Monday 21 March 2016

Setting acheivable goals


This blog is probably a great monument to how terrible I am at setting achievable goals for myself. Here's my progress so far as to the stuff I'm meant to be getting assembled this month.


This is what the target is - finishing everything else in the Easter weekend is just not going to happen! So the good news is that I'm not down about this. I was full of optimism and believed I could do this, but the amount of focus and time I have after work and over the weekends is severely limited.

Probably part of the problem is that I've mostly focussed on little 'quick wins' for so long I haven't done a regiment in forever. Last month I tried to sort out the goblins, and while the sorting out happened, not many got assembled! Hiding behind my paint pots are an assortment of half finished sins...


So, lets recalibrate our expectations a little bit, shall we? Timed goals aren't great, as the real world getting in the way seriously messes up plans - it's not like work where it's your top priority for a certain number of hours a day!


So, first real goal - prep a goblin! This is a gorgeous Bob Olley sculpt that was done for GoblinAid. Most of my goblins are single piece sculpts so are pretty easy to do in isolation. It's just there's a lot of them! There's a bunch of half finished ones sitting on the desk, so they'll be the first targets. It's a nice thing to do around bigger projects and gets adorable little sneaky murderers ready for paint - which will start stocking up on similarly easy to paint things ready to go when I'm in the mood for it!


So there's actually a reasonable amount of stuff sitting in the 'ready to paint' pile. Most that weren't commission assembled are small single figure pieces, but the good news is that there's a nice backlog set up there.

The key thing, I think, is to plug on through the big unit of Forsaken, get them assembled, then split them into slightly smaller groups for painting. Meanwhile, keep knocking through individual figures to keep the progress going. Clear out the backlog of half finished things to start off with, then move on to other bits and bobs.


The Infinity stuff is basically done now - sadly, I've not been able to get a table at Dark Sphere this week - their gaming hall is thriving and you need to get in early! Current plan with Infinity is to wait for Human Sphere to come out, play some games with my current models and some proxies, then start thinking about what to get next - and definitely keep paying someone else to assemble all my stuff!


Meanwhile, getting these two little dudes painted will bring my Malifaux crew up to a full 50 soulstone painted crew. Teddy will need to come through, and the Coryphee and Performer are currently waiting for smaller drill bits to arrive from Hong Kong...

I am getting more stuff done than before - but I'm still not at a steady pace that I'm happy with. It feels like an engine trying to stutter into life.

6 comments:

  1. Ha ha ha. SMART Objectives, indeed...

    Whose legs were those at the top ? And who is that young lady in the middle picture ?

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    1. The legs are from some Forsaken for Warhammer / Age of Sigmar.

      The lady is an Interventor from Infinity.

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  2. I do it pretty close to you. Assembly is a mass thing, and then I try to paint mini's in groups of 4 sometimes a full squad. What helps me is assembly line painting first all the red, then all the green, etc...

    As for deadlines ... I calculate deadlines in years. ;) It makes it easier.

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    1. I was thinking of groups of five for the painting, so probably about the same as you.

      Really, my main thing is I want to cut down the amount of time from buying a thing to using a thing in games. I do enjoy the painting, but I can be doing that with recently bought stuff as easily as old stuff!

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  3. SMART.

    Good luck with it! Because I have so little actual hobby time, I'm inclined -if anything - to over plan. I spend a lot of quality late-night toilet time with my fabled Book of Arcane Scribblings (Vol. VII) making plan after plan, so that when I DO get to actually hobby I at least have an idea of what I should do...even if I fail to do it!

    Still, if I do fail, at least that gives me more stuff to re-plan...!

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    1. I have a similar lack of hobby time, but do you ever find when you suddenly do get an expanse of time, it is never as well used as you'd wish for in the plan?

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