Really pleased with the supportive comments on my post of yesterday, thank you and I will reply to each individual comment as I think it's important to do so. Some very valid points made and I totally agree that the formats are very different, especially around the transient nature of social media posts compared to blog posts. I was looking back through here yesterday and became aware that in many ways it's actually rather like a diary, recording not just hobby events but also life events. Blog was started at a very low point in my life, shortly after I was referred to the care of the local Mental Health team and extremely vulnerable, it was actually my consultant psychiatrist who suggested that I use my hobby as a means of recovery and therapy, thus the title. Life has moved on since then and it's all recorded here through the hobby.
There is no doubt that I have lost much of my interest in wargaming, it's as if my brain will no longer allow me to identify with those little soldiers on the table as I once did, certainly back in my days of Johnny Reb II when I was right there beside the little guys! Still, I do very much enjoy the painting aspect and the concentration required to paint for up to 5 hours solid is excellent therapy. I'm now putting in up to 25 hours per week painting on commission with evenings and weekends off so still have time to do a bit for myself. I'm now very much focused on the Epic's as demand is high for painting them and I have established a method that allows me to produce good results at speed. There is also high demand for 15mm/18mm scale painting and I have a few hundred AB Napoleonics booked in from July onwards and ongoing ECW's for Graham. I'm now generally taking bookings for July onwards and I'm surprised how long customers are happy to wait to have their figures painted! I'll keep going for as long as I'm still able, maybe cutting back a little when I hit my state pension in January :)
So, the blog will live on, maybe I'll separate the commission/hobby posts going forward.
Thanks you again for the comments, much appreciated and gave me something of a boost.
A few shots of recent commission work, the January batch of Prussians for Tony2 and last weeks Peter Pig ECW's for Graham. This week I'm catching up with the January ACW Epic batch for Chris, short month! I have a mountain of Epic plastic sprues for four customers to gradually work through over the coming months.
