Happy New Year - Some thoughts on the hobby and good resolutions for the coming year

Hi,

I hope you all had a great time at Christmas and also had a good start into the new year. All the best to you and your families.

Every year the first good resolution is to go out on the streets and find some rocket sticks from the New Year´s Eve fireworks. This is a great opportunity to get some crafting material for free. Today I was able to defeat the inner demon leaving the couch and to walk through the cold day. But I was lucky to be accompanied by my daughter and to find a quite good amount of crafting material. And I am sure that there will be some more to be found within the next days.

A good bunch of wooden sticks to be used for selfmade terrain and buildings.

This walk also made me thinking about some good resolutions for this year.

First of all I want to try to spend less money on the hobby. Instead of buying more things I want to melt down my personal pile of shame. There are so many projects I had started within the last few years that I didn´t finish. 

I am not talking about large projects like building a specific army for the SevenYearsWar. I think these kind of projects are too large to be done in months. Those projects will take their time and maybe will never be finished as every wargamer or collector will always want to add some more troops or regiments to his beloved period of warfare. And mine is SYW and FIW.

A part of my French Army for the SYW. It is ready for action but I would like to add some more units. But this is one of the larger projects.

The projects I am really talking about are the smaller ones like finishing the ranch from SarrissaPrecision I started some months ago. Or also to paint some more figures to finish smaller units for LionRampant. There are some units of Hospitaller knights that are refilled with some Templar knights just to have a full unit for gamint. My aim is to complete these units so they are no longer consisting of different types of knight orders. 

The basement of the ranch is already finished, but I couldn´t overcome yet to carry on with the first floor and the roof. This is the kind of smaller projects I am talking about.

On the top a cavalry unit mixed by using Hospitaller knights and Templar knights.
I would like to get at least six figures for both orders to build up two separate units.

Another project to be pushed forward is to paint up some more 60mm Bavarian dragoons and Tyroleans  for my toysoldier collection. And these guys are also on my workbench in 28mm size.

The dragoon is waiting for five comrades. I have already started to paint them but as always daily business disturbs the motivation sometimes for days or even weeks.
The project then often becomes forgotten.

There are also some more figures to be painted for DeadMan´sHand. Here I want to paint up some more Mexicans and I also have figures from WargamesFoundry that are representing some characters both unmounted and mounted. I think it would be nice to play scenarios there desperados have to ride through the streets, robbing the bank and leaving the town again on their horses. Or also a scenario there desperados have to raid a stage coach.

I did these guys more than ten years ago and still have some more of them to do. :(

Of course I must not forget my started project with building a fort made from styrofoam for my FrenchIndianWar collection of toysoldiers. I already have been quite successful here and really want to get further here.

These four segments are already done and only need to be painted. The building in the foreground needs to be finished and the fort needs a lot of more sections including a ramp and of course a gate.
Not one of the smaller projects but thinking of the gate this could become a smaller one for itself.

One project I also started about more than ten years ago is a Vauban fortification for my SYW collection. I guess that it will never be used for a game or scenario and maybe it has been again one more of my idiotic ideas but I wanted to have it - even it was just for fun. Though there is not much left to do to finish this project I put it aside someday and packed it into a box to save it from damages. And here it slumbers and still isn´t finished. What you don´t see is often forgotten somewhere. 

The fortification still needs some paint. The segments on the left are done.

So - a lot of unfinished projects (just mentioned some of them) and a lot of opportunities to melt down the pile of shame without investing a lot of money on new projects.

And another good resolution is also to spend less money on my collection of toysoldiers as these figures can be very expensive. 

Maybe I could combine my good resolutions - No more figures to buy until one of the smaller projects has been finished. 

I guess that some of you also have made similar resolutions. Let´s see if they work. To be honest - I think they won´t. There is too much temptation outside. :)

Cheers

Mike