Hobby Review for 2023

So with the year ending it is a natural time to take a look backwards and see what has happened and take notes about how to go about 2024.

Woodworking:

My woodworking has languished over the last year and I put that down to the garage in which I work being constantly in a terrible condition. Be it full of stuff from my house, covered in sawdust or just a mess it has not been a place that has encouraged me to work.

I need to do a few things in there. Firstly, I need to just have a good old spring clean. There is a lot of stuff that needs cleaning, putting away or just getting rid of. Secondly I need a better storage solution. I currently have rack shelving with some random bins thrown about. There is no consistency or even a clean visual language so finding stuff can be a task. Finally I need to set my sights a bit lower in terms of projects. I have been trying to replicate a number of methods that I don’t think I am ready for (this is mainly due to my skills but occasionally my tools too). Projects that I want to attempt in 2024 need to be simpler so I can get the fundamentals down.

3d Printing:

So I have done some great projects with 3d printing. The one that sticks out the most to me has been deploying gridfinity to my drawers in my office to hold a lot of my hobby stuff better. I haven’t done a lot of printing and I think that is because I am lacking project inspiration. If you have any suggestions where to get some I am all ears!

Baking:

I have written about what I am looking to do going forward with baking previously. That being said having picked bread baking back up in a good way but also adding several staples to my repertoire has been great for my confidence. My personal recipe book is slowly expanding to include bread, cakes, biscuits and puddings.

The single issue I have right now is one of scale. I don’t know if you have noticed but a lot of recipes are big, they aren’t made for one, two or three people but a whole bunch! While I love to take my baked goods into the office and share them with my friends and co-workers I would like to bake much smaller recipes that are suitable for a person so I can practice.

Model building \ Gunpla:

OK I have to make an embarrassing yet common statement; I have quite the unbuilt pile going on. I recently had to move all my unbuilt models out of the cupboard they were in and when stacked one on top of the other, the pile was almost a meter tall! I still love model building and have no intentions of stopping, but I do think I need to put the brakes on buying new kits until I have broken the back of this lot!

At some point this year I would like to start working towards Gundam customisation and painting. This will include things like resin kits, air brushing and decal work. It is an area I am a little hesitant to get in into but I keep seeing amazing work on YouTube and I want to at least give it a try.

Video games:

This year I upgraded to a pair of 1440P 144Hz monitors. While this has been a great investment for both video games and professional work, there has been a downside. The simple fact is that you need to push more pixels over a 1080p monitor which demands more from your graphics card. Since upgrading while I have enjoyed the new resolution it has shown my current GPU (a RTS2060 Super) is beginning to show its age. I recently bought the DLC for Cyberpunk 2077 and I had to work a lot with the benchmark modes to see what I can do to get a decent frame rate. Ray-Tracing of any kind is right out as the impact it has on performance was up to a 70% reduction in FPS! I am keeping my eye out for some deals (new or used) for an upgrade.

Anime & Manga:

Anime last year had dropped off completely in favour of manga and light novels. I have quite the backlog of shows I want to watch and manga I want to read. I just need to get my ass in gear and get on with it but for some reason its not drawing me in.

So yeah, that’s a wrap on 2023! Hope 2024 is a good one and I hope to bring you a bunch of my stories as I continue to enjoy my hobbies and maybe even find some new ones.