Hobby Guilt Round-up 2018

After two months of hard hobbying, how have we all got on with our Hobby Guilt challenges? Who has made progress, who has got distracted and who will be painting the same stuff well into 2019?

The answer is, all of us, actually!

If you would like to check our first post to see the vastly over-enthusiastic targets we set ourselves, you can see that here.

Adam:

It’s hard to believe we have been at this challenge for two months! Where has the time gone? I blame work and Christmas for throwing a few spanners into the works but if I am honest I haven’t helped myself either.

First, let’s look at what I haven’t touched. This category includes all of my Blood and Plunder and my Flames of War vehicles and artillery. I really am not the best at painting vehicles and so have put these off. I’ll definitely pick the rest of the Flames of War up again in the new year, buoyed along on a tide of enthusiasm entirely derived from how quickly painting the infantry went. But more on that later.

I have also failed to move my Native Americans for Dead Man’s Hand. I had scheduled these for completion this week but besides tonight (Thursday, at time of writing) I have no other free to complete any hobby tasks, what with Christmas and work.

So, what went well? As I mentioned earlier, the Flames of War infantry were pretty quick to do once I got the colour scheme set. All of the armoured infantry platoon are finished. I have also nearly completed the Empire Knights for Shadespire. They are definitely ready to use in a game, with just a few more highlights needed until they can go on the finished pile.

Then finally, there’s the distraction pile. Probably my most successful push was to complete all of my spare Soviets.

I have now completed this army (!) as along with the models I have already finished I have around 1500 points of infantry. I also have a Tank War force for the Russians which is incomplete… but less about that! If you want to see my progress on that force, the latest update was on whitewashing from February this year, here. The remaining three tanks are still not done, 10 months later.

In total then, not a bad showing. 80 Flames of War infantry, 44 Bolt Action Russians and three Shadespire Knights (ish). Without the distraction of the Russians I could probably have made a better showing of the models I chose at the start of the challenge but I am happy to have them completed nevertheless.

Now, on to see what 2019 holds!

Rob:

Vastly over-enthusiastic? Pah! I… I agree, wholeheartedly.

I came into Hobby Guilt this time with the idea that I’d hammer through my orks and come up smelling the roses. I’d just completed the Ork Shield Wall a couple of weeks earlier, so I was thoroughly motivated to do more (along with Saga and Bolt Action). Sadly, it all went horribly wrong. Personal lives often bring distractions and things that consume a lot of our time, and the end of 2018 was much like that, with hobby being sneaked in around everything else, or, while I’ve been on leave, in the dead of night when I should be asleep.

So what did I manage?

After selling Bran Redmaw’s Great Company earlier in the year, I decided to keep the Space Wolves alive by doing a Primaris Kill Team. Of the four finished so far (bases not included), there are how to: videos for an Intercessor and a Reiver on our Youtube channel. The others are slowly catching up with a series of tutorials on here.

Without much time to paint, I just cracked on with building miniatures, and adding to the list of unpainted Orks. I loved the new vehicle releases for the greenskins which coincided with Hobby Guilt, and I indulged somewhat, picking up one of each, and also picking up some Nobz and a Warboss, as mine has been around since 2008 and has a LOT of wear and tear.

The Speedfreeks vehicles were built on New Year’s Day, but the rest were built during December.

Other than this, there was only some TT Combat scenery that put together. A disappointing hobby guilt, where the number of unpainted miniatures grew, rather than decreased! Bah!

Here’s hoping March to War 2019 will inspire me to work harder!

Mike:

I look at the other guys’ posts and instantly think, well, I pretty much failed at Hobby Guilt this year (Last year? Help!). I think I may have bought more models in the period than I painted. To be fair, at this time of year I am normally a bit down on my painting output. In the past I’ve been over 200 miles away from my models and paints in Weymouth, and last year I was hosting my family in my flat so I had to tidy away everything out of sight.

So are you ready for my excuses (2018 version)? 

• My parents recently moved up here, and apart from helping them move in I’ve spent many evenings (which is my usual painting time) helping them unbox and set up furniture, etc. 
• I had lots of work to do, including some new writing projects that I’ll hopefully be able to tell you about soon, that went on into some evenings.
• My birthday in early December, spending some days away with family. 
• Christmas and New Year away from models.
• Right now I feel like death warmed up and I have done since New Year’s Eve Eve. What a way to see in the new year! 

However! I did manage to get some painting done. I have almost finished my Flesh Tearers squad, and they’re so closed to being finished that I reckon I can finish them by the end of this weekend. (I should be back to normal service in the next couple of days). 

These two units of Age of Sigmar models hit a bit of a stumbling block, due to the current layer stage (white for Stormcast – other details for Fyreslayers). What I need to do is just get in and not worry about messing up the painting. Remember, you can always tidy up the colours later! Yet somehow I always seem to forget that at certain points and get worried about continuing. Amazing how much confidence affects you.  

Like Rob, I’m also looking forward to March to War 2019 (You will be able to see our exploits here – and I promise 100% less excuses!). However, due to the nature of the competition (Only claiming points for unassembled/basecoated models), then naturally some of these models will get put on the back burner for a bit. I may just be cheeky and start a new squad of Fyreslayers and come back to these later.