Hobby Spending 2019 Part 1

Hi folks,

This year I am going to be recording my hobby expenditure, to give me a better idea of how much I spend each year. Hopefully, this will help with some budgeting shenanigans in the following years. I'll be keeping a list of the things I spend money on as a dedicated page, which can be accessed through the "On the Shelf" section of the blog (top right). I'm trying to keep my spending down this year, as goodness knows the grey tide is high. Painting all that stuff, however, costs money... so...

Today I visited my local Bunnings hardware store to pick up a respirator to protect my lungs when I use the airbrush. I only use it outside, which is a well ventilated area, so I purchased a cheaper product, which is certified against water based aerosols. Even that is probably overkill, but having worked with dangerous chemicals and aerosols my whole career I have developed a habit of limiting my exposure to, well, everything.

I also purchased a fourth light for my lightbox set up. Since moving, I have noticed that the overhead lights in the new garage aren't positioned as usefully as the old ones. Getting enough light on the front and top of the models requires a bit more directed light, so I bought one on a cool stand that provides diffuse light at the angle I need. I still need to fiddle with the set up a bit, but I think I have everything I need now.

All together, that set me back a total of $29 AUD.

I also put an order in to Combat Company to get some paint and media for my airbrush. The paints I chose should cover most of the projects I have coming up, including the colours I need to paint some Macross Plus figure I have in the works. The paints are all listed below, along with some additional media:

73.600 White Surface Primer
71.462 Airbrush Flow Improver
71.061 Airbrush Thinner
72.701 Game Air Dead White
72.735 Game Air Dead Flesh
71.122 Model Air US Desert Armour
71.085 Model Air Ferrari Red
71.123 Model Air Dark Gray
72.721 Game Air Magic Blue

I couldn't resist picking up a Kurage Station Scenery Pack for Infinity and 40K Kill Team. At $13 AUD it provides a really neat, light weight, terrain set and mat for skirmish tabletop gaming. It also fits with my other Infinity terrain, which gives me a few options for combining mats and buildings.

Kurage Station

Some money that I got for Christmas from the Wifey's folks helped pay for all of this, but money spent is money spent. The grand total for the order was $71 AUD.

Finally, I picked up a couple of brushes today to replace the ones I ran into the ground last year. With a plastic dry palette, they came to $34 AUD.

So far, $134 AUD spent and I'm not even trying. It just goes to show that even the peripherals of this hobby are very expensive. It will be interesting to see how much value I can wring from those airbrush paints.

See you across the table,

Marc