061 - Year In Review

2016 has been a pretty good year for my painting hobby. I have painted over 100 models, completed an army and feel that my painting has really improved.
At the start if the year I made some New Year Resolutions which you can read here. Completing two out of three resolutions wasn't bad. However I failed one miserably.
The first one was document what I have achieved.

So I created a ghetto Kaban board which was quite simple but let me know how I was progressing with projects. I stuck to a maximum of five active projects at one time which helped me commit to completing projects.
With regards to the second resolution I failed the stick to a budget quite quickly. I need to definitely reign in my spending with this hobby as I have full armies that aren't painted. I am going to have a more realistic budget this year and spread it out monthly rather than have a pool for the whole year.
The third resolution was quite a success. I joined the Independent Characters Hobby Progress Challenge which I completed with my Word Bearers army. You can see a post about the army here.

I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge but unfortunately there wont be a IC's HPC next year. There are plenty of other challenges on Facebook groups and the like so I just have to have a hunt around to find them.
So what are the plans for 2017?
I am going to concentrate on my two new armies. The first being my Iron Warriors 30k army which will mainly consist of Terminators and Perturabo. Here is a picture of my test Master of Signals to try out the colour scheme.

  

I am going to go for a battered industrial feel for the weapons. I have quite a few models to paint but this scheme is quite quick and simple which really suits me.

The second army is my Minotaurs army. It will be more of a High Lords of Terra task force with a core of marines and some fruitier stuff like the Custodes and Inquisitors.

These guys are also quite simple but I can add alot of variety of fluffy units just by using the Codex: Agents Of The Imperium.
Resolution wise I will probably stick to the ones I made last year but be a bit more realistic about the money I spend on this hobby. It is a really expensive hobby but I will definatly try to reign it in.
I am really looking forward to the this year and I can't wait to get some Iron Warriors painted!

021 - New Year Resolutions

So this year I'm making some hobby resolutions and I am definitely going to keep to them (for at least a month). I'm going to keep them relatively easy so I have a good chance of sticking to them.

Resolution 1: Document what I have achieved.
I am really bad at remembering what I have done from one month to the next so I am going to keep an ongoing list of what I have done to help spur me on when I hit a painting dry spell. It might just be a handwritten list in my hobby desk and if I feel inclined possibly a photo of each unit or model.

Resolution 2: Stick to a budget!
I have alot of unpainted miniatures (two Betrayal At Calth boxes might qualify that statement on it's own) so need to get them painted. I get my head turned by shiny new releases and Ebay bargains so with that in mind I am going to keep to a budget of £100 for the year for models. Not a small amount but not really enough to buy a new army. I figure I can top this fund up by selling old models on Ebay rather than spending the quite considerable amount I spend per month at the moment.

Resolution 3: Join a hobby progress challenge.
A quick search on Google shows there are plenty of hobby progress challenges that I can join. It might seem counter intuitive to the budget resolution but I have whole armies in boxes that need to be painted. I figure if I can't find one I like then I will just do my own and document it via the blog. Hopefully this will get an army painted up within the year!

So that's my resolutions. Will I stick to them? Well you will just have to check in to find out!