February 25th to June 4th, 100 days on a Hobby Streak! Lately, I have been trying to stick to a Hobby Streak – that is, doing something in the hobby every day, no matter how small. I hope that shows in my last 100 days of blog posts and social media posts.

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Completed Models During the Last 100 Days

Firstly, before I talk about my Hobby Streak, and what means, here is a gallery of the models I have completed over the last 100 days during my Hobby Streak;

• Sergeant Ripper Jackson
• Hades Breaching Drills
• Sabre Weapons Platforms
• Necron Overlord
• 3x Manticores and a Deathstrike Missile Launcher
• Blood Angels Primaris Lieutenant
• Masters of Ordnance
• A test Tempestus Scion

This is a total of 19 models, at a rate of 19 models per 100 days, my current unpainted pile of models will be done in about 1,800 days. Hmmm, maybe I need to pick up the pace! I will be done in July 2026! Haha!

Oh Shit.

My Other Hobby Streaks

• 100 Days
• 200 Days
• 300 Days
• 400 Days
• 500 Days
• 600 Days
• 700 Days
• 800 Days
• 900 Days
• 1,000 Days
• 1,100 Days

Hobby Streak

I would highly recommend this approach to anyone struggling with getting back into painting – or anything actually. It got me fitter and it got me painting.

Even if you do something very small, it helps. The big tasks become smaller tasks, that are more manageable and after a few days of doing something small, you have made a dent in whatever project you are tackling. More on bigger projects though later…

Getting Started

I started by building models off and on in January before I was actively trying to be on a Hobby Streak.

I could simply just;

• Snip parts off a sprue for a model for 10 minutes and that is OK
• The next day I snipped the rest of the pieces
• Then, the next day I would clean up the parts
• And then, on the next day, I would start to glue them
• And then I would finish the glueing and attach the model to the base

Some days I would just glue a piece or two, like legs to a torso and an arm to a body. This was enough to get me back into it – chipping away at something, anything.

By doing this I managed to build a few models, which I spoke about in my Lockdown Reset. And these formed the start of my Hobby Streak;

• Sergeant “Ripper” Jackson
• Inquisitor Draxus
• Inquisitor Greyfax
• Commissar Severina
• Sabre Weapons Platforms
• 15 Tempestus Scions

And before I knew it, I was in full swing doing a base for my Hades Breaching Drills.

Hades Breaching Drill Base

Make It Easy

I would also recommend the books on Instaread about habits, I recently listened to the 27min cut down version of Jen Sincero’s Badass Habits. I was a bit sceptical at first – but it was actually really helpful and I will be listening again to gain some more insights.

One was;

Make sure it is easy for you to do your new habit

It turns out I had done this already. If I am snipping parts for models then all I have available is a knife, cutters, P800 sandpaper and the model’s sprue. No other tools nor models to distract me – nothing but what I am doing then and there. I had accidentally taken a step towards my Hobby Streak.

My first model of 2021

Take Action

I have been using the Streaks app for logging my current Hobby Streak – but it started off with exercise. I was using the app for doing exercise around the house during early February and I decided to add in a streak for doing a hobby. And it has worked! The Streaks app is available on iOS, Android and Mac.

Hobby Streak Top Tips

Thinking about it more I have done several other things over the last few months that have helped with hobby time, exercise and work. These mainly involve reducing distractions and focusing on things that matter. They are;

• Reddit App, deleted – the /r/popular subreddit is a time sink!
• YouTube App, deleted – watching hobby is nice, but it’s not the same as doing it yourself. Another nice side effect of this is that I have not seen the damn RAID SHADOW LEGENDS advert for months now!
• Facebook App, deleted – I actually did this about 3 or 4 years ago, but deleting it was so freeing.
• Steam on my iMac was deleted completely from my computer – Total War: Warhammer 2 is fun, but once again, it’s not proper hobby time.
• I deleted every game I have on my phone – games these days are designed to be addictive, getting rid was the best thing I could do. I did not have many though, PUBG Mobile I played mainly.
• I have instead gamified the rewarding actions in my life using the Forest app, to focus on work or hobby. You can use the code 4ZGVX77SG to get 500 free coins! The Forest Chrome Extension is handy too!
• I have also gamified not using my phone before going to bed by using the Sleep Town app.
• Other noticeable app deletions I did in the past, maybe two years ago – Facebook and BBC News – or any news for that matter.

Now that I am at the end of my current Hobby Streak, apps like Sleep Town and Forest I actually used less and less. I just do not need them anymore to do those positive things in my like, like not spending two hours on my phone before bed. Now it just happens.

And, I guess those are my top tips for trying your own Hobby Streak. Why not give it a go yourself?

Big Hobby Projects

When deciding to deal with my Pile of Shame and take on the task that it is, I stumbled upon old, one quarter completed, projects that never really got off the ground. Yet, I had bought stuff for them. It had sat there, in some cases for 5 years unused and unloved. As someone pointed out on Facebook, my Pile of Shame is somewhat small compared to other people’s.

It is big to me though! At the time of writing it is 300+ models.

The big projects I found took up a lot of space in my head, they were dark clouds that caused minor stress and anxiety about the hobby. This is bad for me! And might be bad for you too! I, therefore, decided to strip back these projects or get rid of them altogether – that was the case for my Skitarri ambitions.

One project I have stripped back is my Knight. I wanted to do a base with a lot of third party models for the Knight’s story – but that makes a big project – a Knight – an even bigger project. I have therefore decided to just stick with one active big project with big ambitions at a time. I will still do the Knight, but just not with five infantry models on the base!

My current big and ambitious project is my Gorgon. That is all.

Gorgon Floor So Far

A Note On Smaller Projects

During this Hobby Streak, I have done a couple of smaller projects; tidying up of other projects and little expansions on existing models. E.g. like adding Hunter Killer Missiles to all my vehicles.

Having these is a welcome distraction and enabled me to quickly do bits of hobby, like doing the green on one Hunter Killer Missile instead of doing more painstakingly slow gold on 20 Tempestus Scions. I am still making progress! Even if it’s not the hard progress I was previously doing.

The other thing to note here is that eventually, and I can feel it already, I will run out of these little side project distractions. Which is a good thing! I am making progress!

I realise that this flies in the face of me not having distractions and just having the models and tools to hand that I just need then and there. I started the HKMs for instance later on once I was into the swing of things. I think starting them earlier would have lead me to deviate from actually getting things done. Also, at the start of my Hobby Streak, I was doing Sergeant Ripper Jackson, a single model and something that it easier to concentrate on and keep on top of, than doing 20 Scions.

A welcome distraction

Breaking Hobby Streak Rules

All this is only a game with ourselves. If you don’t stick to your Hobby Streak but pretend, because of one excuse or another; then you’re only fooling yourself. No one else.

Life will get in the way of our best-laid plans to stick to our Hobby Streak; a child is ill, we are ill, work is busy or we are on holiday away from our precious plastic. In these situations, I have set myself a rule and stuck to that rule. And that is;

Note the day that was missed, then make up for it by doing two different projects on another day.

This happened recently. I missed my Hobby Steak on Mothers’s Day here in the UK, in mid-March. I say recently, I mean recently at the time of writing – not at the time of publication.

So I mentally noted it and then on Monday I did something on my Sabre Weapons Platforms and something on my Hading Breaching Drills. To make up for the lost day. In the grand scheme of things it does not matter, but I like this approach. My brain likes this approach. It allows me to keep to my Hobby Streak and not pressurise myself into ensuring I do something every single day without fail.

This also happened in April when we went away for four nights, upon my return I was about to spend some extra time on the Manticores and got a good chunk of that project completed.

Hades Breaching Drills

Hobby Streak Gallery

Prior to February 25th, I was not in a Hobby Streak, I had missed a day or two or seven.

Once I had made the decision to stick to a Hobby Streak I was on a roll.  Some days I did more than others. E.g. on the first day, I just sprayed one Scion red, then the second day I built a whole Drill and on March 1st I just drilled out the feet of three Sabre Weapons Platforms.

Little steps…

This might actually be pretty boring, although I kind of like browsing over the images and seeing the various models come together and gradually be completed. You can see the slow days pretty clearly too – I am looking at you, March 28th! And the good days, March 26th!

I hope that you can see how projects come together slowly but surely. From being built, then being primed and camouflaged, to details, basing and finally pigments.

I like seeing the progress laid out like this. It is satisfying!

See you soon for another 100 day Hobby Streak milestone…

Pre February 25th Gallery

Before February 25th 2021 I was on a sort of Hobby Streak, although not every day. The first hobby I did in 2021 was not until January 26th, which was when I started Sergeant “Ripper” Jackson. Anyway, these were my little steps back into the hobby in early 2021.