Wednesday, August 26, 2009

It's taken HOW LONG?!?

The thing about a blog is that it makes you look back every so often and re-appraise how far you’ve come. Sometimes, the results of these retrospectives are… disturbing. Well, maybe that’s a bit strong. ‘Eye-opening’ is probably a better way of putting it. Take, for instance, the big project I undertook to rebase my miniatures. It’s been running since the stone age, or so it feels like to me, and the results are pretty reassuring – superficially. Lots of painting done, the old bases torn up and reorganised, plus a definite game-plan of where to go from here up to the finish.

Roughly, things stand as follows: one third of the miniatures are fully finished, painted, based, and ready for the tabletop; a further third are partially, mostly or completely painted, requiring finishing up and basing for action; and the final third are as yet un-purchased, thanks to the dislocating effect of the wedding on all the finances. The big blunder here was that I bought only Luftberg troops in my first big rush at the project, not a mixture. As a result, both armies have been uprooted from their old system, and now only one has grown to massive size while the other has languished at it’s old size, off-bases and useless. If you want a free hint for your own collecting, then learn from my blunder – never put all your eggs in one basket: grow both opposing forces together! Even more irritatingly, certain far-sighted individuals commented on the blog back at the start and warned of this very blunder, so I’ve no excuse for my idiocy!

What brought on all this navel-gazing? Well, that’s when the looks back get truly ‘eye-opening.’ I realised it had been running on for a while, but then it suddenly came home to me how much – I started this off in November last year, and now we’re already into August. I never, in my wildest dreams, pictured this job taking over a year. Not even up to a year!

In other words, if I’ve got any ambitions to bring this in at under one year, I have about three months remaining. The world won’t end if I don’t finish it by then, but my own ambitions will have been busted. It’s sprawled too much, and I need a target deadline. Now I’m fired up with fresh enthusiasm, and I intend to hurl all I’ve got at the remaining painting to knock out the last troops. I’ve also finally steeled myself to part with my hoarded money, and placed my order with Essex Miniatures for the remaining figures. Soon, I’ll have the lot in hand. In the meantime, I’m forging on with the last few hold-outs I have from the first batch – photos to follow soon, hopefully. Wish me luck!

10 comments:

Bluebear Jeff said...

Most certainly . . . I wish you much luck (and all of it of the "good" variety).


-- Jeff

Frankfurter said...

Don't give up!
Hey, I started building my Prussian and Austrian armies about four years ago ... and still am definitely not finished!!
:)
A

littlejohn said...

Hang in there, I once met a guy in Virginia who had something like 4,000 25mm figures!? and REFUSED to re-base the collection ever. It was a massive a beautiful collection of Naps but they were based 6 to a large base...In those days the rules du jour were Empire in all its scary incarnations so his figures were unuseable and we thus played 15s. But now the rules out there have come around and his big bases are again in vogue!

Fitz-Badger said...

Yeah, one good thing I've learned from the blogs is to plan some smaller forces for both sides (especially if you're a solo gamer like me) and build from there. I know I can plan better for my next project (whenever, whatever that may be...).
Good luck!

CWT said...

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the encouragement - I'm busy steeling myself for the arriving mountain of lead!

C

CWT said...

Frankfurter

Impressive ambition on your own collection!

By my own usual scale, this will be the biggest miniatures collection I have ever produced - so I'm pretty eager for the finish to be successful!
C

CWT said...

Littlejohn,

That sort of thing is absolutely mind-blowing! All my collections tend to have been quite small, due to my liking for DBA. Only the odd one has broadened out beyond it, like this one. I've been encouraged by my blog, and also by the blogs of others, which have shown me the size of other peoples' collections. Isn't the internet fantastic?

C

CWT said...

Fitz-Badger,

I'm a solo gamer too, and have been stuck effectively game-less for months now! It's awful trying to come up with a scenario, when one side has about 6 regiments and the other side has 2! Hopefully after the delivery and a flurry of painting, I can be back in action soon!

C

Frankfurter said...

6 battalions on 2?
Just add some barricades, chevaux au frise, and earthworks ... and let the 6 try to carry them ...
frontal assaults tend to be bloody ...
:)
Arthur

CWT said...

That's probably a good point, Frankfurter. In fact, following on from my siege experiments last year, that may have some serious mileage in it!

Time for me to dust off and finish up that redoubt I made a few months back...

Thanks for the suggestion!
C