Update Quicklinks: Life, Painting, Printing, Blog, Hobbystreak, Hobby Goals
Wow I can’t believe it is already time for another Retrospective, I can’t believe how much shorter February feels and it is only 2 or 3 days shorter than other months. Regardless lets get to it!
Last week I finished the Catfolk Fisherman from Lost Adventures 1. Stay tuned for a painting write up later in the week! I also spent a good deal of time cleaning up models, building another organization shelf on my desk, assembly of the Blacksmith (another write up on the way!). Not only that I FINALLY got to play a game of Frostgrave for the very first time. All of these things are actually so exciting for me I’m going to be releasing a post about each one this week.
All in All I feel almost like I’ve not accomplished anything last week. Perhaps it was due to having a visitor for several in my home for the first time since July. I kept up my hobbystreak but it was still incredibly difficult to deep dive into any one task. Instead I jumped around to various tasks and necessities I had around my hobbyspace.
Now for the retrospective….
Life of February
February was overall a quiet month. I feel like it moved in a blur without a massive milestone or event happening. The largest and most exciting thing that happened is that I saw more snow this month then I ever have living in Tennessee. Since moving further south it is rare to get snow and snow that sticks past noon the next day is a unicorn. While we didn’t get as much snow as many surrounding areas the 3 inches of ice and snow lasted almost a full week resulting in my handsome husband working remotely and the whole feeling like it shut down. There was zero infrastructure for snow that other than the interstate and highways no roads were treated or plowed. This was such a crazy concept for me as I grew up in the mountains. Regardless it was fun however I did run out of filament and almost out of resin waiting for a package that was 8 days late. No worries we still got plenty done.
Painting Overview
As for painting in the month of February I accomplished 1 miniature and 1 building. The building, the Fishers Hut took quite a bit of time and was a roll over project from January. Overall i’m happy with it. Enough so that I even put up my first display shelf in my hobby corner so I can see my created stuff and be inspired!
As for the miniature I completed the catfolk fisher from Lost Adventures Vol 1 the Tradefolk Storytelling Pose pack. While I feel like I could have done a better job and put more time into the paint job. I in truth got distracted and didn’t take good enough notes on the paints I used and couldn’t remember what to blend with. I guess that is what you get for juggling so many things at a time.
While I feel like I could have definitely spent more time painting this past month i’m still pretty happy with my progress and growth in skill. There is definitely a difference between some of the early paint jobs and now.
Catfolk Fisher
Fishers Hut
Printing Overview
For the month of February I got quite a bite accomplished in the printing category. As a whole I worked towards printing 4 different kickstarter projects I am currently juggling.
Lost Adventures Vol 2 (Greensea): This contains most of the miniatures I have printed this month including the Catfolk Fisher I painted. I am working towards printing everything and at this point have been making steady progress. Largest hurdles of what is released is two sets of models I wish to rescale smaller to true D&D scale and the 3 released buildings. FDM & Resin Print project
Kingdom of Thamarya: This is predominately the buildings I’ve been focused on printing, First with the Fishers Hut and now the Blacksmith. Next building is still slightly up in the air but I am currently leaning towards the cottage. FDM focused print project
Monstrous Encounters- Undead Rising: This FDM supportless miniature campaign I supported in 2018 and began printing in September 2020. I got distracted finishing this project when I started resin printing and desire to finish the collection. It is very close and I just got a page created for it to keep track of my progress! FDM exclusive print project
Lost Adventures Vol 1: Being the 2nd kickstarter by Danny the 3DPrintingDM from 3dPrintedTabletop, is also one of the kickstarters I aspired to complete as a 2021 goal. I have begun printing these models, more specifically the miniatures. Currently Resin Exclusive Print Project
Over the course of February I estimate that I printed:
Two Buildings
Kingdom of Thamarya
Lost Adventures Vol 2
4 Different Groupings of Terrain/Scatter:
Waterwell, Breadcart, jungle trees, and Fallen Jungle tree sets
Miniatures:
11 FDM Miniatures (Various Monsters from Monstrous Encounters)
73 Resin Miniatures (Lost Adventures 1 and 2)
Note this does not count duplicates and print failures.
All in all i’d call it a successful printing month. Wouldn’t you?
Blog Overview
As always this is the section i’m most critical. I keep having to re-evaluate my time and how long it is taking to do something. I have accomplished quite a lot in the month of February. Lets do a quick review of the blog.
Posts: 7 published (4 update posts, 3 painting posts).
Pages: 28
Posts vs Pages:
Overall I have been attempting to document the when of a project via posts and through my weekly updates. Pages currently consist of the How something was accomplished, directory of a project, or future information. Since posts do go to the “blog” section of my website and archives along with notifying followers of posts I am attempting to not spam but also publish consistently. The downside of this is that I update pages with significantly higher frequency than post resulting in the reader discovering less of the content that is being added. If you are reading this and have any suggestions i’m all ears.
Pages of note this month created are my Work in Progress (WIP) page. This houses a listing of all the current projects i’m working on. It directs to the various kickstarters I am working on and what is contained in them along with printlogs, what i’m currently working on, and what is in the print queue. I have been attempting to update each project’s page whenever I create a print log which is 2 to 3 times a week.
I have also created pages for the kickstarter projects I’m doing:
Lost Adventures Vol 1
Lost Adventures Vol 2
Monstrous Encounters – Undead Rising
Kingdom of Thamarya
The coolest part about the project page for me is that I am beginning to reference the site significantly more and more as time progresses as a way to track my own projects as opposed to using my Evernote and Trello Boards. It is really cool to see myself finding the site useful which was a goal all along.
As a result of attempting to make more of these foundational pages I am yet again behind on the print logs and data of what i’m working on. Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten and am working as much as I can.
Last but not least I surpassed my goal of the month and gained 4 new followers to the blog. I am so excited that people are showing interest. Thank you, truly and deeply thank you.
I also received my first comments to various posts on the site. I am absolutely tickled pink! I will respond to each and everyone if you have something to say.
Hobby Streak breakdown by Activity in February
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.
Below is an overview of my month based on Hobbystreak documentation. As a whole I spent a lot more nights focused purely on the website while painting less. While I wish I painted more I do not think it is currently a loss. I do think it is hilarious that my photography time went up because I took photographs 1 more night than January.
2021 Hobby Goal Summary
February was a month of slow and steady wins the race. Nothing of significant note for the Goals but definitely making a dent.
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
- All but the last week I achieved this goal
- Have greater than 183 hobby days (more days than not)
- 59 hobby days and 32% completed towards my goal
- Create 12 different bases for miniatures
- Did not work on any basing in the last month
- Paint to completion at least 24 models (regardless of size)
- Painted only 1 model last month making it 3 instead of 4 painted.
- 4 deep dives to paint techniques or methods/recipes of painting
- no progress
3D Printing
- 6 mega projects
- Making major progress to this goal with trying to wrap up Monstrous Encounters & starting Lost Adventures Vol 1
- In-depth study of supports for FDM
- no 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 25% of goal completed
Until the next time,
Crazmadsci aka Carrie Day