I actually started this in January, I swear!
Weirdly, because WP pushed a theme update that prepends the featured image above the post and since I’ve been doing that manually for, like, years, all of my posts look like a lunatic made them now and that’s been irrationally discouraging. Also, boy-howdy is uploading photos via the WordPress app anything less than incredibly unreliable and, as a result, frustrating. I blame those facts on my falling off on posting here. I need to channel my frustration with Facebook and the active degrading effect it’s having on our democracy into motivation to post here more.
I played a wagonload of Infinity this year but, despite it being a second year of Infinity for me, I painted hardly any Infinity models. Looking back: I came very close to not painting any at all.
Year in Review
January was preoccupied with planning for The Old Dominion Disagreement, a tournament I organized and ran in February. It was kind of a big deal: a 50 person tournament with $1,500 to spend on prizes, patches, food, etc. It was the first time I’d done something quite so large and intense. It was a success: we’re actually a Satellite in 2020 and, as I write this, I’m mostly thinking about the next one in, uh, a month. I also became a Warcor the literal week of the tournament, which was fortuitous timing.
I also finished painting up my Adeptus Titanicus. I’m really happy with how they came out, but have yet to play the game a single time.
February saw little action: I got the flu at ODD, also there was our now-annual vacation to Playa del Carmen.
March saw a LOT of activity with building minis. I also got started on painting up Monsterpocalypse, which is a fun game that I haven’t played in months.
April & May were more of the same: painting Monsterpocalypse. In April, I traveled to Albuquerque for the first time since leaving Kemtah to play in my first Rumble on Rt 66. It was, of course, an enormous blast and I’m going back this year.
In June, I started painting up a new Infinity table. I love my Warsenal table, but it. is. a. bitch. to transport, setup, and break down. I’m quite pleased with how Tanuki Town came out: I think it looks great, but also vastly more practical than Xi Guan. I also won my first ITS up in Hagerstown, and traveled to Ohio for friend Lee’s Rustbelt Ruckus (which is now also a Satellite tournament and feels like a sister event to the ODD).
July – more Tanuki Town painting. I spent 2+ months on that thing.
August – finished Tanuki Town and painted up all of the Warcry starter box (minus the Untamed Beasts I sold off). I also painted up all of Minimoto for Bushido. There was, of course, NOVA, where I played Infinity all weekend long.
September & October – I painted some Bushido Ronin, as well as a table for Bushido. If you’re keeping track, that’s 3 tables in 4 months. I also started painting up Malifaux, for the heck of it.
In November, I finished painting up 2 masters & their 3E available models for Malifaux (Kaeris & Mei Feng). Also, envious of a couple of folks I know with the same, I bought an LCD SLA printer.
December saw the first actual Infinity models of the year, as I got a start on painting Combined Army. I also screwed up with the printer a lot, but I did manage to paint something I’d printed which felt like a big milestone.
Hobby Charts
These remain incredibly interesting and motivating to me, even if I don’t have the gumption to type out my thoughts about them.
I’ve got a full ten years’ worth of data now, which I think is really cool.
This is a GREAT painting-to-building ratio!
Goals
My 2019 goals were the standard three. “I feel less driven to do specific things. It’s hard for me to project what I’ll be working on 6 months from now, and the games I’m playing don’t really call for that. I’m going to leave the standard three in place for 2019, but that’s it. “
- Finish, Paint – Success. I painted a lot of armies for a lot of games. I took on discrete, achievable projects and completed them. Hell yeah!
- Compete – Success. I did a fair amount of traveling for Infinity, and I had a blast doing it.
For 2020,
- Finish
- Paint
- Compete
- Backlog – I’ve maintained a ratio of model spend vs. the cost of my painted models for several years now, with the intent of keeping the spend at <= what I’m painting. I’ve done a very bad job of doing that… but I’ve painted 2-3x times as much as I’ve picked up since November and if I can keep things where they are, that’d be great.
- Blacklog (Part 2) – I’m very close to being able to say that every model I have bought in 2020 I have painted. I don’t expect that state to persist but I’d like to achieve it.
- Print – In the past few months, I’ve picked up both a filament and resin printer. I’ve been printing stuff with them; it’d be cool if I kept that up.
- Rumble Ready – This is a bit of a cheat, but late in 2019 I decided I was going to paint a new army to take to Rumble on Rt 66 in April. I achieved that earlier last week, but at the top of the year it was a goal so I’m listing it.
