Last year was a pretty decent year for me, painting wise. I found a degree of consistency and managed to paint 18 models over 12 months. Over the last 3 or 4 months, I also think I've improved a few areas of my painting - definitely my skin tones. This is after 49 miniatures painted in 2014, and 24 months of at least one miniature painted a month.
It's now time to potentially ruin that consistency with a brand new project generation system for 2016 involving a spreadsheet and a random number generator.
Near the end of 2015, I built a spreadsheet containing most of my miniatures (at the time of writing that's over 1500 miniatures). I've decided to make use of this to tell me what I'm doing next. It's a little loopy, but here is an example.
This here is the homepage of the spreadsheet. It has a list of (currently) 14 different areas my miniatures are split into.
By using a number generator, I find out how many lines I need to count down from Guild Ball.
It turns out it is 10, which takes me down to Standalone GW and FW. I highlight this, and move to that sheet.
There are 5 lines there, so I generate another number...
Number 1 is Space Hulk, so that gets highlighted and opened up.
Another number gets generated
Which tells me that my next project would be to paint the C.A.T.
Once that piece is done, I can return to my front sheet and generate another number.
That number is a 3, which means I move 3 lines down from GW and FW to Loka, which I'd then use to choose my next piece.
And that's how it'll work! Some projects will just be build projects - If they're still boxed when I generate it, I'll build it, but if it needs to be painted before I can finish assembly I'll be getting the brushes out as well.
The reason for highlighting the last chosen piece gives me a place to start counting when choosing new projects to keep things mixed up.
The idea behind this is that despite my consistent painting, I always choose safe projects - usually 28-35mm infantry. This is despite me buying tanks, dragons and larger scale pieces for the past couple of years, so I want to try and push myself into trying something different.
I have a couple of pieces that need completing before I start, as I need to finish St Peter for the Purgatory contest by the 16th and then The Artist for Wamped VI before the 31st. Once they're out the way, my starting point for this project (that still needs a name) will be Comic Talia al Ghul.
So - crazy enough?
its not cazy if you are stuck deciding and need away to take the pain of deciding.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly it - I can sit and stare at two blisters for half an hour trying to work out which would be more fun/less hassle to build and paint and by the time I've decided to do neither, I could be part way through prepping one.
DeleteLess spreadsheets MOAR painting! :P
ReplyDeleteAh, but the spreadsheet bit comes out of blog/forum/internet time rather than out of painting time, so technically more project time :)
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