2015 Painting Review, 2016 Planning

Picking up old, dusty hobbies takes some practice and last year was tricky to re-engergise my interest in painting. To help get back into the swing, I took up the AmmoBunker's One Miniature A Month Challenge (OMAM for short) and it's exactly how it sounds - The goal is to generate regular output over the course of a year. This was perfect for me slipping back into the hobby, and provided the spur I needed to call a project finished instead of letting it sit on the work-in-progress shelf at 99%.

2015
Summary of the calendar year output as follows ...

• January - Captain Victoria Haley (Warmachine)
• February - Space Hulk: Objective Marker (Space Hulk)
• March - 2 Cthulhu turn markers, 3 Gretchin (Warhammer 40,000)
• April - 3 Probe Droids (Imperial Assault), 17 Gretchin (Warhammer 40,000)
• May - 22 Genestealers (Space Hulk)
• June - Kraken (Guild Ball)
• July - 2 Abominations (Zombicide) 2 Scenery pieces (Zombicide), Pash Grolin & Kay Dee (Colony 87), Salt & Kraken (Guild Ball)
• August - Lord & Lady Greiss (Colony 87)
• September - Barcoon Karbosh (Colony 87)
• October - Alexei The Wanderer (Colony 87)
• November - Siren & Greyscales (Guild Ball)
• December - Infernal Golem (Titan Forge)

The surges coincide with rank and file tabletop quality in April & May, then paternity leave in July, with a tail off in the second half of the year as juggling three kids and crazy work hours began to extract a toll. That's a total of 65 completed figures in the calendar year, which is nothing short of miraculous for me.

While these won't be winning painting competitions any time soon, it wasn't the point - I've managed to convert unpainted figures into painted ones, relearned a few techniques and discovered new ones to be terrible at. All in all, a most satisfactory year.

2016
The goals for this year, so far, are:

• Finish something every month. This worked really well during 2015, so I'm keen to continue this approach to generate quality output on a regular basis.
• Put a significant dent into the figures used in our weekly tabletop gaming sessions. First on the list is the Zombicide: Black Plague as that will see a good 200-300 figures once everything from the Kickstarter arrives, and that's a bananas number of figures to have sitting in a box for a game that's played almost every week. There are other games sat there in need of the same treatment, but we'll start here.
• Manage my purchases more carefully. No need to overcomplicate things with unnecessary rules (one in, ten out may be applicable!) but it needs to be pretty special to be bought, as my nerd cupboard is bulging with great pieces bought last year that I haven't painted yet.
• Completing half-finished projects. Starting with my Guild Ball teams for Fishermen & Engineers, who will be wrapped up so we have tabletop-worthy figures to play with.

So here's to another year of painting and more power to my elbow.