Whew. That was a year.
Looking back at it from Dec 31, it was more of a year than it felt like at times, too. Let's have a look, aided and abetted by having a lot of blog posts and tweets to look back at.
First off, as should be obvious if you
follow me on Twitter or pay attention here, I've been doing the
#hobbystreak challenge - basically doing
something hobby-related every day. There have been a few days (often when away) when it's been as little as some background reading or some discussion with someone on plans for the future, but I have managed it for the whole year - this is day 365! Around mid-February I decided to move the master record of what I was doing from Twitter to here, as well, as that allowed more words and pictures.
At a rough count, over the year I've painted:
I reckon that's 167 figures and 4 vehicles. Not bad. Add to that a goodly number of
buildings and bits of
scenery, and actually I've been pretty productive.
The two major gaming products have been
Bloody Omaha (re-visiting for the D-Day 75th at several shows as well as
Posh Lard, as well as a
hosted game here for
Per and his young lad, which was amazing), and the
Dux Britanniarum Compendium, which... Is really honestly, nearly finished. I'm going to commit (Rich and TFL willing) to trying to get it out for Salute. We've been play testing like made for the last couple of months, and I'm down to three or four last bits of writing (one of them is the master index, which I'm still not looking forward to!). I've also got the studio (aka PE2 Collectables old office) setup for regular gaming.
Speaking of which, I also (as a side-effect of starting to watch
Critical Role when I couldn't sleep one night), rediscovered a love for RPGs, discovered how much less D&D 5th Edition sucks than 3.5, and started to both resurrect my old campaign and start a new one, as well as a RPG blog,
The Sage DM. This has, actually, more improved than detracted from my hobby activity as a whole, I think - there is a crossover both ways.
On the topic of blogs and websites, I also turned the
Mill House site into my 'professional' site - if you haven't found it yet, and you have use for me as a writer, mapmaker, editor, designer etc, please drop by!
Let's see - sold stuff:
- all my Napoleon at War figures, having realised they were so far down the list I'd never paint them, I want to play SP2 in preference, and for Napoleonic big battles Gary at our club has enough figures to recreate Waterloo...)
- a fair pile (£200 worth) of old RPG books
On the downside, I no longer have a wargames outlet at the bottom of my garden - PE2Collectables has sadly ceased trading and moved out, which is a shame, as I rather miss having someone to natter to off and on during the day, and having a ready source of paint when I run out.
Podcast: I got
two episodes out (and
one in the can that may possibly see the light of day), which is nowhere near as many as I'd like. Part of it is I think I need to figure out a little more of what I want to do with the podcast, and also work out a process that works for putting an episode, and not leaving it needing editing.
To be fair, the non-gaming bits of 2020 haven't helped: losing a friend (right here in our guest room) early in the year, having James in hospital or needing to get there daily for most of May and June, and then getting him to and supported in his first term at Uni (while still being treated for depression and ADD) has been ... kind of crazy. Also? I really need a new boss. Getting half an hour to keep the hobby streak rolling is relatively easy when you're frequently out of good thinking brain by early evening, finding the energy to record and edit a podcast or do bigger things, less so.
Anyway. Things are improving. Hopefully that'll clear up even more in the New Year. I have interesting plans, but I can't really talk about them until certain real-world things happen (or don't).
Oh, and I've lost 60lbs in weight (deliberately, not through stress, I hasten to add!). More to go, but go me!
OK. If you've read this far, well done and thank you! I'm sure I've missed something, but hey... I'd love comments on what you'd like to see in the blog(s) and the podcast in 2020 - feel free!
Happy New Year!
