniker. First off my insufferable ADHD is a real pain in the arse and is probably my number 1 problem not only in hobby but every day life too. Its a very difficult thing to control and I find my self cycling around projects a lot. Then add on top my career, and its like pouring petrol on the whole thing lol – I feel under constant pressure to be exploring new areas to keep informed and be able to shine a light on stuff. (Its the number one killer of hobby for me – which is weird I know)

I would love to be one of those folk who are methodical and able to stay focused on the goal at hand, I really admire and envy folk like that.

[sundancer 42976xp 1]

@warzan you could always ask your wife to take away all toys expect one for a month? 😉 But I feel your pain in regards to “work in the hobby and having all the toys but not really”. It’s similar for me with PCs. When customers buy new gear and I just want to nick it and run away XD

[redscopeParticipant 2718xp 2]

Psychology of being a hobby butterfly

I have been thinking the past two weeks about the Psychology of being a hobby butterfly. The recent terrainfest is only a month long so why after just two weeks did I find myself losing focus?

At the start throwing myself into the project looking at the subject matter, spending hours of research looking at the topic, looking at real life examples of towns, countless youtube videos of the lore, old vampire films. The next stage is looking at products making choices, the plans, the dreams, the thoughts.

It occupies me at the level that is constant. Consuming, even in the background. Walks in the park drift into examining the shape of trees, passing a skip of rubbish glancing inwards to see if I can find anything to use in the building of the project.

Throwing energy into the build process as the project comes together but still consuming information until. The hobby output starts to slow down. My will power to want to get to the hobby table and paint every evening starts to ebb away but is it just losing interest in the hobby? Is this just the boredom of doing the difficult part, perhaps even the dull stuff or something else going on?

This is what I have been considering this past week. I started to consider what my thought process was at this time rather than what I was doing at the hobby table. I started researching the project back in mid Sept so by now it has been over 4 weeks. After 4 weeks I consumed a lot of information on the subject, watched a lot of lore videos, read parts of books, looked on countless hobby sites, how to build guides.

I should be clear that the scope is very focused just on the project. It’s not reading the whole book or watching the whole video, it is skipping to that part to obtain the information I need to get out of it. Watching a battle report but with more of a focus on what they have terrain wise on the table.

However after time you run out of the high quality resources and it becomes more difficult. The subject becomes watered down and yet worse starts to go off track. At one point rather than just focusing on the terrain build it lead me down a path of searching for russian medieval armor. Why? Because I thought they would make a great town guard. Now I have a box of minis for Russian infantry on the desk. It has nothing to do with what I set out with. BTW I did discover we have a real lack of Eastern European miniatures for the middle ages in this hobby at least ones with pointy helmets lol.

I think I have to be obsessed constantly with something to keep my mind occupied. I cannot just switch off and watch a film. When the subject matter I am looking into dips below that source of information to keep it occupied it goes off onto another project. Then it becomes like an egg timer. The sands of my will power to finish this project are running out to the bottom where the new project is growing in pace. Until the willpower is not enough and timer flips over and we start something else. I hate to admit it but sometimes that happens before the product i just bought arrives.

That’s the hobby butterfly in me i think. I don’t see it as a problem, it is not something to fix it is just me. Being a hobby butterfly will be different in other people but at the core is it the same ? The need to occupy our minds, to set a problem we try and solve or at least until we can set it a new problem ?

[dagsParticipant 3591xp 1]

I would definitely consider myself a hobby butterfly, and to an extent I always will be in a way.  I am privileged in having my own small hobby room.  I have a mountain of old projects from gw staff days, and while hobby budget is greatly reduced can afford a level of new whims.

I am improving, my number of new projects has dropped to about 2 a year.  Last year I finished 177 models, currently I sit on 228 this year, with about 74 in progress. I had a big purge of dead projects, and am about to start a second. So I will atleast be able to delude myself I will be able to paint what remains.  I plan to relicate a few hundred miles in a couple of years and want to reduce space taken.

Part of that was looking at why I paint, what I wanted from it and realising done to decent tabletop was the goal.  Realising unless I have a focused plan and trialled technique to blitz a project, I am more productive flitting between projects but finishing each chunk in full.  Or atleast finish a mini or unit every few days.

I have been trying to rationalise purchases, there are simply too many amazing models … but not all of those are models I’ll enjoy painting, or have an idea for painting that will carry me through.  So I have to know the how and the way I want to paint.  It has to be something I am going to paint in the near future.

Finally I am trialling 2 new rules.  No new projects until I have a painted force for each current system.  No expansions unless the project is fully painted.

Good luck in finding your solutions.  If it helps I envy those that can dedicate themselves to one project.

[sundancer 42976xp 0]

Thanks @redscope and  @dags for your input. There certainly is something in there I need to digest a bit more for myself and maybe others just reading along will gain some insights too?

But I think the main red thread in this all is: we need to keep ourselves focused on one thing to get things done and as soon as there are things like “the lack of eastern European minis” we go off the cliff.

To many minis, to many games and to much cool new stuff.

[flatbattery 8265xp 0]

I’m definitely a hobby butterfly and it does get annoying. I have multiple reasons why, be it boredom, aversion to projects not working, distractions or most importantly, illness and family commitments. I also have a desk permanently set up, so I can’t use space as an excuse.

On a regular basis I find myself feeling committed to continuing a project (I dare not start anything new), but distraction always rears it’s ugly head. I think it’s been 7 months since I picked up a paint brush, which pains me to say, but I’m not giving up just yet.

[sundancer 42976xp 1]

@flatbattery we all have had stops in the hobby at some time I’d say. As long as you still enjoy the hobby in other aspects it’s all good. Mojo will come again at some point. 🙂

[kiranamida 5791xp 1]

I feel your pain on the soace issue. My “hobby space” is also my Work From Home office as well as being my wife’s hobby space and the smallest room in the house.

I do find this has the effect of making me focus on at most one or two projects at most as it’s a pain in the rear to move things back and forth from the garage where a lot of the projects that I have started (like terrain for our local club that built and primed to make it available but will one day get a bit more love hopefully) so I tend to focus on what can fit on the limited footage on one side of my desk on the window sill.

 

That being said: if anything I have never been a hobby butterfly and more of a hobby slug. With so little space, I found myself building everything and maybe priming but then sort of accepting that it was good enough to put on the table against friends and moving on the next things.
So I joined a slow-grow league. 250 points of Warhammer 10th ed a month for eight months resulting in a 2,000 point army at the end. Not my favourite ruleset but I love the Guard even I take them into other games and take about a means of focus… I made set up a little painting tray so that, even if I have to get stuff out onto my desk and tidy it away for work it’s from the front of the desk to the side of the desk, not away onto shelves and into drawers around the room.
I have painted as much in the last 5 months than I have painted in the last 5 years and I am still going.

I wouldn’t say that it would work for everyone or their situations but having a defined goal and friends along for the same journey has been great for finding both my focus and my mojo.

[sundancer 42976xp 1]

Nice to hear that you’ve found a way to fuel your hobby mojo. Maybe we need more of those stories and less of me only nagging about what’s not working 😉 Kudos to you.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

I’m a hobby butterfly, like, probably quite an extreme one and trust me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.  For instance, very little ever gets finished

[sundancer 42976xp 0]

But do you still enjoy the hobby?

[osbad 4279xp 1]

I am a hobby butterfly, sort of.  I was very much so around 4, 5 years back – loads of new games and projects acquired, and backing up in my hobby space awaiting the time for me to get around to them.  I’d frantically be painting new stuff ready for that forthcoming game that had been arranged when we would be trying out the new shiney.  Then onto the next, and the next.  Running fast, but the Pile Of Opportunity was backing up even faster!

Then came lockdown, and suddenly I had loads of opportunity to paint and little to play. Wonderful.  I got loads of stuff painted, certainly all of the projects I was most keen on getting to the table.  As we came out of lockdown some of them got to the table.  Many more of them still haven’t and are just sitting there in their boxes, painted but buzz-free – my urge to get them to the table long since having dissipated.

To the extent that I actually haven’t played anything at all since July, whereas up until then I was pretty much game 3 or 4 times a month.  I seem to have had the butterfly stuffing knocked out of me.

I’m sort of back on the treadmill though now as I realise it was only the excitement of getting something new to the table that kept my interest.  Once I’d played it a couple of times I lost interest.  Once it had lain around for a while and was no longer “new”, I also lost interest.  Weird that.  But I can’t do much about it – we all have different aspects of the hobby that get our juices flowing, and mine seem to be driven by getting something to the table while it is still new.  What a weirdo!

So I’m gradually working through getting a Warlord “epic battles” ECW army painted up, and then next in the queue is the “Raise the Black” starter set for Blood & Plunder.  I’m going on a wee 17th/early 18th century bender it seems…  The bug question is, will I get a game scheduled, or will these just end up back in their boxes?  Time will tell!

Human psychology is weird!

[Author]

Posts