Update Quicklinks: Life, Painting, Printing, Blog, Hobbystreak, Hobby Goals
I’ve decided to do a monthly review of what I accomplished in the last month (January 2021). This is going to be great at the end of the year to evaluate my annual goals as well as have a better grasp of what i’ve accomplished. It is so easy to take for granted what you have already achieved. So here it is my January Retrospective.
This has been incredibly hard to do as there is a lot to unpack in the month, in project development, site evolution and well just life.
Life of January
The biggest life related things that threw a curve ball into everything is the fact that I truly believed I was going to move 800 miles and start over putting down roots in a whole new place. I started packing the house, signed a lease for a new place, and even started organizing my hobby stuff in anticipation. I attempted to use all of my resin I owned and finish up spools of filament left laying around in order to reduce the “stuff”. Turns out long story short, we did not move and decided to stay. WOW what a roller coaster. We also discovered that the baby on the way this June is going to be a boy! So all around super exciting for this crazy household.
Painting Overview
Overall I would say my painting is the weakest part of my hobby skill. However being able to finish projects has given me an increasing level of confidence along with all the positive comments and likes on my Instagram, yay for dopamine! As a result i’m finding myself experimenting more while painting and actually finishing projects more so than I would have otherwise. Over the course of January, i’ve painted 2 miniatures: my Dwarf 2021 benchmark and the Purple worm. I also painted 2 pieces of siege equipment and 19 Tavern Dungeon tiles . On top of that I’ve started painting the Fishers Hut from CastnPlay and should be finishing painting shortly. This is probably one of my most productive hobby months to date in painting mostly due to the hobby streak.
Printing Overview
Printing this month has been a bit all over the place. Overall my goal resin printing was to attempt to print as much of the resin I had left and use it before I moved (not anymore). I did not want to move with any opened bottles of resin so I made ALOT of small bits from the Fantasy props kickstarter along with weapons from the STL Miniatures patreon Blacksmith. As I am still new to resin printing and learning how to gauge how much resin is in my vat is a developing skill. There was a lot of slow experimentation. I also printed some props that I was missing or pieces such as the siege equipment. I also started the props and bits for the Fishers Hut.
As for my FDM printer I made the Fishers Hut building! This was an incredible amount of fun and I spent a lot of time into learning the prints and began the development of my new preferred support settings. This is one of the first released buildings from the Kingdom of Thamarya kickstarter and CastnPlay is still optimizing the files for printing. Throughout the process I took a ton of notes and submitted some feedback which I hope helps the future community. I have also started printing a very very large building as a test printer for the Lost Adventures Vol 2 Kickstarter. This is still in progress into the month of February.
Blog Overview
This is an area that has seen a lot of growth as well as frustratingly not. As a whole I am only posting approximately 50% as frequently as I hoped coming into the new year. However the pieces that I do post i’m proud of. I definitely have been going above and beyond the original goal and believe I am building the foundation of something truly great. One such example is the write up for the Fishers House with printing logs, assembly guide and in progress painting write up. I have not been writing as much content for others getting into the hobby as I would have hopped but believe it will come but my imposter syndrome makes me feel like I have to “earn my street cred” with the projects I have done before I start writing about it. I am attempting to take better notes as to what I’m posting when so I can get a better summary of all the work that is involved in the site for my own understanding and appreciation of the work I am putting into it. I know i’m being harder on myself but look forward to the day I get my very first comment on the site. So far interaction in views is growing but likes and comments are still non existent.
Thank you to the TWO new followers I gained in the month of January! You know who you are.
Hobby Streak breakdown by Activity in January
Hobby streak documentation can be found on my Instagram. Breaking this down by what I did or worked on for the week helps me to visualize what I’ve been doing or focusing on. It actually has been really helpful to me as days can sometimes blur by.
| Painting | Photography | Modeling | Website | Misc | Primary Project that Week | |
| Week 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Purple Worm basing | ||
| Week 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Benchmark | |
| Week 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Organization/Website | ||
| Week 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Siege Equipment | |
| Week 5 | 3 | Fishers Hut Assembly/Prime | ||||
| Total | 19 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 3 | |
| Percentage of Month | 61.29% | 3.23% | 16.13% | 9.68% | 9.68% |
2021 Hobby Goal Summary
As for project development I have 100% printed all the models form the Fantasy Props Kickstarter which has been a ton of fun. I have ended up with more scatter terrain than I ever thought I would have otherwise and even some pieces which are super unique and wouldn’t be in my collection otherwise. This has definitely started thoughts on future write ups for things such as “What is too small to be on your table?” “What prompts you to get out of your comfort zone” and “How much dungeon dressing do you really need?” I’m interested to see how these pieces will be used in the future. I am overwhelmed in write ups for this project but have learned some great lessons regarding the data management component of printing.
Below I broke down my goals and color coded based on work put into. Green means essentially “on track” or “better than expected”. Yellow is “in progress” and Red means “no progress or does not meet up to goals currently.”
Painting
- Paint an average of 4 days a week
- Estimate 61% of the month
- Have greater than 183 hobby days (more days than not)
- 31 hobby days and 16.9% completed towards my goal
- Create 12 different bases for miniatures
- Completed the experimental “expoding base”
- Paint to completion at least 24 models (regardless of size)
- Painted two miniatures (Purple Worm & Dwarf Benchmark)
- 4 deep dives to paint techniques or methods/recipes of painting
- I’ve begun research but not actually dove into anything
3D Printing
- 6 mega projects
- completed Fantasy Props Kickstarter is finished printing, writing in progress
- In-depth study of supports for FDM
- Support Tests have been started. Deepdive in progress
- Learn how to support resin
- Inventory 3D printing/tabletop collection
- Develop a deeper understanding of print settings
Blog
- Weekly update write ups (Mondays)
- State of the Crazy Posts do get written but not on time nor consistent.
- Weekly Page addition to site (Fridays)
- Complete Digital Catalog of what I have made
- Complete Beginners write ups to 3D printing
- Get 25 Followers to Blog 4 followers! Thank you people 16% of goal completed
Until the next time,
Crazmadsci aka Carrie Day
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