A reflective ramble

I used to be famously slow at painting - the only complete force I ever managed as a young 'un was a Van Saar gang for Necromunda (all of a dozen miniatures if that).  That, a base coated dwarf BB team and a couple of WHFB units were all I ever painted - oh and the WHQ Elf Ranger and Queek Headtaker (probably two of my best ever painted minis - and both of which I rebought as I came back to the hobby; nostalgia is real folks.)

Upon returning properly to the hobby (ie. the point I realised 40k was never going to work for me and I took off the GW blinkers) I did have a sudden burst of activity - which strangely enough I've not properly covered here so I'll rectify that, gives me a reason to write more background stories and lore (one of my favourite parts of the hobby if that hasn't been obvious with all the daft stuff I come up with!).

But after that initial painting frenzy it cooled right off.  I kept ticking through random miniatures for Mordheim and Necromunda (completing the Necromunda Hireling Agency last year) but didn't motivate much beyond that pretty minimal level.  Almost overwhelmingly the assembled and prepped minis I've shared here since June 2018 remain unpainted.

Me, realising how many of my bare metal/plastic minis I've posted here are still just primed.

But something seems to have clicked a little since late 2019/early 2020 - I'm still slow, and I still fight with my brain from time to time for motivation, but I've got whole armies finished in that time - hopefully you'll have followed the posts showing off the 15mm UNORP and 28mm Undead Halfling armies for Dragon Rampant; I've really enjoyed writing the lore that surrounds these and hope some of you out there have enjoyed reading it.

I've actually stepped back from painting for a couple of weeks now - I don't know if it has been mental fatigue from lockdown life, or the old brain gremlins playing football with me again or what, but even though the paints have been left in the cupboard I've instead engaged in prepping things for priming - most notably lots of MDF terrain that I've been posting about as well as Carnevale and Sengoku Monster Hunter stuff.  I just hope I have enough spray for it all at this point!

Priming weapon of choice!

Looking at the rather large Pile of Future Glory it's clear that I need to start making a move - miniatures not being painted and used to game with might as well not exist after all! I didn't want to stop buying miniatures - I've got various projects at different stages of completion (acquisition phase at least) and if I stopped then some might never see the light of day, which would be a huge pity given that I felt enthused enough to spend money on them!

So, each month I have a hobby fund that I am lucky enough to have available to me.  I have decided that if I don't paint at least as many miniatures as I acquire in a given hobby fund period then the following month I am not allowing myself the luxury of buying any miniatures. Having now placed my orders for this period I have 22 miniatures coming my way - so I need to finish painting 22 or more before this same kind of time next month.  I am pretty confident (brain gremlins notwithstanding) that I'll finish enough minis - I'm about to enter the highlights and detail stage of a Dragon Rampant 28mm army after all (yeah, cheating a little I suppose, but I wanted to let myself into this new approach gently!!).

I'm really hoping this will help me get a move on - which will have the benefit of giving me more stuff to share here (which means more of my silly little stories for those that follow along!).