New Years 2022/2023

 Happy New Year! To be honest it's a bit of a relief that 2022 has ended. Certainly a challenging year for many. 

 My productivity nose dived in the early fall (I'm astounded to discover I hadn't pulled pictures off my phone since mid August). I think there was a combo of working more than full time for a number of months, typical summer craziness with young children and then the start of kindergarten and the inevitable waves of plague that followed. 

I do have painted minis to show, and some game reports even (!), but those will have to follow in the near future. This is the New Years post. So, how did my resolutions go? Fortunately I had two (2) and they weren't ambitious!

Jump start a stalled project

Frostgrave received a bump as my buddy Garret started egging me on with texts showing his progress to being ready to play a game. We did, in fact, play 2 games in 2022!

Revisit the Trays of Shame and get some crud out of there

Prior to writing this post I thought I did far less well than I actually did. Hunting through the pictures from last new year post I made a sizeable dent in shameful tray items. It's possible there's a whole tray worth of stuff! 

I'll do a proper pictorial visit to this stuff later, but here's a quite glimpse at (the majority) of the painting progress this year.

With regards to the coming year I don't have solid plans. I'd like to introduce some more regularity into my life....so I'm pondering how to balance work, family, and hobbying. It'd be nice to have a solid target for frequency of blogging, gaming, and painting.....however "frequent" that ends up being. It's much easier to work towards targets than nebulous hand wavey things.

2022 Trays of Shame (4) - fin

The last of the trays of shame photos.I'm sure there is probably more stuff hiding somewhere.....but this is, for sure, the vast majority of it. (he says, thinking of some other stuff already. DOH.). 

Perry French commanders. They are in black so maybe not shameful. Also an incomplete carabinier base....needs a musician which I *think* is in there. 

Some elite chassuer a cheval. French horse artillery x3. A ambul (Knightmare minis perhaps?). 

 

 

 

 Game craft mini Sci fi tower. I have about a half dozen. I need to figure out the paint scheme and how to do the roof. Im' probably short a secondary colour still.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 GW Lord of the rings/Hobbit Goblintown goblins. Great as generic muties. Mostly just finishing off the skin which the the heavy lift. Simply side tracked by other projects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Warlord British naps 28mm. Also some front rank metal as command stands. Also some of the british are actually hanoverian. Started these on a summer trip to a cabin. It's been a lower priority than other stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 15mm GZG oceanic union troops in the foreground. A heap of 28mm perry austrians in the back. They were meant to be done for 2020 enfilade which was cancelled for covid when it was early days. 

Some townsfolk and vampires lurk in there. I'm stuck on the palette to create some similarity but still be different. Plus with vampires.......silver metal seems trite, but what gold is too....sunny?

15mm rebel minis insurgents. Mostly hung up no the colour of their gear. I wasn't SUPER happy with the secondary colours I got. I just need to bite the bullet and do them. 

Solar panel from dreampod9 (heavy gear). Hung up on the colour of the bases. 

Shaltari from dropzone commander. Meant to proxie as XCOM robots. I decided to get more and do 6 in white, and 6 in red (basic vs advanced). Just didn't really get restarted (although in Dec I finished the guys in white, 2 of whom were unpainted as they were originally intended to be the red ones). 

Bugs are from SIGMA EVENT kickstarted which had some pretty sweat 15mm bugs. To be honest they are a pain in the butt to assemble, but look pretty awesome. I got hung up on them looking too yellow/tan. I wanted a secondary colour for their talons (which, damn it, I'd already painted). 

15mm old crow lander. Almost done it's sat for YEARS. I didn't know what to do with the exhaust ports. I wanted hot metal, glowing ports, etc. A bit beyond my ken. 

The blue car is a zombie smith car. Not sure what do do with the canopy. December say the yellow stripes added to the back. A definite step up from the plain blue that it's sat around in......FOR YEARS.

2022 Trays of Shame (3)

Damn there is a lot of stuff to do. And of course this isn't considering the 'ought to' projects at all (like my cowboys). Onward to shame!

 

These are some awesome alternate Blood bowl sculpts. I can't remember the producer right now. It's a japanese theme of goblins (oni as trolls, ninja and various masked fighters). Some contrast paint use. I got stalled waiting for a bit to come which had been missing in the first shipment (I also primed the second stuff incorrect as seen on the top right). 

 

 

 

 

 Reaper (metal) ghosts and banshee. Contrast paints looking good! Really probably just need to do the eyes, and possible some clothes in a differing colour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Scatter terrain galore! 15mm largely. GZG I think. Some ramshackle stuff for 28mm. Also some HO train terrain in the bottom left which is a bit of a pain to pick out all the stuff from the rust coloured primer. Just a grunt which made me drop it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Brigade aeronefs. Part of a kickstarter for imperial skies. I have the french painted. Lost my gas on the Brits. The are probably acutally pretty close, but doing light colours over black primer and finely lined decks is a hassle. 

Renedra cots and fire pits. 

Micro art studios triplex advertisement things for Infinity. I'm stuck on whether to put them on the raised based or not. Its funny what simply things can make you screech to a halt.

 

 

28mm naps. French from warlord and perry. I realize all my naps largely get stuck on the patch painting of black of just after. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 CONGO forest tribes. Models from foundry. Got a great deal off tmp. I have the zanibari slavers painted. I though the mostly skin guys would be an easy project. Boredom vs ooooo shiney syndrome. Hard to remember.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Game Craft miniatures. I've had this way too long (ambush alley days). Wanted some colour other than neutral tones.......pink might be too bold. I was thinking of doing some free hand curlycues around the windows, doors and roof lines. Hung up on actually doing it and the question of should I weather it (and how to weather pink).

 

 

2022 Trays of Shame (2)

 A continued dive into my collection of stuff. But more importantly....stuff I ought to be painting and finishing off or it will get more dusty. 

A bunch of reaper bones. I was working on these as part of a weekly caffeine (something) challenge. They were steadily working through the bones releases. It was great while I was on the train. 

Mostly undead. We also have some chainmail dwarves and GW dwarves (as a mordheim warband). A few other random things in there including a GW centaur (ugly sculpt I got in a give away box from a friend). 

The rest of the GW garden of Morr plus a random plinth with no statue. I got hung up on questions of basing or not (the walls are pretty tippy). I'm close to inking so this could.....could.....go quickly. 

Battletech! Actually these were black at the start of December. So yay me. They came out more yellow than brown as I had hoped. Need to decide on secondary colour and what gubbins get painted black/silver/whatever. 

These guys have been painted for a LONG TIME. I spent time trying to build up the red so it was gradual and didn't need more highlighting. Fail. 

At this point I need to highlight and then start doing the gubbins. There's a few at the back who are mostly done. White and gold (plus some black) are the secondary colours. I suspect I need something else too. 

An awesome BT dropship. The scale is all wrong but it was intended for 15mm anyway. Problem is.....colour. I dont' want all grey. But ummmm. not sure what to do right now. Or like, for the very many years before now.

Cheap lightweight foam casts. Part of a big order from.......microart studios maybe? They are primed in coloured primer. Just need to ink them and highlight. The trick, of course, is I might have trouble getting the right colour. 

And weathering and serial numbers and stuff. These ought to be easy. Maybe a pallette cleanser at some point.

2022 Trays of shame (1)

In the spirit of attending to my trays of shame, mentioned in numerous years of resolutions, I'm going to take stock of what I have. Due to the crappy blogger editor I've already written this once....so it will be more abbreviated this time.

Generally speaking I favour painting what you are feeling. It's a heck of a lot easier to make progress with painting joy rather than a slog or simply staring at your colours hemming and hawing (or having to repaint things! Arg!). 

I hope to be publicly shamed if I don't actually make progress on some of this stuff this year. Better, I hope to have some awesome before and after pics of what I've actually done. 

It's always fun to see what you can spot in the background of peoples photos....in this case, the fun stuff should be in the actual focus of the photos. 

First up, the true 'trays'. 15mm kickstarter ghosts of hefei fabricants and investigators. Infinity computer consoles. GW garden of morr statue. Fenris models fish fountain. GZG androids and field gun. 15mm uk adventurers (I think this is the second set I have, the first actually being painted).

Ion age retained knights. GZG grav cycles with head swaps for retained knights. 'Prang' as orc nob proxies. Some manufacturer I forget the name of on the right. I got a drop ship from them and ended up with some bonus figs in the kickstarter. (Surprise....unpainted).

Ion age 'adder' hovercraft. Old crow car. Ramshackle ore bins and equipment cases as scatter terrain (I have a heap of these).

Microart studios shanty huts. Hoping to use with cowboys I wanted aged wood. The test inking didn't work so well......so I got stymied and stopped for the time being.

GW orces. chainmail orc shaman & sergeant. Ramshackle dungers. bones pathfinder goblins. A rare instance of using contrast paints. This is meant to be for frostgrave and/or general fantasy.

2021/2022 Zen: Failure at nothing or success of nothing?

An obligatory new year post. I made no hobby resolutions this year so..... I win? It seems a bit weak though. Much like 2020, the year 2021 has been disrupted by small children, covid, and the sundries of life.

I was able to get in a couple of wargames with friends (in person!). A couple of blog posts were created. And towards the end of the year I had a burst of painting productivity (which shall most likely be revealed in the near future). I have managed to stay *somewhat* productive in other parts of the year with cleaning of minis, and assembly.....but honestly they don't make for much interest in a post.

Matakishi's teahouse has a hobbystreak thing he has done. I guess he posts a pic on twitter everyday. I do take a lot of photos that just never really make it off my phone into the blog for one reason or another. I am toying with the idea of having a feed that the blog links to that at least shows I'm alive and productive. Noteworthy results would merit full posts. Something to ponder as a project for the new year. 

Dawn of the lead has a great 2021 recap. I was a bit inspired when I first read it. Now it's a bit of a leap to 'commit' to a resolution. I think that I will try to:

1/. revisit the "Tray of Shame" and get some of the crud out of there.  

2/. jump start a stalled project

I leave you with the best hope and wishes for the coming year...may things improve next year. Please enjoy the pictures of art brought home by my daughter which makes me think she has had close encounters with the Cthulhu 'Mythos'. 

 

 

 

2020 in Review: Clean sweep....of failure!

It's no revelation that 2020 was a dumpster fire for most of us. Locally we started heading off the tracks in February/March. Working in the hospital we battened down for a tsunami of infection and death that didn't arrive. It was still quite stressful, no one knew anything, it was a mix of being scared to be working in the operating rooms, and being bored outside them looking for more to do. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back at home, the wife was expecting in the summer. So much was done to switch the home around including evicting me into the furnace room a.k.a the Dave Cave. Some outdoor work included installing an arbour and some fencing around the bee hives. 

 

Once it became clear that  enfilade was cancelled my painting dropped to zero. There really wasn't much motivation left at the end of the day to get my hobby on, when other projects with a much more definite 'due date' where approaching. 

Its mine. Not a random internet pic.

 

End of summer arrived, with a new baby, and (no surprise to those with children) two kids is a lot more work than one. Like....more than twice. Quarantine/Purgatory fatigue set in as numbers ballooned and restrictions came back. I've felt a mental fog for a lot of this year.

Having said all that, it's still a bit startling that I got NONE of my resolutions done. Maybe I went in a bit cocky but I'm fairly certain if enfilade had happened I would have hit a few of them. As it is....zero. The collection grew, outlays didn't decrease, I think that I played no table top games, and painting was a joke.

FAILURE! x7

1/. Host cowboy game - play unpainted//partially painted//fully painted

2/. Paint Austrians for enfilade// paint hussar rampant for enfilade //paint 2 sides for hussar rampant

3/. Frostgrave OR hardwired OR Pulp Alley OR some osprey skirmish ruleset - play unpainted//paint one side//paint both sides

4/. Decreased Kickstarter & nerdery expenditures by 20%//Only 3 kickstarters in the year//no kickstarters

5/. # of blog posts/regular hobby updates: 26 in a year// at least 2 per month// 1 every 2 weeks

6/. Minimum figs: 1 per week (easy...)//stretch 1 per week not enfilade related

7/. paint and/or give away more than I buy (negative growth)//paint more

The only slightly silver lining on this dog of a year is that the little work I did do was partial painting on lots of different things. It may mean some actual production in 2021. As the most excellent darkest dungeon game shares with us:

Do not ruminate on this fleeting failure - the campaign is long, and victory will come

 

 

 

2020 Resolutions

After some rumination on I've decided to make my resolutions with some 'stretch goals'. I reckon I can make some 'easy win' resolutions that can, nonetheless, be extended into harder to achieve items that might otherwise create a silly long list. Generally speaking there will be 3 levels of success to achieve, and hopefully this means I will get less total failures in 12 months and more qualified success.

 

1/. Host cowboy game - play unpainted//partially painted//fully painted

The prepainted buildings I have seemed to be popular and one of the local gamers already wants an invite. So.....the demand is there. Painted status really refers to cowboy figs. I'm a little dubious I have enough so that may direct a bit of spending this year.

2/. Paint Austrians for enfilade// paint hussar rampant for enfilade //paint 2 sides for hussar rampant

It looks as though I'm setting up to paint roughly 100 figs for my contribution. The hussar rampant stuff will be another 6 or 12 cavalry so I'm dubious I'd reach the final target.

3/. Frostgrave OR hardwired OR Pulp Alley OR some osprey skirmish ruleset - play unpainted//paint one side//paint both sides

I've been expressing a desire to play a skirmish game for years. It's time to do it, and damn the need for painted figs. If I like it and play then painting will follow I suspect. There is also the likelyhood that any figs I table will easily port between most of the rules mentioned above.

4/. Decreased Kickstarter & nerdery expenditures by 20%//Only 3 kickstarters in the year//no kickstarters

2019 was a big year for acquisitions. This must be brought under control. Kickstarters are ever so tempting, but I actually like some of the smaller offerings the most, so hopefully putting a cap on absolute numbers will result in ignoring big shiny stuff in favor of the indie stuff.

5/. # of blog posts/regular hobby updates: 26 in a year// at least 2 per month// 1 every 2 weeks

While the numbers are literally the same over the course of the year, the important thing is the frequency. Vomiting forth a half dozen posts in a month and then silence for half a year is sub-standard.

6/. Minimum figs: 1 per week (easy...)//stretch 1 per week not enfilade related

Lol. The 1st stage should be easy given my enfilade commitments. It should probably be doubled.

7/. paint and/or give away more than I buy (negative growth)//paint more

 The most likely resolution to fail miserably.

2019/2020 New Years Post

Yikes! This year was a bust hobby wise. Our toddler (1st child) seemed to hoover up more and more of my time and attention (I understand this is a thing). A new work rotation resulted in a lot of extra evening shifts which totally kibosh my hobby work on those weeks. There was also some tricky scheduling hoops I had to jump through to accommodate my wife's weird work schedule and child care.

28mm: 60 young guard + 3 french dragoons
15mm: none
Terrain: assembled 5 pre-painted cowboy buildings

Accumulation of game material leap in leaps and bounds. I suppose when you don't do, it's easy to accumulate to fill in the void. My roleplaying game activity was pleasingly full for most of the year....which while good in some ways definitely put the bite on wargaming.

2019 Resolutions

1/. Host at least one game of General du Corp with my own figs

-This requires getting the rules, making some range sticks, and painting up enough french to field a force.
FAIL. I really made minimal progress on this. A bit of an OOB, and the french are primed. A big push for enfilade 2020 might see some progress on this front. 

2/. Finish my game craft mini buildings OR sigma event buildings

-The gamecraft buildings I've been chipping away at, but have had for many years. Shameful really. The sigma would be the easy version I can bang out in the fall if I've been bad.
FAIL. I have primed the sigma buildings with azithal highlights, and was doing a trial paint on the 1st one. Once I've committed to the scheme it should probably go fast. It would help if I was actually putting in time on painting though......

3/. Host/play one of: frostgrave, fistful of lead/galactic heroes, hardwired, or other small skirmish game

Previous resolutions to do a skirmish game (both sides) have failed...numerous times.
FAIL. I managed to get in two skirmish games....of carnevale. Garrets games fully hosted. Just the type of thing I'd like to host for myself. 

4/.  Complete the french oob for snappy nappy for either austerlitz OR marengo. 

I should have a lot of what I need. This will help focus the efforts onto what I should actually be painting for my 15mm french. 

PARTIAL SUCCESS. Austerlitz is done up but the numbers are pretty bananas though compared to what I have. Consider 15mm nothing got done this year, my plan to stepping stone into a push to host this is fairly stalled.

2020 Resolutions
I'm ruminating on the resolutions still. The holidays were a bit bananas and I didn't get as much retrospective time as usual. I'm trying to decide how I'll improve my success rate, especially as some items come up year after year as fails...


Pictures of the years work after the break.....

New Year Roundup 2018/2019

It's always interesting to try and write these posts. They force a bit of introspection about ones gaming habits and, more importantly, they trigger a look at what you actually accomplished. I was quite surprised, and chuffed, about my productivity.

28mm: 113 figs plus 3 cars and 4 tents
15mm 116 figs plus 1 walker and 2 buildings
Aeronefs: 9


The mini accumulation continues, however, as I suspect I gained more than I painted. I was given some lots of lead but terrain seemed to be the real weakness this year. There were some sales and gifting that put a dent into things but on the whole.......net increase. I need to focus a bit on stopping the gains this coming year.

Look at my 2018 Resolutions I am astonished I did them all! I suspect I was conservative as I was probably writing them with an infant sleeping next to me. I think this year I should probably strive for the achievable with maybe a 'stretch goal'.

1/. Document my work better/Increase blog posts. (I will informally target at least 24 posts this year.)
SUCCESS!
2/. Attend Enfilade (again) with a (new) French command.
SUCCESS! Enfilade was a good time as always and my guard corp looked sharp and held the centre for a good while before vaporizing under a crushing cav charge.

3/. Don't be a lurker. Be a commenter. 
qualified SUCCESS. I was excellent about this in the 1st half of the year. The wheels fell off a bit in the latter half, but I've started an uptick again. I think the trick for time management (vs endless web surfing) is that if you are going to read it, you better post. If you don't want to post......get it off your feed.

4/. Finish two 'in progress' batches of figures.
SUCCESS! The 15mm chasseur and generals, as well as some buildings, fortications and more. Super good.

2019 Resolutions

1/. Host at least one game of General du Corp with my own figs

-This requires getting the rules, making some range sticks, and painting up enough french to field a force.

2/. Finish my game craft mini buildings OR sigma event buildings

The gamecraft buildings I've been chipping away at, but have had for many years. Shameful really. The sigma would be the easy version I can bang out in the fall if I've been bad. 

3/. Host/play one of: frostgrave, fistful of lead/galactic heroes, hardwired, or other small skirmish game

Previous resolutions to do a skirmish game (both sides) have failed...numerous times. 

4/.  Complete the french oob for snappy nappy for either austerlitz OR marengo. 

I should have a lot of what I need. This will help focus the efforts onto what I should actually be painting for my 15mm french. 

The reposted pictures of the years work after the break.....

New Year Resolution Post 2017/2018

The blogosphere is busy with people posting their year end/beginning posts, and I though I might as well join in. It felt a bit of a dismal year with regard to hobbying, as I've done miserably little painting lately. Looking back, however, it seems I achieved a lot more than I currently 'feel'.
I finished ~70 infantry, 12 cavalry in 28mm, and >200 infantry and >50 cavalry in 15mm....and 2 elephant. Numbers that make you feel good.

From a resolution point of view I even achieved 3 of 4 goals. Another feel good moment. Obviously aiming low is the way to do it. I suspect I should have my resolutions somewhere visible, or review them or something.
2017 Resolutions
1/. Get a FOG force table ready CHECK. Carthaginians whoo!
2/. Attend Enfilade again with at least one command worth of troops CHECK Heavy french cav Hah!
3/. Resurrect a failed resolution FAIL
4/. Host 2 games this year Check. I managed to get some 'all units engage' played, which although my opponent had his own painted figs, I *COULD* have fielded both sides.

Life wise, we have had a baby this year, so I suspect that the drop in hobby time I have had will probably worsen. I started bee keeping in the summer, which is also another pull on time, and the yard work transformation of the home continues. Spring/Summer is most likely a write off. I'll have to be clever about what I honestly think I can finish this year.


2018 Resolutions
1/. Document my work better/Increase blog posts.
I feel like there quite a few things that I finish that never get pictures, or never get blogged. It's great to see your success at the end of the year.  I will informally target at least 24 posts this year.

2/. Attend Enfilade (again) with a (new) French command.
This will be the 3rd year. Cleverly I will be getting quite close to having enough troops to field both sides of a fight.

3/. Don't be a lurker. Be a commenter. 
An interesting post, and the resulting comment thread has me a bit worried about blogging. I hope that the 'death of the blogosphere' is oversold.....but the move to facebook is to the detriment of the community in my mind. I'll do a real post on this, but I resolve to comment actively on most postings I see. Build the community, give positive reinforcement to those who write rather than post a pic on social media.

4/. Finish two 'in progress' batches of figures.
 There's so much lying around from small groups to hordes. This *shoudn't* be hard.