Hobby break. Have you ever stepped back from the hobby with a mental note “I just can’t right now” and left the hobby for any amount of time?

Yes, a few times. Often it’s just a matter of prioritising hobbies (hey, there really is more to life than painting miniatures, no matter how much you’re told otherwise). Sometimes I want to learn some guitar and actively tell myself I haven’t time for mini painting and focus on that instead. Sometimes it’s electronics. Sometimes it’s just reading a really good book. Very rarely have I actually put my paints away, but I do occaisonally tell myself I just can’t paint right now and do something else. Sometimes it’s days. Sometimes weeks. Every now and again, months.

Have you made that decision spontaneously and suddenly or was it more a “I’m not enjoying this right now, lets do something else”?

Not necessarily “not enjoying this right now” but more “I think I’ll enjoy this more”. Even when I’m not enjoying the process of actually painting, I still like sharing pictures and being part of a community that paints miniatures. But the same goes for playing music (or making cool gadgets) – it enables me to be part of a community of people with the same interests and to share ideas; the activity is a gateway to hang out with the cool kids. Sometimes I just need to hang out with some different people, to keep the relationships alive.

When getting back into a game you find the rules have been updated some significant amount. Do you try to get back into the old system or do you take the dive at the deep end and learn everything fresh?

If it’s a game I’ve played and am familiar with, I’ll stick to the rules I know. Is there anyone who actually *enjoys* learning new rules for games? More than actually playing the game? Surely we learn the rules *only* to enable us to play the game? I’ve never been a “play to win” kind of player, I much more enjoy the process of playing the game (to win means the game is concluded; I happily give my opponent pieces back in a game of chess, for example, if it means the game will continue and/or make it more interesting). So learning new sets of rules to a game I already know to play? For some kind of tactical advantage? Not interested. If my opponent plays to the new rules? Well, they can talk me through them! I don’t have enough time already for my hobbies – don’t give me something else to eat into my time, too!

@sundancer – your BotWars reminds me, I’ve some cool cartoon-style Transformers minis printed and primed somewhere around here. I told myself they’d only take a couple of evenings but after finishing Octopus Prime and nearly finishing Bumblebee, my butterfly mind jumped onto something else – the rest of them are still just black-and-white primed…. somewhere.

My pile of opportunity swells and grows – but mostly because I print stuff then hang onto it for a few months, then give it away once I’ve lost interest or decided I’m never going to get around to paint it after all and printed something else.