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!