OK kathrynloch - Why now? the long version.
It's developed quite naturally over a fairly lengthy period. About 8 months for it to gestate and build the momentum towards me making the final decision, but the seeds were actually sewn well before that.
Reasonably early in 2008 I had a little bit of a breakdown... and when I say little I mean a lot... when I say a lot, I mean an utterly batshit crazy fruit loop; isolating myself from human contact for several months; only emerging from my room under the cover of night to buy snacks and cigs from the nearby 24 hour shop; avoiding friends completely (still going through the slow rebuild years later there); breaking up with my girlfriend (she was amazingly good about it all and we ended up back together); threatening my family when they tried to help me (all good now); not going to work for several months (they were also amazingly patient and let me back with minimal fuss and maximum support). I was a proper mess! After a few months I started to scrape myself back together but it took ages for me to really get back to relative stability.
When I was finally there, I found I was rather different. I'm much more self-aware and my levels of anger are so low compared to the wall-punching, antagonising mental I was becoming. My self esteem and belief are so much higher and so is my motivation. I'm thankful to all the people who helped me get there, and I've got drive from not wanting to let them and myself down. My Olympic standard procrastination ability has been almost completely eradicated. In work I went from a long absence to being a pivotal member of the team, assigning out all our work and doing loads of training. Out of it, I started to spend my time productively.
In short, going through a total low has left me ready to go chase that beautiful rainbow. Clichéd, but there you go.
I got back into painting around the start of this year. Instead of talking about what I planned to do for hours, procrastinating, more planning then moving onto something else that I'd also fail to get started on, I just picked up a brush and painted. This was very new for me.
I applied a driven and fairly calculated approach to things and started to stick paint on models. Not only was I still ok at painting after a break, I was so much better. I was chilled, happy, in total relaxation, and I was fast. Really fast! I'd estimate that I paint minis about ten times faster than I used to, and probably a fair bit faster than most people here. And I don't mean that as a boast, it's just that something's clicked. I no longer spend hours going for perfection, I blast them out to a pretty good standard and move on to the next model. I've totally found my niche.
After I'd painted tons of minis in a few months and was still hungry for more I started to think that perhaps 'pro-painting' might be for me. Making crazy cash on Ebay auctions and commissions pretty much firmed that up. Since then I've been clocking well over £10 per-hour on things that I paint to sell, which is enough for me to be comfortable doing it in a full-time capacity. It'll be less than I get in my job, but it'll be freedom and being my own boss is such a pleasing thought.
So, that's why I started to think about leaving work. Since then I've been building to that, making sure I can keep at the painting and keep enjoying it. And I can. Hurrah!
But then there's the mini company. Why that? Well, I had some ideas for models I really wanted, but they weren't commercially available. I started to do some investigating into how much sculptors would cost. It was far too much to get it done as a personal project, but if I could offset the cost by selling some copies, it would be different.
And from there things went mad. I really started to look into it, balancing out costings for production, the run size I'd need to cover my losses, the different levels of profit I could make based on units of sales. And then I started to check out all the other companies around, what their USPs were, what sort of range and output they had, their prices.
I realised, that just about anyone with good ideas, a strong will, some skilled help and some savings, could probably make miniatures to sell and certainly not loose any cash. And if done right, the potential to build a tight but viable business was there. And I think I have the right product and am of the right sort of mind to fit that niche. Hell, I've been prepping for this for the 22 years I've been into the hobby!
And so my range has blossomed. It has a name, a world, a background, a wide cast of characters, there's even game ideas going around in my head. And the artists, sculptors, designers, etc involved are all really behind it and doing great stuff, so I'm just putting more and more attention into it.
Over the next few years I want my range to become known for being amongst the very best around and I want to provide the best support to my customers. I can't do that if I'm still working a normal job, so I have to make the choice and throw myself behind this fully.
Once things really ramp up at the start of 2012 it's going to be both terrifying and thrilling, but I have a strange belief that after 30 years on the planet I've actually worked out a few things I can do pretty well, and I'm driven to progress with that.
Hopefully I can put more and more focus on my company and phase out the need to support it with painting.
It's gonna be an adventure!
