Greetings fellow wargamers and hobbyists, and welcome to the cusp of a brave new year! It’s that time again, when we say farewell to the year that is ending, slam home a new powerpack, check our sights, and set the time circuits for 2015. Whatever you do…don’t look back.
It seems that year upon year we hobbyists and gamers make the same kind of wishful and occasionally wildly unachievable New Year’s resolutions that everyone else does, though we of course tend to make two sets of resolutions – the mundane kind, like ‘this year I will drink less’, or ‘this year I will lose weight’ – and then, hobby related, resolutions. For us, I think these are the ones that really matter.
While on the subject of hobby resolutions, I have to wonder whether this is something that is unique to Wargamers, or whether it is something that is undertaken across the whole spectrum of hobbyists, from the Scale Model crowd, to the X-Wing mob, the board gamers and even the card gamers? I’d like to find out a little more about this phenomenon.
So, I guess the point of this post (as I am sure it will be for every other hobbyist’s ‘Resolutions post’ you are likely to read), is to tell you all what kind of promise I plan to make for the coming year. Well I decided some months ago what my plan for the coming months (and years) would be, and I guess that this is a chance to make it official.
My New Year’s Hobby Resolution for 2015 is to paint a minimum of 250 models by the end of the year. I am not sure if this seems like a lot or not. It’s certainly enough models to make up one and a half to two armies, so I guess it is quite a few – given that many people make it their task to complete a single army within the current year.
When I break it down to ‘model count per month’, it only comes out at 20, which I think seems much more manageable – 5 each week every week. I plan to continue whenever possible to spend my one hour lunch break at work each day painting, and Thursday evenings for another hour or more while the wife is out at her class, so it’s perfectly achievable in my opinion, apart from the painting time I invariably lose when assembling new models! So the answer is seemingly to not purchase any more models. Or go on holiday – at least not without my painting kit.
In fact, I also need to consider the amount of time it would take to paint single large models as well, which might take 2 weeks on their own. I guess I need to refine my batch painting techniques so that when I am painting infantry models in bulk, I can whizz through them that much quicker. I already bought myself a can of Halfords ‘Rover Russet Brown’ to use to base coat my Bretonnian Peasants and my Orks, after getting on very well with the Halfords matt black primer. Best try a test model first though!
And why 250 for the year? Well, a couple of months ago I had a bit of a tot up of the approximate number of models I have in my Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 collections, and I determined that at a rate of 250 models per year I could have all of my Warhammer and 40K models painted by the time my son turns 8, which is an age at which I think he will be old enough to really start to understand the games to a degree that will allow us to properly start his ‘wargamer training’.
So, there is my hobby resolution for 2015 (and beyond), and my thinking behind it. I really intend push hard on this, and to keep up the momentum both by listening to gaming podcasts while I paint, and to change it up with every new unit I paint between the various armies I have, just to prevent me from getting bored painting all the models from a single army before moving on to the next army. This does however prevent me from taking part in any of the various ‘army painting challenges’ that people are running, because I’m not planning on spending enough time on any one army to complete it in the year – but you never know I guess.
I’d be interested to know what your hobby resolutions are, whatever kind of gaming you are into, so feel free to drop in a comment.
I wish you all a safe and prosperous New Year, full of hobby goodness. See you on the other side, and for the last time in 2014 - thanks for reading.
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