Resolving the Resolutions.

First of all, Happy New Year! Now that the Mayan nonsense is behind us maybe we can enjoy 2013 unencumbered by doomsday prophets and the like.

So a new year is upon us, I had intended to do a bit of a retrospective on the year in the hobby in general but so many people have done these that it feels a bit superfluous! Instead, lets look at what has happened in my hobby...

Well first, this has been a mental year as far as RealLife^tm has gone. Mrs PVP and I have moved house twice, we've gone from living in a friend's house with all our stuff in storage to a flat to a nice house. To put it lightly this put a crimp in both our finances and free time as unpacking and packing a house twice takes just a bit of time. However! PVP kept soldiering on albeit at a reduced pace and now feels like its taking off again. I've painted the best part of a Dwarf army and... what's that you say? Resolutions? From last year? Nahhhhh we don't need to worry about...

Judge Mulder now in session

Ok, so maybe I made some resolutions last year, let's remind ourselves:

1. The Night Goblins army will be finished. Ideally in the first quarter as there really, really is not much more to do! Finished means that 2500 points will be painted and based.
2. I will paint the 2000 point Nurgle Chaos Warriors army that is to tie into the Beard Bunker Blog's 2013 campaign.
3. If I paint 40k stuff for myself it will be the new Imperial Guard I have waiting in the wings.
4. I will paint my Napoleonic British army to 1000 points.

Ah, yeah, about that... well, number 1 remains stalled at exactly the point it was last January. So that one kinda has to be called a fail. Number 2 I am going to dodge by pointing out that I "officially" changed my Beard Bunker army from Nurgle to Dwarfs and then painted a ton of them. So I'll call that one a pass. Number 3 is also a fail as butterfly brain syndrome led to me taking a right turn at an intersection marked Grey Knights. As for number 4? Not even one model. Hmm.

I also made some professional resolutions:

1. At least one post with pictures of finished work every single week. No dry spells. There will be weeks where I upload three or four times, doesn't matter. At least one in every calendar week.
2. More full tutorials. I actually like doing them and people seem to like them. I'd like to do one every couple of months but I will resolve conservatively and say four this year. I've got one in mind on painting horses for openers...
3. I will support the Beard Bunker with content more skewed toward gaming and practicalities of Wargaming. Pirate Viking Painting will remain a pure painting blog

 And with the exception of the horse tutorial which is on hold until I have really figured out which of the new paints does what all of these are a win. Even number 1 was only breached when circumstances were totally beyond my control.

So, what does this tell me? Well, I kinda suck at setting personal goals but at least I do what I set out to do professionally. Granted the time lost through the moves scuppered a lot of potential personal painting but it is clear that the goals were unrealistic. Time for some new ones for this year and slightly better worded/thought out ones at that.

Jeff's Hobby Resolutions

1. Take part in the Beard Bunker's Next Big Thing for 2013. This will probably represent painting roughly 3k of one army or other. Edit: turns out it won't be all that big after all so focusing on 4!
2. I will finish (I.e. workometer full) an army project from this list: My Flames of War Paratroopers, My Night Goblins, My Warmachine Cygnar.
3. I will paint a minimum of six bases of Waterloo napoleonics this year or abandon the project in 2014. No more kidding myself!
4. There will be a gaming table in Mulder House (PVP headquarters).

Of the four the one I'm most excited about is number 4. Having a real table (granted one I can take down as there is no room for a permanent one) would be awesome for a number of reasons, photography of large armies, making scenery and oh, playing games at home! With the others I have deliberately left some wriggle room. All these are minimums, ideally I'd like to finish all of the projects in 2 and get way more than six bases of Waterloo brits but these are my minimums.

Obviously, we don't yet know what the Next Big Thing will be over at the Beard Bunker, but whatever it is, I am in with both feet. Now it's time for the professional ones:

PVP Resolutions

1.  Like last year, no dry spells, hobby content all the time.
2. Put out more video tutorials, maybe one a quarter. So 4 by 2014.
3. Take the time to improve skills, airbrush, sculpting etc.
4. Produce at least one product I can sell.

Yes, number 4, that one is interesting right? Since PVP started it has been my dream to not only consume and service the hobby industry but to contribute to it myself. In other words, to make things that other hobbyists might want! I have many ideas for things to do but the intent is to have something real to sell from my company by 2014.

And that is that for hobby. But I wanted to share one last resolution with you all, to improve my health. Those who know me know that I am a big guy, always have been. But with the problems of the last year and my now sedentary job things have gotten out of hand. I desperately need to loose weight and get some cardio fitness back as it is already having impacts on my health. I'm 33 and if I don't do it right the hell now it will only get harder. Part of my psychology is that I stick to things more if I share them with the public so you are going to see this from time to time:

And I'll let you know how I am getting on trying to remove the equivilent of a toddler from my waistline. If anybody wants to join in, in some kind of wargaming weight loss support group then just drop me a line and we'll go for it!

Well, that is all. This turned in to quite the essay didn't it? If you read this far then I congratulate you.

Happy New Year one and all.

TTFN