Friday, February 7, 2020

2019 in Review

Not only is it that time of year . . . it is past that time of year. Even if you count the East Asian Lunar New Year. Which is a part of my excuse for why I'm running so dang late: I was in Vietnam for Tet with my wife and her family. Long story. Lovely trip. Lots of food and pictures. No models.

But now that we're firmly in the year of the rat . . . 


. . . Let us review the year of pig.

The year got off to a pretty solid start, actually. The first project of 2019 was this big pig: The Rainbow Connection. Absolutely one of my proudest models of recent memory. And one on the to-do list for an awfully long time. Scratch one off for the record books!


No. 2 was a paper shuttle. Interesting experiment. More durable than it looks. Not bad, really.


No. 3 was this fine avian looking fellow below. Rather villainous, if I do say so. The mayor of villainy!


No. 4 was this oddball steam walker I added to the Delightful Dreadlies.


No. 5 was a Jess Goodwin genstealer hybrid.


No. 6 was a big fuel truck only an ogre can love.


7 and 8 were two gobbos: one from Karkeel and the second from Demonblade.


No. 9 was a landspeeder with a sinister smile: a landshark, if you will.


No. 10 was a stinking grox angry at those who would hope to burgherize him.


No. 11 was a classic old-school Rhino.


No. 12 was a Whirlwind. Lucky 7! (Why is this twelve? Should be box cars, but . . . ah well.)


13 was a magical mystery dwarf. Yes, dwarves too can work magic. Honest!


14 stands sentinel with the Moab Militia.


15 was a medic for the unit.


16 is the brass for said.


17 and 18 is a pair of armored Bob Olley dwarves. It's all about the mechanical beards!


19 was a classic Olley space pirate.


All of this, equalling my entire 2018 output by numbers and vastly exceeding it by mass, was finished by June. And then in July I was whisked off to the UK for three solid months and I've been fighting to get back on my feet ever since. So . . . crickets.

At some point, nearly forgotten, I managed to paint a little Demonblade gobbo. I was struggling to decide how to paint his dew-rag, so . . . Freedom for the win! (Why an short orkoid is wearing a flag from some forgotten empire we may never know.)

No. 20: Pliss Snakeskin.


Last of the year, no. 21 was a Ramshackle chaos warrior for the Oldhammer Forum Miniature Exchange painted in the fading hours of late December.


This is what happens when you're proud of getting something done. Hubris has a price. I said "I suppose it's statistically unlikely there will be quite so many distractions competing for my attention." Boy was I wrong about that! Keep your mouth shut, David.

Still, it wasn't a bad year at all, really, even if short. Unlike 2018 I actually DID accomplish some of the goals I had set out previously: to wit, the gang now has a starship big enough to make story sense, but compact enough to fit on a table. And a quite delightful one, I think. And I got other ships done. (Well, other ship, really.) So there's now a modest collection of ships to grace a starport. Enough to make a place look almost busy. :)


So all that's left is to set out some goals for 2020. Dangerous, I know:

1. The gang STILL needs a hideout.
2. It would be nice if all my spaceports didn't look quite so similar, so more spaceport accessories.
3. More buildings would be nice. A temple and a bar in particular. Maybe a fancy house. (I'm having some ideas there.)
4. Maybe a few more civilian vehicles to clog up city streets.

So let's maybe make 2020 a terrain year. Sure, I have a mountain of miniatures to paint. But no particular goals. We'll just let whimsy take its course there. But terrain, that'll be a good goal.

Anyway, thank you for following along. Sorry for the long silence. Hope with me I can actually spend more time at home than continents away for a while. (I love travel, but there's a limit.) Onward year of the rat!

Sincerely,
The Composer


8 comments:

  1. Less goals is, counter intuitively, way harder to do well than lots of goals. Strange but true. It's fun to see the parade of productivity and be reminded of old posts that I've read and enjoyed. Your ships are *very* cool. Looking foward to what you manage to pull together to 'busy up' the aero-space ports in the rim.

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    1. I have a few more odd bits and pieces I want to include. There was some cool stuff in the toy set that gave me the cockpit to the Rainbow Connection. Also found these nifty futuristic individual salt shakers on a recent flight that, um, fell into my carry on bag. They could make cool cargo canisters. Hopefully there will be fun stuff.

      Anyway, thank you! Glad you like!

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  2. Great to see you back in action, I'm looking forward to seeing your expanded settlement it sounds like you have some great ideas.

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    1. I'm kind of on again off again, as you've doubtless noticed. But I have IDEAS! Wish me luck. And thank you. :)

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  3. Replies
    1. Thank you! I'm making a start, finally. Put some pieces together. Some sawing. Some pasting. Some putty pushing. No paint yet, but that will come. :)

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  4. Some great work there buddy. Here's to a entertainer 2020.

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