Let me move back a step first. Over the years, I've put a lot of thought into my hobbies. This perhaps is a sign that I overanalyze my life. Still, it is something that I've mused about, no matter what the hobby is at the time. This thinking has led me to a few conclusions:
1) A hobby should be fun. That should be self-evident, but who hasn't found themselves gritting their teeth over an activity that Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time?
2) A hobby should be a way to connect with other people. Whether or not you like these people can often dictate if it is worth doing or not.
3) A hobby should be, at a certain level, a worthless activity. Not that it can't make you happy, but I'm suspicious of activities with some kind of financial goal at the end. Playing poker with friends with small change? Fun. Playing poker (or Magic: The Gathering for that matter) for high stakes? Er, not really for me. Our society is really geared toward achievable goals, especially ones that may help us financially. At a certain point, people really need to re-embrace the kid inside and do things just for the sake of doing them.
Over the years, my career has been based on taking the things that I love -- music, theater, writing, photography and the like -- and making them a part of my job. I don't regret this at all, but it does often leave me short on the point number 3. Over the years a number of activities have filled that last bit, from collecting comics to playing Magic: The Gathering (my biggest ever success was a second-place tournament finish that netted me about $30 in store credit; these days, my only play time with the game is the occasional prerelease tournament). In recent years, this part of me has turned, nearly exclusively, to tabletop miniature games.
In a nutshell, these are like the army games plenty of youngsters played as youth. You get your troops of green army men, set them up and let them fight imaginary battles. These more organized games that I play now have rules, statistics for each miniature and require lots and lots and lots of dice rolling. My own interests being what they are, they also focus on fantasy and science fiction settings, so you may command futuristic elves against a horde of Alien-like invaders; or have giant mythical beasts battle it out over a piece of territory.
Silly? Of course. Fun? Oh heavens yes. It's like playing chess with a rainbow-colored assortment of pieces, all of which can be set up in a myriad of different ways each game.
The games can also be divided into two other primary types -- ones that use prepainted miniatures (Hero Clix, for example, allows you to fight gangs of Marvel, DC or independent superheroes against each other in a spandex-clad orgy of violence) and ones that require the owner to assemble and paint the miniatures themselves. While I have a smattering of the former (including a sweet giant AT-AT from a Star Wars game) my real love is in the later. My apartment is packed with these, from forces that have been completed to boxes of ones waiting for me to get the painting process.
It's a sometimes tedious but also engaging and therapeutic process. And when it works well, the results can be so satisfying. (Hmm, that's all kind of like writing, isn't it?) I'm going to take a look at this over the coming weeks, from army selection to painting to actually playing. I'm not so much interested in offering advice -- there are others far more skilled in all of this than myself -- but in exploring the hobby itself and what it means for me. Though I have been actively painting for years, the gaming side has fallen by the wayside. Now that I'm not working three or four jobs, I will try to get out more and more to actually play.
So do you want to come down the rabbit hole with me? If you do, be warned, you may find yourself with a box of space marines, a tub of glue and a smattering of paints before you know it.
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