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Sim Lauren is in a position that we wish were less unique than it is; not only does she have two hobbies that she gets paid to play with, but she’s also working at a day job that she quite enjoys!

Sim has been a gamer for as long as I’ve known her (since the late nineties), and has turned painting miniature figures for wargames into an income stream, having recently completed a sixteen-inch-high Chaos Reaver Titan for commission. Not only that, though, she indulges her love of knitting and creating clothing by doing consignment work for stores across the UK!

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Technologist for hire Shane Gibson has loved technology since he was a kid, and when he was made redundant from a full-time IT job, he decided to put his skills to work for himself as a freelance consultant, helping folks integrate their computers and electronic gadgets into their lives.

Shortly afterward, however, he discovered that the paperwork requirements for being self-employed weren’t for him, and he leapt on a job opportunity with a multi-state radio network that allows him to keep plying his skills with technology and computers for a full-time wage!

Shane and I have a great chat about not just how well (or not) new technology works, but also how it could help those with impairments due to age or disability overcome those handicaps. We also discuss the struggle of setting and keeping to your own rate, knowing what kind of work is right for you (including nine-to-five or on-call employeedom) and some of the perceived potential negative effects of being surrounded by so much wireless technology.

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It’s probably the dream of every comic fan to work for one of the major comics brands, and Brisbane boy Wayne Nichols has made it real; he is a penciler, the person creating the line art that forms the base of a comic book’s pages, who has worked on The Incredible Hulk and the official comics for the Orphan Black TV series. His work is not only critically acclaimed; it has also made him a guest at Australian pop culture conventions, where he gets to both be a fan and meet the fans of his work.

Wayne also uses his skills in visual art as an illustrator, creating art work for projects and story boards for videos.

It was fantastic to finally catch up with Wayne after meeting him at Tropicon and chat about his favourite titles as a reader of comics, his dreams of making it as a bassist in an alt-rock band and just what it’s like to do comics and visual art for a living!

Tabletop wargame blogger Teri Litorco is keen on all things tabletop gaming, but ferociously so on wargames using miniature figures, from the big kahunas of the scene like Warhammer 40,000 to heavy-hitting newcomers like WarMachine. Her goal is to demystify the at-times complex hobby for newcomers and ease them into assembling, painting and playing.

Teri has been assembling, painting, playing and sharing her passion for these figures and games online for years via text and video, but for the past few, geek culture website Geek & Sundry has been hiring Teri to add her enthusiasm to their brand!

Brace yourselves for a solid geek-out episode, folks! I got to share a fantastic hour and a half with this incandescent Canadian to talk about her favourite WarMachine side, being possibly the first female Games Workshop store employee in Canada, hanging out with geek luminaries like Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton and adapting the techniques of makeup and fashion vloggers to enhance your geek vlogging skills!

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Indie musician’s web designer Ross Barber-Smith was studying Popular Music Performance at the UHI Millennium Institute in Perth (Scotland) with an aim to become a working musician when an assignment building a website to promote a band showed him something he’d enjoy even more.

Hot out of university, Ross founded his own business, Electric Kiwi, in 2011. Since then he’s been designing web sites and album covers for independent bands and musicians. He’s levered the Internet to get work from clients across the world, and he gets to pick and choose the clients he’ll most enjoy working with. Not only that, he’s co-host of a video podcast, Bridge the Atlantic, featuring chats with musicians and creatives!

Listen in for a great chat about starting your own firm, managing a weekly schedule and the trap of niceness!

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Organising and simplification specialist Joel Zaslofsky has been spreading the word about removing the un-necessary from your life ever since a personal Renaissance that made him realise that he wanted to set a better example for his firstborn child than working at a job he didn’t care for.

Since then, Joel has been interviewing people about how to live as sanely as possible in this cluttered, noisy world of ours in his podcast, Smart and Simple Matters. He’s also written a book, Experience Curating, aimed at helping people both discover their purpose and cure “leaky-brain syndrome.” On top of those, he organises conventions for those who wish to live simply, called SimpleREV.

At the time of our chat, he’d just embraced his core passion so much that he’d recently rebranded his site, formerly Value of Simple, to JoelZaslofsky.com.