Dan's Hobby Blog
Hello once again!
I can’t believe that this is the third time I will have done a little blog on the new website as it now is.
In light of this I am not only doing an update on my hobbying but also one on the website as a whole & what we will be looking to achieve over the next 6 months or so.
This week saw the 100th episode of the PATM Paint Ramble Podcast. It has been a genuine pleasure to have spoken to over 100 amazing people who engage in the same hobby. From industry heavyweights to the average Joes on the street it has been amazing to chat to people on a regular basis about what they love. The educational aspect of listening to and interacting with all these people has been amazing. There are a great many more people I would like to speak to and your input is also really important. I cant promise to get round to everyone but a good number of the people suggested to me I have been able to line up for shows, so let me know if you have an idea. I have no idea how long I will keep the podcast going but I have no intention of slacking at this point.
Today (12th Nov 2018) also marks the soft opening of the PATM store. The reasons for the store are many but I will put a few of them down here. The first is that I want us to be as self sufficient and as independent as possible. Many times over the last 3 years of PATM we have not been able to do all the coolest things as we have had to rely on others to believe in us. The raffles, the give aways, the postage paint activities etc, all have required the green light by others. The store will enable us to be the masters of our own destiny more moving forwards. Another reason is that the new content producers bust their humps to bring us cool content that we can interact with. One idea was to provide a patreon or a subscription to enable us to reward the content producers for their great work. This didn’t appeal to me as the best way to do this, I had trialled patreon perviously and all that happened was that patreon PayPal took their share a lot of your very kind donations went to them! The store seems like the best way to be able to have you support PATM and allow us to grow. With the store we will have access to products you can buy from us, ones that you would probably buy anyway but you can hopefully trust us to get them to us. You get your hobby stuff, plus you get to support our community and also our content producers. It seemed like the most logical way and the one that sat best with me. We also wanted to expand our merch offering and from today you can pick up some new mugs and t shirts. We have a trial range of new shirts coming soon as we want to give you new and cool things to get to support PATM and get something you love too! If you just want to support us and not have any actual product come your way then that is an option too. Come over and check out the store here….
I am not sure how it is going to go, that is down to us as a community. We will do some merch and see how that goes, we will also invest in a paint line and see how that goes too. If it goes well then we will expand and if not then it is no trouble we will seek to expand in other ways. We feel we are setting out with good intentions and are excited to see where we end up. We will work hard to earn your trust over the next months.
At this point I also wan to say a massive thank you to the content production team at PATM. You may have noticed the Unboxings, the Painting Videos/Tutorials, the Bat Reps, and the many other things that have been popping up on the website over the last 5 weeks. It is ASTONISHING! It is a genuine delight to work with such amazing people and we hope to go from strength to strength over the coming months. We want to provide you with genuinely engaging content from the heart with no click bait, agressive or shot gun advertising/marketing, or any other of the crap that a lot of other websites sling at you. We want our site to be a pleasant experience for you to interact with.
As I have mentioned I have no idea what PATM will look like in 3,6,9,12,18 months time. But that is not to say that there isn’t a plan. There are many MANY plans we would like to enact, there are many roads we would like to tread but we are completely reliant on 3 areas holding true. One it needs to feel logical, two we need to provide the best level of quality and integrity, thirdly and MOST importantly we need you to support us.
If we stay how we are right now then I would be genuinely happy, we provide you with things to interact with and provide what we believe is a positive community for you to be part of, and that is what we are all about, however we want to shake the apple tree and see what happens.
Now then onto my hobbying. I am done with my imperials from Star Wars Legion pretty much, just a few bits on the speeder bikes and Darth Vader to do and then I am finished. Same with the Starks from A Song of Ice and Fire. Just a few tiny bits and then they are finished. Coming back into batch painting has been a tough old slog and it has been great to see the forces growing and developing. They wont win any prizes but they are painted and they pass muster from the tabletop. This weekend I will have finished up these lads and then it is onto the Rebels and the Lannisters.
I also got two folding picnic tables over the last couple of weeks and can now play games on them and not on the floor!!!! I also got a desk lamp which has really helped me to see how shit my batch painting has been!!! hahaha. I am slowly getting back to the level I was at before I moved countries and that is pleasing, it has been a real kick in the gut for my painting quality. But putting it in perspective it has been great to take some time away and find my flame did not diminish and that I was as keen as ever to be involved.
But anyway, thats me. Take it easy and don’t forget to come and show us what you are painting on the PATM facebook group, we care about you and your hobby so come and show us what you have been up to!
We hope you enjoy the new steps PATM is taking and we hope you enjoy our new store too. We are less without you and we hope you are proud of what we are all looking to achieve together.
Keep paintin’