Sometimes, you just have one of those days. Or weeks.

Last week's progress post was full of enthusiasm and bright plans, with intentions of putting something together for the Dark Sphere "Dakka on Bakka" tournament. That something was a Firestorm Redoubt. I am now going to share with you some wisdom that I have gained in the past week.

This is what the Redoubt looked like as of earlier this evening. I had about half assembled it on Sunday night, when I realised something was wrong and asked Sim for advice. She pointed out that I'd totally stuffed the assembly and I should rip it apart now to have any hope of salvaging it. Pulling apart most of a day's work is pretty sad, I can tell you.

My darling wife is now in the midst of putting right my disastrous mistakes, and my first fortification should be ready to take the field by the tournament, though I suspect it will not be fully painted. It's a while since I've taken the field without a fully painted army, but it will help motivate me to get the blasted thing finished.

Also, hair bands are apparently awesome at holding glued bits together. The main lesson, though, is that the kit is incredibly precise about what bit needs to be where. Don't go "eh, that'll do" on one bit lining up - it will royally stuff you up three steps down the line!

How I cheer myself up

The most common way I get myself out of a bit of a mood is to go read other people's blogs. You can see which ones I commonly follow and read down the right of the screen. Other people's hobby is kind of handy.

It can sometimes also help to consider retail therapy. Of course, if you are feeling down about how little painting you've gotten done out of your backlog, or how little money you have this will not help. There are two teensy little things which are trying to lure my money out of my wallet right now.

First, there's "Operation: Icestorm", a limited edition starter set for Infinity. Regular readers of my blog will recall I had my own little "Infinity Week" some time ago. This has just gone up for pre-order around the world.

The other temptation is the Kickstarter for Infamy: Welcome to the Big Smoke, which is another one of these British Indie chaps. It is a little pricey, but the miniatures do look gorgeous.

Finally, if all else fails, take a nice break. In this case, I met up with some of my family in Colchester and went around Colchester Castle. It's now a museum, and had a ton of interesting and thought provoking stuff. It was good to get away from the modelling a bit, although for me this happened before my Firestorm Redoubt related disasters.

Other Honourable Mentions

I also find writing army lists, reading books (gaming related or otherwise) and writing blog posts as good breaks from the painting and modelling side of the hobby. Are there any other common ways people have of cheering themselves up after a hobby related disaster or similar? Have I missed anything big? Or do you have an odd way of cheering up you don't think anyone else does?