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Hi there !

I just wanted to post after I realized how much time I spend with things that are "around" the Hobby.
I'm curious, am I weird or is it normal to spend hours sorting out all the bits (heads, right hands, left hands,...) , writing excel sheets with the things I have bought recently or the new projects (I'll probably never do btw). Worst of it is actually that I do enjoy doing this...

Come on, show me that I'm not that strange...
Bonus points for those showing pics !

You're weird.

...

Wanna see my collection of epoxy putties and polymer clays, and ~200 mini paints painstakingly arranged by hue and value?

Well, it's your hobby, that's how you sink your time, and there's more to the hobby than pushing an unpainted unit of Grail Knights proxying jetbikes across the table and going "pew-pew".

Personally, I probably spend 5 or so hours a week on the hobby, painting, writing scenarios, building terrain from random crap my parents were about to throw out, and actually playing games. Plus a bunch of time daydreaming, or pursuing other 'geeky' hobbies, like organizing all my 40k Conquest cards by faction, cost, unit, card type, and alignment wheel location, being a High School Student has perks, like lots of time. Some mornings I wake up and my first thought is "I think I like Imperial Fists better than Dark Angels today. No, Blood Angels. Or maybe Crimson Fists, or ...awww, screw it, I just woke up, an the first thing I think of is Space Marines. What the Hell?"

So no, not too weird

No, not weird at all. I came home from a rather long day at work with my new The Army Painter Mega Set waiting for me. The first thing I did was think "Now how am I going to organize them with my current TAP and Reaper paints?". Thus went an hour or so looking at little shelves to put on the wall above my desk.

 Vermis wrote:
You're weird.

...

Wanna see my collection of epoxy putties and polymer clays, and ~200 mini paints painstakingly arranged by hue and value?

Actually I would love to, I really enjoy seeing those massive collections dreaming that one day I could also reach that point.

I've also never loved Ikea as much as now, those small boxes are so great to order all those stuff we acquire with time...

Landegaard wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
You're weird.

...

Wanna see my collection of epoxy putties and polymer clays, and ~200 mini paints painstakingly arranged by hue and value?

Actually I would love to, I really enjoy seeing those massive collections dreaming that one day I could also reach that point.

I should array all my Elves in all their splendor... unfortunately i don' t have several free hours, and yeah... i also don't want a physical reminder on just how much plastic crack I have !

A lot of my day is taken up by my "Hobby". From podcasts I listen to on the way to and from work, to thinking about lists and messing around with them, Being here on Dakka, and painting/modeling when the kids go to bed. Oh and even playing games on Sundays.....


Wow I spend a lot of time on this.....

Not weird at all. I do a lot of the same stuff hahaha! Just all part of the hobby!

 Coldhatred wrote:
No, not weird at all. I came home from a rather long day at work with my new The Army Painter Mega Set waiting for me. The first thing I did was think "Now how am I going to organize them with my current TAP and Reaper paints?". Thus went an hour or so looking at little shelves to put on the wall above my desk.

Nail Polish racks, from beauty supply wholesalers.

Landegaard wrote:

Actually I would love to, I really enjoy seeing those massive collections dreaming that one day I could also reach that point.

I've also never loved Ikea as much as now, those small boxes are so great to order all those stuff we acquire with time...

Lol. Well most of the paints are crammed onto my Paintier 80. (as in, only supposed to hold 80 pots or bottles) In a photo it'd mostly look like a tower of white lids.

It's kind of a "total hobby" in that you can do something related to it basically everywhere, whether it's playing the games, painting the models, reading rulebooks/fiction/lore, or playing related video games. That's one of the reasons 40k has stuck with me so well.

Here's the other stuff for now, though. Cheapo fishing box with some putty and other rubbish:



All laid out, with more putty fished out of boxes and the freezer. Includes (in that row of pots in the middle) asculpt, magic sculp, apoxie sculpt super white, apoxie sculpt white, and two small potfuls of apoxie sculpt taken from those big tubs on the right. Also, some of the last brown stuff you might see in the wild.



Polymer clay:



I use more putty than clay, and most of either type of material I bought because I wanted to try it, or saw it on sale, or saw it in a shop I don't usually see it in. The 'sale' excuse is why I have those stacks of Fimo soft and sculpey III, which could be better for minis. Other stuff I want to point out includes fimo classic (used by ex-Rackham sculptors) and fimo puppen (pretty good, firm stuff too), both now combined into the fimo professional you see there. I still have to try that despite buying a load of it, but then this topic isn't about rational behaviour, is it? The grey stuff in the bag at the bottom is puppen, put through a pasta machine with small white and black blocks of other clay, to make an opaque, neutral grey for sculpting.
Also, Cernit, used by Tre Manor at Red Box Games, and Uro Hot Set. I stumbled across some of the latter in a shop just before they stopped stocking it. It's great stuff, firm and a bit elastic (compared to the slightly crumbly consistency of other polymer clay), great for mini sculpting, and something that Andrew May of Meridian Miniatures and Otherworld Miniatures fame uses a lot. Even the number of online shops selling it isn't exactly growing (through no fault of it's own, IMO), so if any UK hobbyists fancy a dabble, help keep it in circulation and buy a block or two.

Non-'hobby' hobby time? Nine days out of ten, I spend more time on Dakka than I do at the workbench. Does that count?

That's...uh..that's a lot of sculpting material. Do you do a lot of sculpting? Does any of it go bad?

@OP - I actually updated my inventory excel today. It's pretty shameful.

 Vermis wrote:
*Snip*

That is a crazy amount of material! What do you use it all for? What's the Vaseline in the picture used for exactly?

 Coldhatred wrote:
What's the Vaseline in the picture used for exactly?

Some things are better left unsaid.

If I have the time, I love to spend my time sorting bits, bagging accompanying weapons and arms in little crack baggies, sifting through yard sales or just plain old garbage for terrain or bits, or reading and rereading my rules trying to find a combo I haven't previously thought of. It's my hobby because I love it, so I don't really find that weird. (It only gets super weird when you DO spend all your time doing that, and isolating yourself from healthy outside connections.)

I'd sort more, but my stuff isn't secure and there's a a year old kid in the house.

Pretty funny to see how everything I was doing and finding strange is actually common in the hobby... Especially the fact that the majority of the "Hobby Time" is spent doing other things that painting or playing the game. Feels good to be part of the Community

Nice collection, too. Would be curious to see what you manage to do with all that material.

Btw yesterday I finally painted after weeks spent just organizing everything...

cincydooley wrote:That's...uh..that's a lot of sculpting material. Do you do a lot of sculpting? Does any of it go bad?

Coldhatred wrote:That is a crazy amount of material! What do you use it all for? What's the Vaseline in the picture used for exactly?

Heh! I do a bit of sculpting, though like I say, a lot of that was bought just to see what it was like, how it handled, or because it was going dead cheap. I could stand to do a bit more sculpting to justify that lot (maybe I should start a plog), but taking that into account, and even throwing away a bit of waste after each session, 28mm minis don't use up that much. I bought that 4lbs of apoxie sculpt years ago for the purpose of sculpting enormous tyranid gribblies (anyone remember 3rd ed's gargantuan creature creation rules?), though that didn't pan out. At the mo, having used it for smaller sculpts and for softening green stuff, I've almost used half of it. I also bought some of those large packs of polymer clay for larger sculpts, larger-scale maquettes and things, but that hasn't produced many results yet either. It's a bit like the gamer's lead pile - buy a load of stuff with grand plans, then let it sit around for ages.

Some of it can go a bit stale - fairly hard to mix, gritty, problems curing - especially green stuff, which is why I keep the unused stock of that and the other elastic putties (procreate, brown stuff, the two Tamiyas) in the freezer. The claylike putties (milliput, magic sculp and the rest) develop a bit of a rind and become a little stiffer to mix and sculpt, but I don't think it affects their modelling properties too badly; especially 'cos the unmodified, fresh stuff can be a little too soft and easily messed up for my 28mm tastes.
Polymer clay can 'dry out' and harden over time, which is obviously not much good for sculpting. It's usually okay in it's sealed packet, but stuff I've opened goes into ziplock bags and food containers. A bit of mixing with clay softener (the bottle in the right of the pic) helps revive old clay, but I think it's better to try and avoid that situation, because it almost feels like I'm trying to turn gravel into thick mud using paraffin.

Vaseline's pretty popular as lubrication for sculpting tools, along with some other oily products, preventing the putty from sticking to them. (IIRC it can also be used to soften polymer clay) I prefer water for that meself, but I find it's useful as a kind of mild mould release for press moulds and other putty formers. (Not so much with milliput, especially superfine white. It seemed to soak up or otherwise ignore vaseline. Had to break the mould to pieces to get it out...)

I wish I was more organized my work bench looks like a riot hit. Need to buy of build a paint rack, those finger polish displays look promising. I do have all my models in foam or in tubs to protect them. It's just my painting area that needs the make over.

 Azazelx wrote:

 Coldhatred wrote:
No, not weird at all. I came home from a rather long day at work with my new The Army Painter Mega Set waiting for me. The first thing I did was think "Now how am I going to organize them with my current TAP and Reaper paints?". Thus went an hour or so looking at little shelves to put on the wall above my desk.

Nail Polish racks, from beauty supply wholesalers.

That is a great idea, and one that has just changed the character of my Browser search history to a slightly more confusing one for my wife and kids, come the inevitable Police investigation.

Every now and then I show people this picture to share with their wives to let them know
that whatever they got going on ain't that bad.

Ummmm.... my entire area is "in between things" at the moment.
Your organization is a very good thing.

Imagine 5 40k armies: CSM 10,000pt+, SM:BT 7,500pt+, IG 5000pt+, GK 4000pt+ of various assembled and primed or painted models.
Each has a very large sorting tray (~1' x 2' x 2.5") with all the various bits cut off in their own 2.5x2.5x2.5" spot (heads, packs, guns, arms, legs, chest, bits...).
Basically a "steamer chest" sized box for each of said army... the CSM barely holds it all.
Now imagine those chests only contain what I have not put together yet.
Then imagine all the assembled models are in various scrap-booking / beading / fishing lure containers, and stackable bins like for storing bolts in a shop all in metal shelving.
No, I have started my excel sheets at least 10 to 20 times and can never seem to bring it all to a close.

Some 15 years of White Dwarf ending two years ago.

I do not have the heart to start on the various bastions and terrain, covers a 1.5' by 10' top shelf and some miscellaneous things...

Then imagine at least 3 of everything for X-wing.
Yes, including the game boxes.
Yes, including the big ships.

Some 80 odd Battletech models with various hex map stuff and books.

Some 60 odd Bridgecommander / Starfleet battle metal miniatures and the various books and maps.

Recent Robotech stuff, got the "Showdown" and pickup up another game box and some 6 boxes of destroids... 2/3rds done assembling.
DZC city somewhere in the middle of that mess.

A 2' x 2' area just of good old spray cans, and some 100-odd paints in various cases.

Wondering why I am describing rather than showing a picture?
When my tools for home repair are mixed in with my computer repair / upgrade / networking stuff in various totes all contained in a 10' x 10' x 8' room... "disaster" springs to mind.
My tool "crib" and hobby desk is in the middle of that which has a fabricated paint booth on the table gives it a truly mad scientist look to it all.
Oh, and about 8 different sources of light all over the place.

I will never run out of things to do, but will be confused on where to start.

<edit> Oh, yeah, hobby time... about 2 hours a day, every day and that is just shopping and hanging out at the FLGS

 malfred wrote:
Every now and then I show people this picture to share with their wives to let them know
that whatever they got going on ain't that bad.

I won't let my wife see this picture. I have stuff everywhere at the moment.

 malfred wrote:
Every now and then I show people this picture to share with their wives to let them know
that whatever they got going on ain't that bad.

I think this does the opposite. My wife would say 'It only takes up that much room and not the whole garage?'

Haha, then show them pics of hoarders who have died in their
garages or something.

 pretre wrote:

 malfred wrote:
Every now and then I show people this picture to share with their wives to let them know
that whatever they got going on ain't that bad.

I think this does the opposite. My wife would say 'It only takes up that much room and not the whole garage?'

Finally got a (blurry) pic of the kind of boxes I use to order my bits. I have to admit I love them and it was worth sorting everything out to be able to clearly see what I have in stock ! The bad side is that know I (even more) want to buy bits because they're cheap and/or rare...

Heh.

I keep a high level inventory and project lists in excel, and have tons of bits sorted in bins, and bits boxes.

I just have too many armies/projects, and takes some work to keep it organized. just moved into a new place, and need to finished setting up my new workshop fully.....sadly, I got it "just enough" to do work, and stopped....

We used to have to make "spreadsheets" with graph paper in the days before computers allowed for easier organization.

But then multi-part plastic models did not exist either.

I have a few spreadsheets of my LotR stuff, and of the order in which I will be sculpting replacements for them.

But seeing how slow I have been at painting, it will be a lng time until I get around to documenting precise numbers of what I do have. Currently, I know that I have enough to fill the minimum for the Army Lists we came up with for the different factions of Middle-earth for Field of Glory or Hoplon armies (roughly 200 - 300 figures per army, save for Mordor and other "Orc" armies, where the figure count for the army tends to be around 300 - 500 figures... Kinda like Gallic, Libyan, or Early German armies for historicals have insane numbers of figures). But I know that I have extras to be used for Skirmish games.... I need to get those sorted out.

And having switched to primarily digital sculpting has cut down on the sculpting media, which I used to have dozens of pounds of (used primarily for Architectural Sculpture, but since the company was paying for the media, I would tend to use it for miniature sculpting as well).

MB