In My Spare Spare Time

When I’m not spending my spare time working on a creative project, I spend some more spare time on one of my many hobbies. Like most people, I love music and movies. I can’t work without some sort of music playing. I pretty much like all styles of music, but typically my favorites range from dance, industrial, pop, rock, and 70s/80s/90s classics with a little bit of metal on the side. I also enjoy cartoons, anime, and movies, but rarely have time to watch them. Comics have been a part of my life since I was fairly young. Today I typically buy digital comics and the occasional trade paperback, but I have my small collection of comics that I like to look at for inspiration, as well.

Beyond those fairly average interests, I have two other hobbies, one a little more uncommon than the other.

Where I tend to waste most of my spare spare time, and the one hobby I’m probably most obsessed with, is gaming (video games), primarily MMORPGs. I started playing video games back with the Sega Master System in the late ’80s. Today I don’t play many console games, but I do own an Xbox One, PS3, and 3DS. My primary gaming system of choice is the PC. I really love games that provide me with a vast world that I can freely explore. For single-player games I gravitate to open-world games such as Oblivion, Skyrim, GTA, Saints Row, and the likes. I may enjoy a good RPG now and then as well like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Persona, and Final Fantasy. Also, going all the way to my first computer game on the Amiga, Test Drive, I always love a good racing game. My favorites include Test Drive Unlimited, Forza Horizon and The Crew.

However, like I said, my biggest gaming addiction is MMORPGs—online role-playing games. Not because they are online, mind you, but because they tend to provide an ever expanding world (with regular updates) that I can explore and that feel alive. This obsession was started with an innocent little invite to play Anarchy Online with some friends. Since then I’ve played nearly every major MMO released as well as amassing several collector’s edition game boxes. Most recently I’ve played/been playing Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, and Final Fantasy XIV. While I tend to dabble in almost every MMO, I have spent most of my play time in those three.

Guild Wars 2 is an MMO that tried to break the standard MMO formula. I think one of the highlight of this game is the sense of camaraderie you get when it’s essential that other players you are not even grouped with help each other out to defeat an enemy. They made quests into events that happen in real-time in the world and they removed the typical trinity of class roles. In many ways it’s a breath of fresh air, but sometimes there is something to be said that when it’s not broke there is no need to fix it.

World of Warcraft is, for many, the staple of the genre. While it is getting on in years now, it has continued to be the elephant in the room for a decade now. Almost no other game provides worlds as large and varied as WoW. WoW is simply MASSIVE! There is so much to explore! I don’t think any other game feels as close to a real world as WoW does just by the sheer size of it alone. Add to that the deep and still growing lore with solid, tried and true, features and mechanics and you really can’t deny the strength of this game.

Then you have the new kid on the block, Final Fantasy XIV, the little MMO that could. This game broke history when it “failed” with its original release and was then rebuilt into a new game that has since been a success in its own right. Final Fantasy XIV has taken cues from many other games and made a polished and solid MMO. It is closest to WoW in mechanics and features, but they took each of those and made them new and modern. It has a friendly community due to the fact that a single character can be all jobs and roles. It isn’t uncommon to really feel like you’re part of a community when you see the same faces for years on end.

Finally my second, and somewhat uncommon, hobby is Ball-Jointed Dolls, or BJDs. These are a class of doll made typically out of resin plastic or a type of rubber and are put together utilizing ball joints to allow movement. They greatly range in style and size and are typically made to order or sold as limited editions.

Many collect BJDs because they can be completely customized and are a great beautiful form for photography. Some BJDs can truly be considered works of art. Personally, the best thing about them for me is the customization. It allows you to create your own characters in a physical form. When I learned about these dolls I became really intrigued. There is a large community built around them along with a large variety of little items that are, in themselves, amazing. I currently own two BJDs and several Dollfie Dreams. They are all SD sized, which is about 2 feet tall.

So that about sums up my hobbies. Some are fairly average, while others are a bit unique. I think hobbies really say a lot about a person. What are some of your unique hobbies?