Another year has passed and, in keeping with tradition, I would like to take a brief look back in the latest ‘Shooting Closure 2023’. The article is inevitably ‘short’ because not that much has happened.
Last year’s shooting closure was published on 31 December 2022. Since then, I have only published 6 blog posts in the whole of 2023, which were primarily testimony to my dramatic hobby slump. Four posts were about my favourite system, 7TV, and two posts were about the doomed announcement that I was going to throw myself into Star Wars Legion on top of everything else and reactivate my Imperial Guard at least as a painting project for the sake of the good old days – as if there was a need for yet another painting project. The contributions to 7TV in the form of reviews at least centred around the feature packs I love (‘Orsa the Fearless’, ‘Lurkers from the Deep’, ‘Vlad’s Army’) and the great new edition of the rulebook. So far, so good, but all this was just a small part of the actual hobby.
Painting and handicrafts were completely neglected, but I had already foreseen this last year. As was to be expected, with two small children (one of them under 1 year old) there was little free time left and my wife and I had too many other tasks planned. So the weeks and months went by and we were busy and everything went well, but you look back and realise: Wow, I didn’t actually finish painting a single miniature in the whole year.
Sometimes it’s the case that it becomes more difficult to get back into an activity the longer you haven’t done it. That’s how it feels with painting at the moment. Like a hurdle that I have to overcome. I don’t really have any more time in the new year, but I can do a bit, can’t I? I usually prefer to do a bit of deburring, glue things together and work with green stuff as the highest of emotions. So, despite everything, over the course of the year I’ve accumulated a few fully assembled and mostly primed figures. I could start painting them straight away. But maybe I’ll get these models out of the blister pack quickly or do the bases for others? Whoops, not painted again.
However, I have not been completely idle when it comes to painting. After my son’s enthusiasm for dinosaurs last year sparked a moderate amount of dinosaur hype in me, his recent enthusiasm for pirates has sparked an equally moderate amount of hype for “Armada” in me. In the summer, we printed out the complete fleet of Basileans and Orcs (relatively cheap to get thanks to Mantic Vault) and built a sea board for it. The ships, or rather just their sails, are the only models I’ve painted this year – but the ships aren’t completely finished yet. I’d better do that as soon as possible so that I can report on the fleet and the plate here.
At least, to end on a positive note, I’m really keen on the hobby and I’m also motivated in principle. The last year was really hard and exhausting at times, but that’s largely over and things should return to normal. If I organise myself a little differently now, I should be able to show real results here again soon. Stay loyal to me, I’ll be back on track soon – not a resolution, no, a promise for the new year 🙂