Last fall I participated in my friend's Blood Bowl league (Blood Bowl is a tabletop game whose premise is, it's just like Warhammer except instead of war they play a game approximating American Football). I got really into the game, started playing the computer version and watching Twitch streams of it. You can play as a lot of different races/factions in the game and I discovered the one I like the most is Lizardmen, which is not one of the six teams my friend has in his collection. So I decided, why not, and bought some minis with the intention of giving them a basic paint job. My friend offered me use of his painting workshop and to teach me some techniques.
I quickly became more emotionally invested in these little lizard guys than I thought I would be. While they were in transit I was refreshing the delivery tracker every day (which is how I assume expectant fathers behave). I've been nerding out with friend/paint-mentor over painting them and I have a better and better idea of how I want them to look. They're living in his house while I'm painting them because that's where the workshop is but every time I visit, even if I'm not painting, I feel an urge to check up on them.
I always thought of miniatures painting as something for other people to do. Generally hobbies involving slow, patient effort don't really appeal to me. And for all I know this might be the last set of minis I ever paint. But it's been a fun, novel experience so far and I'm glad I'm giving it a shot.