Getting a grip

I've been bouncing between projects so much recently, I'm surprised I don't have whiplash!

Lockdown really hasn't been good for my focus at all. I've just been flitting between projects almost at random, not completing any of them, whilst also buying way too many models. 

It's hardly surprising tbh. I tend to build and paint stuff with playability in mind and I'm always at my most productive when I've got a game or event to get things finished for.

So whilst I'm stuck at home, I've decided to give myself something specific to work towards, which should hopefully help me get things rolling again. 

I'm setting myself two goals:

1. Paint everything on my 'Table of Shame'.

2. Work towards getting everything sorted so I can play some solo games.

Nice and simple I reckon, but it'll keep me busy for a while and give me the kick up the arse I need to be productive again.

My Table of Shame is a pretty simple idea:

I just put all the projects which I've been putting off for ages on a table and took a photo. Those will be the only things which I'll be working on. I'm not buying any more models until they're all done.

Pretty simple, eh? I'm aware I could be setting myself up to fail here, but at least it gives me a clear sense of what I'm working towards.

I've even already made a start on it and finished up the Emperor's Children Veteran Squad which I showed you guys a few weeks back:

Barring the lack of transfers right now (waiting to get paid so I can do a FW order now they've reopened), I'm pretty happy with how they turned out in the end. An entire 30k army done like this is going to be pretty eye-catching! 

I've got the bits standing by to do another squad, plus a really fun Fulgrim conversion, but they aren't on the Table of Shame, so they can wait. 

Moving onto my other point, I've decided to finally scratch the gaming itch I've been having. Obviously with social distancing rules being what they are in the UK atm, I'm not likely to be able to get a game against a real opponent any time soon. That means I'm going to have to be a little creative. 

I've had the idea of playing some games against myself, taking control of both forces. Whilst I doubt this could work well with large scale games like 40k, it might work reasonably well with games which veer towards the skirmish-y end of the spectrum, like Middle Earth. 

I quickly realised a big drawback to this idea: playing both sides would mean there won't really be any back and forth between me and my opponent. I'd know exactly what they were thinking, making it harder to play an interesting game. 

This got me thinking even further. I've been wanting to play some narrative scenarios ever since I started the game. Maybe I could play through some of those by myself? It would certainly encourage me to play in a more interesting and narrative way. 

I figure it's certainly worth a try. The worst that could happen is that it doesn't work as well as I hoped. At the very least, it'll keep me entertained for a few more days of lockdown, which can't be a bad thing. 

I'll cover my adventures in making this plan a reality in a later post. I just wanted to put a post out covering where my mind is right now, hobby-wise. 

I'm going to be trying to blog a bit more often too, as that should also help me get into some kind of hobby routine. I don't know how successful all this will be, but it'll at least be interesting to find out. Hopefully I'll be back with more soon! 

Blam!

That's the sound of my painting points being shattered into a thousand pieces!

To cut a long story short, whilst everyone's been getting excited about the reveal of 9th Ed 40k, I've veered off in a completely different direction.

My hobby motivation has very much come in fits and starts over the past few weeks. I think being stuck inside has been starting to get to me a little. It pretty much killed my will to work anything. When I did, I found myself unable to focus on any one project for very long. 

A friend of mine managed to really stoke up my hobby inspiration again a few weeks ago though, which led to a completely unexpected purchase:

I've always been a massive potter nerd and loved the look of the Harry Potter Miniatures Adventure Game from Knight Models ever since they started previewing it a few years ago. I never had anyone to play with though so I never actually picked it up until now.

 If that sounds like a familiar story, that's because it's exactly what happened with Middle Earth last year! It was even the same friend who convinced me to take the plunge on both occasions. 

That friend added me to a Facebook group he runs for the game and let the beautiful models splashed across my FB feed slowly erode my self control. Clearly he's a bad influence on me! 

The models were a dream to paint up. I enjoyed working on them so much I managed to finish all of them over a single weekend. The small size the game is played at and the scale of the models themselves also really encouraged me to treat each one like a character piece in their own right, so they were great fun to do. 

I'm really proud of how the they turned out. I feel like these are some of my best painting to date! Normally I'm really self critical of my painting skills so that's saying a lot. 

After finishing the Order, everything kind of snowballed. My mate pointed me in the direction of an ebay shop selling other models for the game at ridiculously cheap prices and just like that, I was hooked. Three weeks after buying my first models for this game, my collection looks like this:

. 

I regret nothing! 

Yes my painting points are totally ruined when I already have a massive backlog of other stuff to work through, but at least it gives me something to occupy my ever dwindling attention span with whilst I'm still stuck inside. Even if I never actually play the game, they'll make excellent display pieces. 

That's all for today. Hopefully I'll have some more to show you soon as I get my hobby mojo back and try to dig my way back out of backlog hell. I've even had a fun idea to try and actually get some games ayed of some description, but I'll tell you more when I get there. 

For now, stay safe and I'll catch you next time.