What does it mean to be #hobbyneutral?

I need to go straight in, here, and say that #hobbyneutral can mean different things to different people. What I have to say is about what it means to me. You can take some or all of this with as much salt as you need.

But the obvious root of the idea is "carbon neutral", essentially meaning to put less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than you offset through measures that remove atmospheric CO2. This is technologically and scientifically tricky. Luckily, the idea of "hobby neutrality" is much easier.

At its most basic, being "hobby neutral" is just about not buying new stuff. You make your counters out of card or paper, or upcycling landfill rubbish. Your terrain is re-purposed or second hand. Your miniatures are bought on eBay or at local tabletop sales.

But I'd like to try to take it an extra step further.

For those of us with a few decades in the hobby, and collections of miniatures that number in their hundreds or thousands, along with overflowing bins of terrain, and endless piles of dice, I think #hobbyneutral means beginning to look at our existing collections as assets to be leveraged in their own right. And there are a number of important ways we can do that.

1. Miniatures first; game second.

Too often, we tend to look at a game, decide that we want to play it and then acquire the miniatures necessary to do so. But if we reversed this, what would it look like? Looking at our miniatures, deciding which ones inspire us to play and then finding a game that fits them. Putting our miniatures to proactive use on the tabletop is super-important not only because it helps us re-connect with our existing collections that might otherwise be gathering dust while we obsess over the latest new shiny; but also because it gives us a clear-eyed understanding of which parts of our collection inspire us and which... don't.

2. Turn miniatures into different miniatures.

If you've got miniatures that don't inspire you or which don't ever see the tabletop, you can, of course, sell them for cash and use that cash to buy more minis. But we hardly ever do this for several reasons. The big one is that minis depreciate super quickly. A brand new miniature will almost always be worth more than an old one. But a second-hand mini that you don't want is almost certainly a second-hand mini that someone else does want! And, of course, vice versa. So whilst you can't easily turn an old mini into a new mini, you can much more easily turn an old mini into a different old mini.

This means barter, swaps and exchanges. These can be done informally online. But the best way to do them by far (pandemic aside) is in person - either at local clubs or, if your local club is based at a shop, at dedicated miniatures swapping events.

I'm brainstorming what these might look like and how they might work as a major side project for 2022.

3. Paint the minis you already own.

Anyone who follows my Intagram account will have already seen my recent video showcasing the awful reality of my collection of part-painted minis that I'm committing to actually finish this year. We talk a lot about our "piles of shame". But what these really are are testimonies to our inability to resist buying new shit even though we then make no use of said shit. Miniatures languishing in boxes or blisters are worthless to us, to the hobby, to anyone except the company than made them who have already taken your money.

Now, sometimes (in my case, often) those companies are small independents who definitely deserve your support, and I'll have to think carefully about how to fit these business models into my thoughts about #hobbyneutral, because the last thing I want is to see the independent small businesses that I love being the victims here.

But other than that nagging issue, this has laid out my broad thoughts about what #hobbyneutral looks like.

Next time, I'm going to talk about turning minis into cash, what the challenges are, what the best ways to do it tend to be and why we need to seriously manage our expectations.