Welcome to a philosophical tangent. Here you will find a total lack of actually useful information but perhaps something thought provoking, generally strange or just plain weird. It's rather like the Twilight Zone or it's successor The Scary Door...
It began with a post on the WAMP forum that asked what do we do with our painted miniatures. There's a general thing on there about display cabinets and the like as one would expect. The thread is below...
WAMP thread
It wasn't a new thought for me but it brought it fresh into my mind and I started to type a response but then I started to think that my actual answer was going to be rather atypical and perhaps a good subject for a blogpost. And here we are... after my self-psychoanalysis.
So, what's the big answer to what I do with my painted miniatures? Um... nothing. I have almost no interest in them at all. That's right, I don't have a display cabinet full of my figures. My Golden Demon winners are in several locations with my not giving much thought to them and the demon trophies are sitting in a box at my parent's place 300 odd miles away. I have a couple of painted demon winners in my flat, the Cadian Commissar and the Empire Greatsword but they're stuffed into a Citadel figure case along with some old paints and a partially assembled plastic Chaos Sorcerer.
So, the question is posed, what has happened to all the minis I've painted over the... err... decades (man I feel old)? Well, they tend to get stuffed into boxes and just hang around until they invariably get damaged and they often ended up thrown away. I've sold some over the years but honestly not that many. I just don't get attached to my figures. Hell, that's something of a general thing for me. I don't get attached to things very much at all. That old question 'what one item would you rescue if your house was burning down?' I'd probably answer with 'item? screw that I'm getting outside where I wont burn to death trying to rescue the toaster'. It's worth noting that I live alone with no pets so those 'dodge the question' answers don't really apply. If it came down to it I might rescue my laptop if it wasn't going to be a bother simply so I don't have to go through the motions of reinstalling software.
I don't have collections of action figures and geeky paraphernalia. I do have a G1 Optimus Prime but am not really that attached to it. I could always replace it if needs be. I periodically get rid of things usually in vast quantities as I dislike owning large amounts of stuff. Before I left Cornwall, I basically had an open house where I invited friends over to basically take whatever they wanted in huge quantities. Cue many looks of horror from said friends who never really understood my lack of a hoarding instinct. An unusual trait in a geek of course. Cars were filled up with my possessions and driven away. Good riddance for the most part. I took a crapload more to charity shops. I left Cornwall with a bare minimum of stuff. Everything I moved with fitted into the back of my brother in law's car. And no regrets of anything left behind...
So, I have no attachments to my minis and no wish to display them or the trophies I have won. I don't really game either. This does lead to a strange place. Given that my general drives are that I can't be bothered to spend my time doing things with no real gain to them, why the hell do I bother painting minis? On the face of it it seems insane. I don't find it incredibly relaxing as many people do and have little interest in the final product. So, what's the drive?
Process! The science of the hobby.
Yes friends, I am interested in what's possible and how it is achieved. I spend my hobby time theorising how to paint and seeing how well my ideas work. I have a particular fascination with the idea of maximum quality for minimum time spent. A lot of the time I don't even paint the mini beyond trying a technique out on a part of it. Once I know whether it works of not I often lose interest.
I like the idea of painting an army and spend a great deal of time working out plans, ideas and techniques to achieve them. I often buy some of the figures but I do wonder what would happen to said army should I actually finish it. In a box somewhere? Probably.
So, my hobby is a rather bonkers one and a rather atypical one. Only interested in the science? Is that mad, well probably but as a great man once said...
Back off man, I'm a scientist!
