Across the internet, people in our little hobby will constantly show you how to do things faster. Does it look good? Do you feel accomplished? Are you burning your candle at both ends? Fuck that, you’ve got it done in twenty hours! Clock is always ticking, get grinding!
And of course I’ve been hit by that as well. I am not immune to the whimsy of trends in our hobby – hell, I think I’ve been doing them for too long without really realizing. So for the longest time, I’ve tried to keep going faster, faster, faster, without realizing what I was missing out on.
It was the zen of doing and the art of contentment.
Recently, which at the time of writing is almost three days ago, I got myself a cool little thing. It is the Sarissa Tile Set for modular terrain setups, and once I’m done that should net me a playing area that can go for 3′ by 3′ or a 2′ by 2′ – perfect for all of the games that I’m currently interested in.
Each tile is 20 cm wide and long, making it just shy of 8″, and is basically a lot of small bases for you to diorama your way to a play area. Which is just perfect, because recently I’ve grown tired of playing on the neoprene mats that are everywhere and was in the mood for an alternative.
My initial thought was to power through them all during a weekend, just go into a big old frenzy and make it all done so I could get to use it immediately. But then, as I was shifting through the tiles and considering my options, I had too many ideas and needed to think it over a bit more.
Normally, at this stage I would realize that I’d need to plan it out a bit, and make it as multi-functional as I could. And start sweating over how to streamline the process, what colors to use, how much grass, when to add it and where to store it.
But I had the itch to do things with it.
For some time now, I’ve been listening to the Hive Scum podcast, a great podcast about all things grim, grimey and twentyeighty. In there the hosts tend to go on all manner of fun rants about hardcore bands, miniatures, interdimensional Bigfoot, very niche youtube videoes from the early 2010s and life in general. Good stuff.
But at one point or another, the chaos that is Terry (@stone.jaw) will plant a little seed in my head with his half-hippieesque, half-dadaist mantras. And one of them that grew into a plant was to just enjoy the hobby. To realize that it is not a chore, and that I should do the things that brings me joy, in that moment.
So there I was, looking at these tiles and my assortment of hobby tools and took a decision. I just started doing. One tile got some texture paste on it, smeared in the rough shape of a road. Then some washes, some drybrushing, some static grass and all of a sudden I had the first tile for my new modular terrain setup.
And I was so content. A feeling bubbling up in me that I had almost forgotten, or at the very least have had suppressed from always trying to do things fast and efficient. I was content in having acted on my desire to just do, and not drown it in plans and calculations. Content in what I had made and the process in which I made it.
What started out as yet another of my ill advised race to a finish, turned into something very serene. Having to wait at least two hours for each layer of wash to dry (of which there’s plenty) and up to a full on day (gasp! imagine that in any video!) for other things, I was forced to take my time with it, because I had not planned out anything in advance.
In fact, along the way, I realized how liberating it was to just do it like this. I had no timeline, no plans, no nothing. I did have fun though. And I’m still having fun, even when I’m waiting up to a day between layers drying before I can proceed to the next thing.
What started as a project became a bit of a powerful realization instead: that I am allowed to take my time with things. There is no rush, other than what I impose on myself. And that there is happiness in just doing shit for the sake of doing them.
Kinda like this blogpost, really.
