How do's my fine friends and readers. You may have noticed a lack of any post of progress on the blog recently, and I am here to tell you why, some of my collected thoughts on the general state of my hobby, plans and what I am going to do in the future. Be warned this is a long post and I do ramble :)
I have been on holiday the last two weeks to Slovakia with my Fiancee and little boy, visitng family and generally getting fat eating some fine food and drinking very nice lager (€1 a pint! Winner), and this has given me pause to re-evaluate the state of my hobby and what I can achieve. I had very intermitent internet connection while over there, so did not really get to read and comment on much of the other blogs that I usually frequent, nor did I do anything to the models I bought with me (I was too busy and did not feel like it when I did have any down time). Having this break made me realise I have massively over committed myself to too many game systems and hobby projects, which has left me feeling overwhelmed and it feels like looking into a bottomless pit sometimes, when I glance over the list of all the projects I have planned.
To complicate matters somewhat my Fiancé goes back to work at the beginning of July. Her work have agreed to change her shift pattern to a Friday to Monday rotation so she can remain in work. We cannot afford childcare, and she was on a revolving shift, which would have been a nightmare to try and plan in relatives to look after My son. I work Monday to Thursday so this means that I will be looking after him the fri-sun I am off and the missus is at work. Of course this is going to have a massive impact in my hobby time, hence the thinking about my hobby commitments and solutions. In a year or two things will improve for us (my wages will be going up significantly, so she can hopefully do part time or get a different job, that means we can spend time together again without having to book holidays, and also mean I can get a bit more hobby time).
Just to give you an idea how many game systems I play/hobby I have taken some photos from my trello app, which is where I list all my hobby projects etc. (It is a great tool for organising, focusing and tracking your hobby projects).
I love gaming, and learning new rules and immersing myself into a project and game is very satisfying to me. I have started too many however, and need a way to get out of this. For two game systems I have come to the conlusion that I will never have the time to paint the models, and have now commisioned a friend of mine (who is a good painter) to paint all the models for these two game systems for me. This frees up more of my time to work on my other projects. My Guild Ball team and Frostgrave warband wll be painted by my mate, and I am seriously considering commisioning him to do my 30k word bearers too. I love building them, and have tons of conversion projects planned, but I just cannot see myself ever getting anything done painting wise, as the scale of the game has mentally defeated me already when it comes to applying paint. I have a cracking scheme I have chosen (shamelessly pilfered from Sheep over at Forlorn Hope) so I do not feel toobad about commisioning my friend to do these for me. It frees me up to work on building and converting the units, which I really enjoy, and can also then concentrate on other projects to get them finished. I will of course be sharing the finished units here, from the conversion work done by me, to the comission paint job done by my friend Dave.
Just to give you an idea of the scale of some of my projects above is the list for my Dark Eldar project, La Danse Macabre. This army is going to be my primary, ongoing focus as it is jsut very enjoyable, and I can't ever see myself finishing it, as there is always room for more units and new ideas (I have plans to eventually expand my eldar allies and do some corsair units too, so the army will be very flexible and multi purpose when it comes to gaming). I have lists like this for every project, but won't bore you with them all. I will just post below a little list of what I plan to do and finish this year, not only for my own focus but also so all ofyou know where I am going.
Guild ball - Commision paint
FrostGrave - commision paint
30k Word Bearers - NafNaf build and convert, paint by commision.
Space Wolves - Finish all units currently owned by end of 2017, and then just expand slightly with the new Wulfen models. This army is pretty big now and I can field a fully painted army on the tabletop already, so the units needing paint are there more for list flexibility than anything else. Not a high priority, but I would like to get them finished off. More of a focus for 2017, but I will do a little this year if I can.
La Danse Macabre - paint 1850pts by the end of the year. If you look at the list above there are some coloured blocks on certain units. (Yellow - Eldar allies, Green - core units, Red - Hero for a day potential list) This is to focus my hobby attentions in units that I use all the time, and are core parts of the force. Completing these will give me a good grounding on which I can then do the more elite and specialist units, that do not always see tabletop time. I will also continue to do conversions when the mood and idea strikes. No limits on this project, apart from the slight focus I lited above.
Malifaux - 5 more models to complete and then I am done! I aim to get this done by the end of 2016
Dropzone Commander - a game I love and enjoy painting the models. I have however massively overbought, so have a backlog of quite a few miniatures to paint. Again I hope to catch up and get throught the backlog by end of 2016, so I can buy some of the newer units that are just getting released.
Dreadball - half a team of robots to go then this game system is done. Awesome :)
Infinity - masses to do here, but I foolishly decided to collect 2 factions, both of which are incomplete. The focus of this year is to finish all my Morat sectorial models, and leave the Yu Jing for another year. At least I can have the satisfaction then of having one faction completed.
In terms of the blog, I will be posting more wip and idea threads as my time becomes more limited. I always enjoy seeing other peoples work in progress, but realised I almost never post up any of my own. Hopefully you all will find these interesting to read. I also have quite a few tutorials either in progress, or in my head ready for pen and paper. I always enjoy writing these, and as my hobby time becomes more limited, my time for writing actually increases (sounds weird I know, but when I am looking after my son and he is watching telly or playing on the floor I can sit down and write a post or two on the ipad).
Hopefully you have all stuck through this ramble of a post with me. I would love to hear any of your thoughts, advice, encourgament etc that you can share/give. I am sure many of you have been in a similar place in life or in the hobby and have some valuable nuggets you can give me :)
Chiaw for now. NafNaf
(Ps here area couple of holiday pics for you all, just because I got all personal at the beginning, I might as well share some more stuff about me :) )
 |
| Trekking in the mountains. Damn that rucksack is heavy with a kiddie in it |
 |
| Oh my! That is some strong stuff! |
 |
| Da missus and me in Bratislava |
 |
| Just a stunning country. In the Tatras mountains here |
