If you haven’t dug into your local hobby scene lately, I’d encourage you to do some groundwork in your community to find niche spaces that might be hiding from you. I recently attended Rock Con, a wargaming convention with at least a 40-year history (I swear I saw people saying it was 50 years running, but I couldn’t verify that) that I hadn’t heard of until just a few months ago.

I found out that my local game store, Cataclysm Games, was hosting a painting competition for this event and that it would be their first time working at a convention since the store started. That was shocking news considering how large Cataclysm is, but very exciting news considering that I’ve been recently focusing on improving my miniature painting skills!

With about three months of lead time left before Rock Con, I decided that I would enter this competition. I’ve never entered one before and it seems like a great way to get feedback from other painters and judges. The mini that I would be finishing up is a cat bard that I picked up from Adepticon earlier this year. Kawna Minis created this figure as part of an absolutely purrrrfect range called Adventure Cats - highly recommend that you check her out.

Cat Bard from Kawna Minis, painted by me. Before I decided to submit this guy for competition.

It’s important to note that I wouldn’t be starting from scratch here, I’d spent at least 20 hours on the mini by this point practicing with new paints and painting techniques. I’d say the project was roughly half done at that time, however, I was determined to go all-out to see what I could accomplish. There was plenty of work to be done.

With new creative energy and a deadline on the calendar, I dove into reworking some portions of the mini I simply wasn’t enthusiastic about from my previous work. The shirt needed some smoother blending, the barrel needed plenty of touch-ups, and the fur had taken some damage in transport over the months. Addressing some of these problem areas improved my confidence and reinforced that I was actually getting better at painting with the more effort I put in (to my disbelief).

His instrument, leather greaves, bracers, and fancy collar all needed attention. So that is what I tackled next. It was slow going, and I don’t think any portion is fully complete at this point but I did get paint on all the major portions of the mini. The last items are a base for the bard to sit on, and the fluffy tail that I had started but never completed.

Time check, we have about one week before the convention. That seems like enough right? Well… not exactly. As it normally does, life got in the way. I have been battling ADHD symptoms for a long time now, and in the last six months, I have been on three different medications for it and adjusted others for depression as well.

All of this is to find the right mix that helps keep me productive while also letting me keep my pleasant demeanor and snarky wit. I’m happy to say that I feel in a better place today, but during the last week of this project, my brain chemistry was the equivalent of a science lab in a kindergarten.

My mood would fluctuate, my anxiety would spike, my drive would skyrocket and then plummet. This made painting incredibly difficult, and I’m sorry to report that I never got the mini done in time. I procrastinated getting a base for it to stand on until the night before the convention but never found the motivation to paint it. Ultimately, I ended up leaving the mini at home the day I went to Rock Con.

I’d love to say that I submitted something I was proud of and felt accomplished, and then encourage you to do the same. But I can’t.

Instead, I want to encourage you to submit anyway, even if you think you’ll fail. In hindsight, I was done enough with my mini that I could feasibly have submitted it. It would not have won any awards, and I would still see all the unfinished portions of it, but I would have completed my goal of submission.

As I write this, I regret missing the opportunity to receive feedback on the cat bard and the ability to see people delight at the more complete features of the project. It was such a different style of mini than anything else in the showcase, and I know it would have grabbed attention. But I won’t get to see that until next year. And that’s ok, I’m just sad I missed this opportunity.

Paint it. Get it to ‘done.’ Submit anyway.

If you have a goal that you’re aiming for but aren’t confident in, I’d say go for it. We only get one try at this ride on a rock through space, but you can re-enter a miniature to competitions as many times as you want.

And even though I didn’t have a finished miniature for this painting competition I still had an exciting time and a rewarding convention experience. The crowd and the games were some that I had never seen before, and it was nice to chat with some older gamers who had been doing this literally longer than I have been alive. Shoutout to Jim, a gamer and photographer who I talked to for a while. He’s been taking photographs about twice as long as I’ve been alive and even has some film photography from conventions taken on an older Nikon camera.

It felt a little like talking to an alternate version of myself honestly. Jim was walking the floor and taking photos on the strangest digital camera I had ever seen. It had to be a relic from the early 2,000s with a postage-stamp-sized LCD screen and a flash that would make scene kids jealous. Thanks for the conversation, Jim. I hope to see you at Rock Con 2025.

Find the weird convention in your neck of the woods and tell me about it.