Gaming on a Budget: Time

Hey there kiddos, I'm back after surviving Gathering all the Magic of the past that I could.  Today's class will be on a topic near and dear to my heart- time.

Simply put, there's never enough of it and it becomes quite valuable, much like money.  Budgeting your time is just as important as budgeting your.... budget?

While I could spend all day extending the multimedia explosion begun last week and linking to videos on the subject of time



or even the same video by a different band, I won't be doing that. 


It's even tempting to find all of the bad clip art I can on the subject of time, but I won't be doing that.

time is money mother fuckers

Shit, I could even talk to you about thyme and how delicious it made the oeufs en cocotte that I made for breakfast, but I won't be doing that.

All of that would be a waste of our precious time, so I'll get right to it and give you 3 time saving tips to bring to your hobby.

Not only is our gaming addiction expensive, but it can eat up a lot of our time.  Simply assembling and painting models can take anywhere from hours to months depending on your abilities and goals.  This "hobby" time doesn't even begin to cover the few hours needed here and there to actually- heaven forbid- get a fucking game in now and then.  Therein lies the reason for the following time saving advice.

1.  Create a time budget- while this may sound like some made up business jargony bullshit, I can assure you, dear reader, that this has far more relevance to your life than all the perception maps and key performance indicators you could shake a stick at.  You probably are already making a budget for your personal finances (or at least keeping mental track of them), so why not do the same for your time?

Get a calendar or a day planner or even join this decade and set up a Google calendar and sync to to one of those new fangled car phones I'm hearing so much about lately.  Once you start looking at your days you'll be able to block out time for work, family, and yourself.  Prepare to be flexible with your hobby time, but only good could come of you knowing that you've got 2 hours set aside to block out the base coats on your new Malifaux force this coming Friday morning.

You could even take it a step further and join the wonderful world of action planning and goal setting.  Give yourself deadlines.  If you're anything like me you're much more likely to finish a model if you absolutely "must" have it done by January 21.  Better still, find events to participate in to help you create those goals.  Painting competition online?  Local Tourney?  Big game in dethtron's sex dungeon basement?  All sound like a good excuse to set some goals and dealines to me.  Just be sure to incentivise the process for yourself.  Treat yourself to something nice when you hit your goals.  That could include anything from being allowed to paint a vehicle after completing a unit of infantry to taking yourself out for a kick ass meal. 

2.  Hobby it up on your breaks- I have to give credit to Lauby on this one.  So much credit, in fact, that I'll just link to his awesome article from a way back on painting models on his lunch break at work.  Here's that piece.

3.  Work smarter, not harder-  easier said than done, right?  This is a bit of a broad stroke or perhaps a sad attempt to jam as much information as possible into a top 3 list, but fuck it, I'm committed to this.  The idea is a simple one: use all of the tips, techniques, and knowledge that you can to increase your own efficiency and output.  Below is a list of tricks (but by no means an exhaustive one) to reduce your hobby workload- linked to relevant sources when necessary.

• Only play the first turn or two- when practicing for a tourney or getting the feel for an army, try playing the first two turns of a game and then scooping and starting over.  Often times these opening moves are the decisive ones anyway.  By practicing just your deployment and first moves, you'll be able to squeeze in far more important practice than playing the game as god intended.
• proper drybrushing- and no, not the kind that most of you are doing, where you have a still wet brush and are smearing paint all over your poor models.  Properly done, though, drybrushing is a great way to highlight models quickly.  Here's a basic how-to on drybrushing. 
• Shade with washes- washes and inks are a great way to build up areas of shadow on a mini without having to paint 90 different layers of wet blended color.  Check out this easy guide to washing.
• Buy an airbrush- the sky is the limit for airbrushing, but you should at least be using one to basecoat your vehicles and armored infantry.  A modest $30 investment will get you something like that piece of crap GW flamer brush to use on your minis and this is honestly good enough.  It will take the hour or more needed to basecoat a tank down to just minutes.  It'll also allow you to whip through units like space marines, empire knights, or even basically mono-colored armies like Cryx or those stupid looking Warmahordes anime elves.  Spending slightly more on a dual-action airbrush and compressor will allow you to use all kinds of spiffy new techniques like some truly boner inspiring color gradation shenanigans.  Here is a fantastinomical tutorial from people who know this subject far better than I.

And that's it for today.  IF you've got a hot time saving tip, or are grateful for my existence, drop a comment on me.  If you have an idea for another gaming on a budget article, hit up the HoP budget crew at info@houseofpaincakes.com.  Until then...