Tag Archives: meta-blogging

Hobby Status Spreadsheet!

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A couple of months ago, I shared some details about how I track my progress through this hobby and how satisfying it is to be able to look back on all I’ve accomplished over the past year.  I ended with a promise to make a blank copy of it available to anyone interested in doing the same.

Well, I’m done!  It took me a bit longer than I thought it would (I initially thought I’d be done with this back in October) but the extra time went into refining the sort of data it tracks (it now accounts for assembly and conversion, in addition to simple painting) and making the formulae as flexible as possible (because I wanted this to be accessible to folks who don’t have a lot of Excel experience.)

I’m going to walk through how to access it and then how to use it.

Q: How Do I Access This Thing?

The spreadsheet is a Google Spreadsheet.  To maintain your own copy, you need a Google account: if you have a Blogger blog, you already have one.  It will be added to and interfaced from your Google Documents page.

To get to the blank copy I’ve created for you (yes, you!) to access:

  • Follow this link.

    You should now be in edit-mode for the spreadsheet.  Inconveniently, though, all of the sheets are locked down.  That’s so the sheet is always pristine for the next guy.  When the spreadsheet’s in your account, that won’t affect you.

  • So, copy the sheet to your Google Docs account.

    Click “File” -> “Make a Copy”

    Call it whatever you want.  It’s yours, now.  Leave the checkbox unchecked.

That’s all there is to it!

Q: How Do I Use This Thing?

There are six sheets in this sucker.

General rule: if the cell is greyed out: you probably should leave it alone.  It’s calculated.

Also, I’ve include a little bit of data to provide you with an example of how this stuff should look.  Alternatively, you can always check out my copy.

1. Introduction



I blab a bit about what the sheet does and why I did it.  Sort of like I’m doing here, but with less verbosity.  You can delete this if you want, hang onto it, whatever.

2. Hobby

As far as I’m concerned, this is the meat of the sheet.  Here’s where you log what you finish as you finish it.  Note the year, the month, the model.  How many, what system and army.  What the type is.

Key fields here are:

  • Quantity – How many
  • Assembly Value – How much work went into putting the model together.  Things scale up from simple kit assembly to scratch building.  How you rate things is up to you.  There’s a guide to the right.  
  • Painting Value – The scale of the undertaking.  This is an arbitrary value; I’m including the Lone Pilgrim chart to the right, but how you rate something is up to you.  I gave my display board, for example, a value of “20.”
Conveniently, I’ve made all of these cells yellow.  You’re welcome!

If you’ve painted something without building it, leave Assembly Value blank.  If you build something without painting it, leave Painting Value blank.  (If I build something one month and paint it the next, I’m giving it two lines, but that’s up to you.)

I’ve also included some weights on the right.  You can change those, if you want.  If you’re less concerned about painting than you are building, giving assembly a higher number will increase its impact on the rollup.
That rollup, btw, is: Subtotal = (Painting Value * Quantity) + (Assembly Value * Quantity)
3. Gaming
Here’s where you track games.  Not much complicated here.  
4. Charts
The other meat of the document: taking the information you’ve dumped in and spitting it back out at you in chart form.
This is also one of the biggest disappointments: because of the way Google Spreadsheets works, the charts either look funny or don’t include all of the data.  So, as you add data series (like a new army, or another month’s worth of data), you have to alter the formula that drives the chart.  I’m really sorry about that.  
I’ve included notes about what you have to do to make that work, though, and I think it’s pretty clear.  If there are ever any questions about what to do: don’t hesitate to ask me.
I’ve included charts I find useful and meaningful.  That’s not to say that if you wanted to create another one, you couldn’t do that. 
5. Calculations & 6. AxM Crosswalk

If you’re uncomfortable with spreadsheets, don’t touch these.  These guys take the data that you input on Hobby & Gaming, and process it for consumption by the charts.  
If you’re okay with spreadsheets: don’t let me stop you from playing with them.
Q: What Do I Do With This Thing?
As you plug along with your hobby, just update the sheet.

It’s really intended to not be a lot of work.

At first, it’ll look sparse and empty, but before you know it it’ll have a lot of information and you’ll be able to look back on exactly what you’ve managed to accomplish.

Q: Anything Else?
If you use this, and I’d be thrilled if you did, I’d love it if you let me know.  Fundamentally, this is all about being able to appreciate accomplishments.  If I know I’ve done something that’s helping out your hobby, I’ll get to feel good about myself. :)
Also, if you have any questions or need any help with the sheet: drop me a line!  I’ve tried to make this sucker as automated and simple as possible… but it’s not perfect.  I’m happy to back folks up on this.
Get the Warpstone Pile Hobby Status spreadsheet

Tomorrow, as part of my year-in-review, I’m going to dredge up and share some data from my copy.  That should provide some real examples of this thing in action.
Hope this is helpful!

Not Dead Yet

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Great Caesar’s Ghost, it’s been quiet around here! 20 days since a post with actual content?

Really, it’s been the opposite of ‘quiet.’  Between the holidays and work crushing my dice bag, I’ve done hardly any hobby work since my last hobby post.

The fleshy details on the Bloodbrides are all done: I just need to paint the brass and do the red cloth and I’m pretty much done.  Maybe I can wrap them up this weekend.  That’d be nice.

I’ve played as much as possible in the Escalation League, which works out to about every other week.  I’ve been getting the Khornage stomped out of me: I’m hoping that changes up a bit as point levels creep up.  This also motivates me to start bringing a more balanced list (that is, one that includes shooting).

I need to wrap up the Hobby Status Google Spreadsheet I promised way back when.  The last time I tried doing anything with it, I ran into some issues with the way Google wants to handle custom functions.

Finally, I’m eyeballing starting up a D&D campaign of some sort in 2011 and have decided to start noodling about that out loud.  If you’re curious about what’s rattling around in there, feel welcome to check out Owlbear Stabbings (which is a much better name than Warpstone Pile).

Hobby Blog Bankruptcy

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I’ve been offline here for a bit, for a few reasons… most of which have also kept me from keeping up with my RSS reader, Twitter, etc.

I plan to get back into the swing of things (both posting and reading), but I’m declaring hobby blog bankruptcy for the past two weeks.  If it was written in the past two weeks, and I haven’t read it, I officially missed it.

Topics I plan to touch on in the near term:

  • One of the IFL’s stores is moving to a newer, smaller, less gaming-friendly location.
  • I’m running a different kind of Skaven list
  • Hobby progress tracking via spreadsheet
  • Heralds of Khorne in chariots.

Web Presence Meta-blogging

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Swank!  My Warlord made the FTW Tuesday Top Ten this week.  This is the second time I’ve made the list; the first time was with my Warlock Engineer last October.

Playing around with Google Analytics is interesting.

It’s neat to see the bump that a new post (or a shout out on another’s blog, or the TTT) provides.  What’s even more interesting is to see how people are getting to your blog, and what they’re looking at when they get there.

For example, about of the third of the people who visit this blog come to it straight from Google.  About as many come here from the IFL Forum, which is interesting; the link is in my signature there, but I wouldn’t expect to get all that much traffic from people clicking the link in my signature.

Less than that, I get a number of hits from From the Warp, though not nearly as many as I used to.  I attribute that to FTW’s pretty massive growth over the past year: I might still be listed under Group I, but it’s hard to be noticed with so many other posts.  (I probably should do some brainstorming to see if I can come up with another way for Ron to display recent posts: tucked away in a sidebar isn’t the best way to scan FTW activity.)  I also get a surprising amount of activity from Jay‘s blog; enough that it’s my #8 entrance source.

What’s really interesting is what people are looking for.  Some newer posts are seeing a bit of activity (the Dawn Power Dissolver post, the aforementioned Warlord post), sure, but the stuff that brings all the boys to the yard (as it were) are a bunch of Skaven conversions I posted back in December, my various Hellpit Abomination WIP posts, and my Bloodletter painting “tutorial”.  It’s fascinating to see what has legs and actually goes on to contribute to other people’s hobby.  Quite satisfying and flattering.

Wholly unrelated to my electronic ego: I turned up a link to WIP Warhammer 8th Army Builder file (the link to the current version is down at the bottom of the thread).

It appears to update army construction to use percentages and include the most of the new magic items (all the ones I’m using in my list, at least), so that means it’s good enough for me for now.
Image via the always-brilliant Married to the Sea, w/o permission.

Assorted, brief topics

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After seeing this post about Secret Weapon Miniatures‘ tutorials on Tabletop Gaming News (you’ve got that in your RSS reader, right?), I decided to take MisterJustin at his word and e-mail him to request a tutorial on using their Oxide Weathering Pigments.

That kicked off an e-mail exchange with some solid advice about how I’d go about integrating them with the way I’m currently doing brass/bronze that made me feel comfortable enough ordering the powders to play around with.

I mention it because I was really impressed with the quick and extremely helpful response.  That’s fantastic customer support, that is.

Last night, I had an interview with Pat from The 11th Company.

Given that I’m still confused as to why anyone would bother reading anything I’d have to write about hobby stuff, I’m truly bewildered that anyone would want to listen to anything I’d have to say.  I think the chat went well: I’ll make a note here to let folks know when they can tune in and hear me sound like an idiot.

It looks like the Forgeworld Friendly Tournament I’ve been planning to run next weekend is probably going to be cancelled, which is disappointing.

There was a good initial wave of “I’ll be there!,” but now that we’re at a week out, we’ve still only got one (1) preregistration… so it seems like it’s probably for the best just to call it.  It’s a shame, because I think it could have filled a lack that the club’s had pretty much since 5th Ed. came out… but c’est la vie.

Since there’s no point in wasting them, I figure I might as well post the scenarios I’d been planning on using.  (Apologies for imperfect formatting; I uploaded the Word doc into Google Docs, and that made things a little wonky.)  They were all pretty straightforward: core book missions modified just a little bit:

  • Seize Ground, but with objective points accruing as the game proceeds… not just at the end of the game.
  • Annihilation, but with Kill Points weighted by Force Org chart
  • Capture & Control, but without objective control being determined by the last scoring unit to be near it.

I’d just recycle these for use in the IFL RTT in July, but given its proximity to the NoVA Open, we’re going to use that format.

Blogger and Picasa

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Last week, I was chatting with Bill and Jay (those guys) about stuff, and the issues Bill had a few months back with getting images to show up in the From the Warp Blogrolls came up.  (I’d post a link to it, but damned if I can find it.  Hook a brother up, Bill?)  From that conversation, I learned that not everyone knows how uploading images to Blogger works.  I thought I’d explain it.

What’s Going On

When you upload an image into Blogger (using the Insert Image button at the top of the post window), “Blogger” isn’t actually hosting the image: it’s Picasa Web Albums.  Blogger automagically creates an album for each Blogger blog you create in your Picasa Web Album account and, when you upload an image through Blogger, it stores your image in that web album.

You can see here that I’ve got three albums in Picasa: one for uploaded Blogger Pictures (these are the user icons that show up in blogger, in the About me section of you blog, the Followers tool and any Blogger comments), one for pictures uploaded to this blog (Warpstone Pile), and one for the test template I created to try out the new look I went to back in March).  Of those three, only one (the Warpstone Pile one) is actually public.

What This Means

Depending on what you want to do, it could mean nothing.  Upload your pictures through Blogger, blog away, live your life.  It doesn’t matter where the images are hosted, so long as they’re hosted, right?

Well, at some level, it’s probably useful to know that there’s a cap on how much you can post to Picasa without having to upgrade your account (an undertaking that involves money).  This isn’t any different than any other image hosting service, though, and the likelihood of hitting that cap is extremely low.

I’ve been uploading kind of a lot of large pictures for over a year, now, and I’m only at ~50MB out of 1GB.  But, hey, knowledge is power.

Speaking of power, if you know that you can find your images in Picasa, then you can get to them and use them.

If you’re into Google Buzz (I’m not exactly; my posts here spam my friends, but I don’t actively do much with it), you can configure your Picasa account to post activity to Buzz.  That means your friends will automatically get notified and see pictures you take and post of your minis.

More significantly, though, you can label your images.  I get a lot of mileage out of this.  Although I generally don’t bother labeling throwaway images (like the ones in this post), I label all of my mini pictures: system, army, status (“WIP” or “Final”), content.  So, a photo of some Bloodletters gets labeled: “‘Warhammer 40K’ ‘Khornate Daemons’ Bloodletter Final”.

This in and of itself isn’t incredibly useful… until you start leveraging those labels.  Take a moment to click on the “Khornate Daemons” link on the right side of the page.  (Or the link I just inserted.)  The link is to a search  against that web album.  I don’t have to manually maintain sorted albums (as I did with my old, self-hosted, gallery service): anything with the labels “Final” and “Khornate Daemons” will show up in those results.

If you’re technically inclined, working out how to build these URLs is pretty obvious.  If you’re not… that’s okay; I’m here to help.

The URL of the Khornate Daemon link is:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/view?uname=rushputin&tags=Final+%22Khornate%20Daemons%22#

The %22 thing might throw you off: those are really HTML encoded stand-ins for double quotes.  They’re necessary because I an ass and like to put spaces in my labels; the quotes tell Picasa that “Khornate Daemons” is one label and not two labels (“Khornate” and “Daemons”).  I could just as easily have called the Label Khornate_Daemons, which would make the URL a more legible:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/view?uname=rushputin&tags=Final+Khornate_Daemons#

If I wanted to just show Khornate_Daemon images, but didn’t care about whether or not they were of finished models(“Final”), I could omit the Final part, which would make the URL:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/view?uname=rushputin&tags=Khornate_Daemons#

So, to build your own URL, just replace “rushputin” with your blogger/Picasa username and replace the tags I’m using (“Khornate_Daemons” in the above example) with whatever tags you want to filter down on, delimited by plus signs (“+”).

I’m using this with a couple of my army links (Skaven, Daemons, Harad), but not all of them: at some point, I’ll move a bunch of images from where I’d been hosting them before to Picasa, label them, and then I’ll swap the old links for new filter URLs.

I’ve met with limited success interacting with the Blogger-generated web albums via the downloadable Picasa client.  It seems to generate a second copy of the album for the client to interact with, rather than the blogger web album, which isn’t particularly helpful.  I haven’t worked very hard with it, however, so it’s entirely likely there’s something I’ve missed.

I really hope this helps someone!

1 Year Old!

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I just realized that, yesterday, this blog turned one year old!

Although Warpstone Pile is a far, far cry from Bell of Lost Souls, I’m both surprised and pleased with how successful it’s been.

Some stats:

  • 127 posts (not counting this one)
  • ~2,700 pageviews in the past month, 993 Unique Visitors
  • 32 Followers, 39 Google Reader subscribers (plus my friends who get spammed with this thing via Google Buzz)

My most active pages are, easily, the ones about my Hellpit Abomination conversion.  Second to that are my other Skaven conversions.  This only makes sense, when you consider that my conversion is the third result when you Google “Hellpit Abomination,” just after Warseer and DakkaDakka.  (Under Google Image Search, it’s the third result there, too, and is 9 of the first 36 results.)  I’ve seen better conversions for it, mind you, but that’s pretty neat!

This thing’s also horned out my other online outlets: I don’t post to LiveJournal (where I keep up with my friends) nearly as much.  The Twitter Feed I set up for the blog (WarpstonePile) has seen more posts in the month or so since I’ve created it than my personal one ever has.

Anyway, thank you for reading this thing!  (The blog, not the post.)