Hobby Pledges 2022

[horus500 11505xp 3]

In 2020 I set myself the goal of 1 mini perday. Now 2020 was an excellent year for painting, so I’d reach my goal by September without much effort. I doubled the goal in 2021 to 730 minis and as we close November I’m on 690, but again 2021 was also a great year for painting. I also started to set other non-number focused goal like get all of Blackstone Fortress + expansions painted – achieved, get Massive Darkness +Expansions painted -achieved, get all the Warcry sets and warbands painted -also achieved and get all the Warhammer Underworlds Warbands painted – also achieved!  What I realised was that had my painting been more focused I could have done a lot more. With all that in mind I will only set myself a few hobby goals for 2022;

Paint Zombicide Black Plague and all the expansions

Paint the Warcry Red Harvest set and any new warbands

Paint Warhammer Underworlds Harrowdeep and any new Warbands that come out.

If I have time and the inclination I’ll finish the Horus Heresy Box sets I started years ago and continue to add to my A Song of Ice and Fire armies and continue painting my Old World Oldhammer Empire army.

[henrileite 9733xp 4]

Stepping out of my comfort zone. Posting on a Forum. Check! Now for 2022 my Goal is to post one Battle Report into the project system a month. I have more Goals but I’m going to digest this one for now.

[sundancer 42925xp 1]

Welcome to the forums… please feel at home 😉

 

[warhammergrimace 13765xp 3]

In the last 2 years I’ve been very productive in regard to painting. At the end of the first UK lockdown I’d managed to paint over 300 minis. By the end of 2020 it was around the 500 mark, during 2021 I haven’t painted that sort of quantity but I it’s probably around the 300 mark for the year. The irony is it’s barely broken into the grey army but it did mean I managed to complete two Flames of War and two Team Yankee armies.

I nearly completed one of my Bolt Action armies, the Germans. I just have a few infantry pieces to paint to finally get that particular army done.

I had a few smaller projects that I started last year most are near completion, which includes a Baron’s War warband, Stargrave crews, Reality’s Edge crew, moderns and Silver Bayonet war bands.

I’m hoping to get all of the smaller projects finished next year, conplete the German BA army and make a start on two new projects Late Roman for Saga and an ECW skirmish project.

I also plan to get more terrain finished.

 

[kronosthetravelerParticipant 5967xp 2]

Planning? I haven’t been able to paint a single model in months, and I nearly smashed about $300 worth of unpainted models with a hammer as I’ve been so disgusted with the lack of motivation and the poor results when I do try to paint. My only pledge for 2022 is to try to not give up the hobby entirely. (I know Jimmy on here would be absolutely ecstatic if I were to give up entirely, which is what keeps me from doing so) Anyone here been struggling with that feeling of their work just not being good enough?

[horus500 11505xp 3]

@kronosthetraveler despite what I’ve written above I have had hard-core ‘hobby funk’ that lasted years. I played and painted at a competative level and painted every mini like I was submitting it for a Golden Demon. It just demoralised me. Every other paint job I saw was better than mine and all I ever noticed was where I could have done better.

These days I don’t give a shit. Does it look good from 3 feet away? No? What about 4 or 5? 6? We’d all love beautiful minis, but at the end of the day they are our toy soldiers and the real joy comes from using them to play games with our friends. Trust me, your work is good enough.

[sundancer 42925xp 2]

@kronosthetraveler indeed I have been there and currently am there again and again. Though I still very much am not at the point of “fuck it I sell everything” it’s hard to get motivated at time. You’re not alone on this.

[pagan8thParticipant 10747xp 2]

Tried this pledge thing last year… failed miserably at it…

I do what I do when I can and when I feel like it… forcing myself to do something doesn’t work… it starts to feel like work…

when your hobby feels like work it’s not good…

better if your hobby is your work… but still feels like hobby… presumably… I don’t speak from experience

[lawnor 25928xp 2]

Yeah.  This I why I encourage people to know what they are likely to get done in a year and under-pledge so it shouldn’t feel like an obligation, just an extra nudge and a guide to ensure certain things don’t get put off for 20 years but by one week at a time.

[darkvoivod 7112xp 2]

@kronosthetraveler
Sure, I’ve had plenty of hobby-funks, mostly when is wasn’t doing to great mentally.
Keep in mind it’s a hobby and supposed to make you feel good. I’ve heard plenty people with creative hobbies saying it’s both the way to relax, but they need to be kinda relaxed already to start a session.

For me the way to get back into it is to start some smaller, simpler projects and get them done. The rush of finishing a project, even a small one, gets me motivated to start bigger and bigger projects.
Do what feels good, don’t push yourself to finish that 300 model army but try for some simple terrain if need be.
Everything you’ve done is done.
I really like the saying: everything worth doing, is worth doing poorly.
If you wanna run a marathon, but all you’ve done is take a hours hike, it’s still more than sitting on a couch.
Allow yourself to feel good about that and enjoy the hike.

[jodain 12433xp 2]

I will also admit to going through a hobby funk, particularly with assembling and painting figures.  At one point my wife politely pointed out that if they weren’t assembled I couldn’t play with them – queeue my assembling several hundred figures over a couple of days.  It didn’t help with the painting though!  I really struggled with sitting down to paint, but lockdown sorted it out for me.  As part of the Friday Night Fire Fight Club we use to game on (yes you guessed it) a Friday Night, when I couldn’t go, work started to get in the way, I would sit at home and watch tv.  When lockdown kicked in I decided that Friday Night would be hobby night and to help I set up a Zoom meeting for the club, several of us would be online with figures and paintbrushes in hand and having that group feeling really motivated me in 2020 I managed 221 figures and in 2021 282 so far.  As others have said I started off with something simple, in my case Space Marines using the local stores challenge at one point to paint 50 Power of figure (I smashed that).  I then moved on to finish things off with an aim to completely paint something not too big, in this case my Star Wars Legion Rebel army, then bit off the big project of painting Batman Gotham City Chronicles – I’ve got 12 figures still to go from 221.  I dropped other bits and pieces in on occassion when I need some variety.

The main thing for me though has been quick and simple painting, does it look good enough from 3 foot away?  Contrast paints have made my life so much easier and with Zenithal priming adds so much for so little time, why didn’t I use it earlier?

[angelicdespot 4689xp 3]

Rather embarrassingly, I have to go back to 2018 to find a column for me in the pledges spreadsheet, and I see I’ve made absolutely no progress on any of the goals identified then!

The last few years have been really tough for me hobby-wise, with very little time and even less organisational ability to get much done, but it’s not all been bad. Over the last couple of years I’ve introduced my partner to miniature painting (and found she’s really quite good at it), and she’s been getting firmer and firmer about not playing board games with unpainted miniatures. I managed to paint most of the Hellboy core box miniatures in 2020.

We’ve also just bought and moved into a new house, and while we still have an awful lot to do in it, we are gradually getting more organised, including setting up a games room / living room with good board games storage. Not sure how long it’ll be before I’ll have the chance to set up a proper painting area in my study, but I’ve got much more motivation now, along with the realisation that I’ve been really missing the community and the hobby side of the hobby.

So my pledges for 2022 include mix of organising, painting/modelling and gaming. Possibly too ambitious once again, but I really hope to be able to do some of these, even if it’s not realistic to think I’ll do all of them. A lot will depend on what else life throws at us too…

1. Move board games into new house. Sort & shelve them. (In progress, and quite motivating too!)

2. Move minis (the pile of shame) into new house. Sort & shelve. Identify some stuff to sell. Identify some stuff to keep out as projects. (Technically I’ve begun this, but there’s a lot of work to do, and I’m going to prioritise board games which are more self-contained.)

3. Sort & display gaming magazines, RPG books and wargames books. (In progress, and looking quite good so far.)

4. Buy desk & set up permanent hobby station.

5. Finish painting Hellboy core box minis (around 15 left).

6. Paint at least the Core Box minis for Resident Evil 2. (These should be fairly quick and easy…)

7. Paint at least the Core Box minis for Zombicide 2. (I think I can get my brothers to play this, so that’s motivating…)

8. Assemble & paint the minis for Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps. (There aren’t too many of them and it seems like quite a nice project.)

9. Necromunda – Zone Mortalis tiles: complete several more single-level tiles; complete two/three story tiles; experiment with filler and oil washes. (I really enjoyed putting some of these together last year, and now the tiles seem to be coming back in to stock, I’m looking forward to making some more.)

10. Assemble, texture / dress & paint some MDF terrain for DropZone Commander.

11. Finish (last three months) of Pandemic Legacy: Season 2. (This really depends upon being able to get together with my brother this Christmas season.)

12. Play through another legacy / campaign style board game. (This might include one of the miniature board games listed above, but could also be something without minis.)

13. Run at least one ‘one-shot’ RPG for friends. (I’ve got friends keen to do this, and ideas I want to try out. But I want to do it well, so might be tricky to find the time to get properly prepared.)

14. Engage (or re-engage) with the Beasts of War / OnTableTop community, including by starting one or more projects and posting in the What Are You Painting Now? threads.

Good luck everyone!

[redvers 21051xp 4]

Great thread! This might be the encouragement I need to keep ploughing through my pile of grey plastic. I’m not one to over commit and I’m lucky if I get a couple of hours painting a week so here’s my pledges for 2022

1. Finish painting my 3 platoons of Panzergrenadiers for FoW (I make that about 100 15mm models)

2. Complete my Tuscany hill village terrain build

3. Paint a company of US Sherman tanks for FoW

4. Paint the human Blood Bowl team that’s been languishing in the box since I bought the game

5. Build and paint a unit of Skaven stormvermin

6. Paint a couple more cars for Gaslands

That’s already sounding ambitious so I’ll leave it at that for the time being

[zoidpinhead 12487xp 1]

This year my theme is called “Ever-est” and will hopefully be the year when I finally get within sight of the top of the Pile of Potential.  I’m looking to finish all of the extreme ends of the collection, oldest models, project longest left unfinished, largest model, smallest scale models… hence “Ever-est” 😀

This will go alongside the standing expectation that I’ll paint at least 365 miniatures in the calendar year.  Shouldn’t be an issue, 601 was the total last year and since joining these pledge topic threads my 5 year average is 476 miniatures per year.

Likely candidates this year include:

• Conan: TMG (Largest number of miniatures at 381 unpainted)
• Bauhaus Imperial Guard (Oldest unfinished project)
• Forgeworld Chaos Mamoth (Largest)
• 3mm Macedonian Phalanx (Smallest)

Should be fun.  Looking forward to seeing everyone’s progress throughout the year 🙂

[sirhumphreyrtd 3331xp 2]

For the last few of years I have been trying to I have been trying to keep myself motivated using a “painting coefficient” trying to paint more figures than I add to my “pile of pride” each year. Last year was my most productive where I managed to paint 573 figures and reduce my backlog by a mighty 139 figures. At this rate in 10 years time I may get round to paint the Soviet 20mm Cavalry I bought 5 years ago!

But my targets for 2022 are:

• Complete the 28mm Ottoman Army I am currently working on;
• paint the 28mm Napoleonic French Cavalry I have (3 regiments)
• Start and complete Punic War forces ready for next version of Infamy
• Finish last of vehicles for Western Desert project (7 vehicles)

Hopefully not be distracted by anything new and shiny ?

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