By Adam Stewart
From the Newsroom
I’ve taken the start of 2026 as an opportunity to get back to a hobby that I had allowed to sit idle for a bit too long.
Not that I’d gotten rusty, or that I’d forgotten how enjoyable it was—although both are true to some degree. I mean that I’d let some of my supplies, specifically little bottles of acrylic paint, sit unused for so long that the pigment and acrylic medium separated badly enough that it has been a real pain getting some of them mixed back up. A few weren’t even worth the hassle and got thrown away.
No, I’m not painting portraits, or landscapes, or still life scenes, or abstract paintings. I’m assembling and painting plastic models for my Dungeons & Dragons game with friends. It’s entirely possible to play D&D without maps or models. That’s a style of game commonly called “theater of the mind.” But our group likes having maps for battle scenes, and as long as we’re doing that, I like to have painted models.
There are some truly amazing model painters out there, some of whom push model painting into an art form, but I am not one of them. I basically treat it like three-dimensional paint-by-numbers with a little bit of additional shading and highlighting to look slightly less plasticky. Hopefully, with consistent practice, I will make progress with my painting skills this year.
Having a cat complicates model painting a bit. The models are the same size as Minnie’s favorite toys, and I learned the hard way that I have to put them away when I’m not working on them. Otherwise, Minnie will chew on them and bat them around.
Minnie also makes it harder to find time to settle in to paint, because at some of the best times to paint, she will demand that I lie down on the living room sofa to snuggle with her. If I ignore her demands, she will increasingly make a nuisance of herself until I acquiesce. It usually only bothers me for a couple of minutes, though, because snuggling with a cat is pretty great.
But when I get to do it, I find model painting relaxing. It’s quiet and slow-paced. It doesn’t pay to rush it, because paint needs time to dry. The progress as I paint a model is easy to see, and every model I paint has a clear end goal, with the satisfaction of a completed project when I get there.
And getting to use models that I’ve painted—or that other players have painted—adds a personal touch to the game that we can’t get from cardboard tokens or pre-painted models.
Model painting also gives me something to do for my D&D hobby in between game nights. Our group normally plays every other weekend, but other obligations or illness can leave us without a game night for a month or more. As I write this, we’re in the midst of a three-week gap between meet-ups, and painting models for some NPCs (non-player characters) gives me something to do with that time that ties back in to our game.
I think that’s the biggest point of this column, one that can apply to anyone. A hobby that you can enjoy both on your own and socially is a good sign. If you like cooking or baking, you can do that on your own, then have friends over to share in the food you made (possible spoiler alert for my next column). If you love golfing, you can hit the driving range or practice green on your own and play a round with friends. I’ve written before about the Hutch Run Club, turning running into a social activity. There are just so many great hobbies that you can share with friends, or make new friends through.
Adam Stewart is the assistant news editor of The Hutchinson Tribune. He can be reached at adam@hutchtribune.com.