State of the Crazy: January 9, 2023


Good Day and Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a productive first week of Janruary. Life for our household went back to “normal” with full work schedules and of course with it the wave of sickness as everyone traveled all around to see family for the holidays. I guess this is what happens when you don’t travel that as soon as we got back to our routine we immediately got hit with a round of colds. I myself amd nursing a cup of tea while writing. However that has not yet stopped me from hobbying. 

As for the past week I have been immensely productive for both completing a multiple month long project, being extremely close to doing so in another, working to clean up the hobby space, and get organized for the projects that are going to hit the hobby bench in the upcoming month or so. 

Success and Final Handoff!


As you can expect this week a full story of the lessons I learned from this project. I am happy to say that I have completed a 4 month long 3D printing project and the largest one I’ve ever attempted. Taking over 31 non-stop printing days and consuming more than 1.3 miles of filament (6.4 kg) I can say I’ve handed off the Sentinel Light Cruiser from the Skies or Sordane. This mammoth of a project definitely got out of hand and is a 3D print commission I’d never attempt again. Lets just say it was a strong life lesson for me. 

The Way too Large Batch Paint


This week I have also completed the painting process of my hobgrot slittaz from the Kruelboyz army in Age of Sigmar. This batch of painted grotz was 4 units strong or 40 individual models making it the largest batch paint I have ever done at one time. Due to its size it was definitely slow at times and motivation was definitely draining. I now just have to varnish, add basing bits and resin pour the swamp and these models will be 100% completed. Fun fact these models alone are just 2 shy of completing my 2023 hobby goal of painting more than 2022! Do you think it is cheating to have a goal that was so close to being completed already in the new year?

Now that I have 40 less models on the table and several square feet of space in my hobby room. I also had the opportunity to spoil myself with a new paint rack! This is my very first rack that I have not created myself but rather purchased and I have to admit that I am not an expert in my craft like this fantastic Etsy store. I can now officially store all my turbo dork paint, speed & contrast paint in my collection all in one place. It really feels good to get organized. Its still on my to do list to create paint racks that go on a peg board for some of my larger supplies. Pictures of updated hobby space are coming.

Benchmark 2022

Since the 2022 has wrapped up it is that time again to repaint my Benchmark Model from 2022. I am excited to see how much i’ve grown in my painting hobby especially with the airbrush. Although I know I could have put in more time all around I am hoping to see noticeable improvement. This week I 3D printed the rest of the model, assembled it, and green stuff sculpted the steams to try to improve its final appearance. Paint hits the model this week. 

Do I finally tackle the scary shed?

As some know I have two minions constantly running around my home and not necessarily a ton of storage space. In the past when I rapidly needed more space in the house or got too overwhelming working on too many things. I’d throw all my in progress projects into boxes and just stuff them into our outdoor shed. Well as I am working on completing more projects then I start this year it is safe to say that this shed is slowly being taken over by a dishealved disarray. Everyday I am attempting to organize and categorize just 1 thing in an attempt to tame the mess as well as make things easier to find. I’ve also been playing around with apps and software to help me keep track of my collection. Everything highlighted by a red square are part of my unorganized collection.

I normally don’t have this successful of a week but it does feel really great to get some big things off my shoulders so I can start working towards other things. I am excited for the projects the new year brings and I already anticipate this upcoming week to also be pretty productive. 

How has your hobbying been going? Trying anything new? As always let me know if you have any questions and Happy Hobbying,

Crazmadsci 


Previous Posts

2023 New Year, New Ambitions?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


Yes as we all know its time for that annual breakdown and preview of what is to come with our hobby goals. People have set New Years Resolutions and of course always end up broken and I am absolutely no different. For 2022 I set upon myself a list of lofty goals and have accomplished very few if you are curious on my track record check out my past write ups 2022 Hobby Goals & 2021 Hobby Goal Retrospective

“Yes I know what you are thinking, hobby goals, showcases these yearly posts are cliche and exhaustively overused.”

2022 Crazmadsci

But I inevitably find it incredibly useful in seeing my personal mentality from year to year. So bear with me as I gauge how my mentality and goals in the hobby have shifted.


What did I accomplish last year?

My universal motto and approach will be, “Improve my skill, output and performance over the previous year.” So I am planning on using last year as a benchmark of comparison so I can more definitely see how I match up. I’d argue that my performance is ehh comparable to the year before because so much of my free time shifted to actually playing games rather than just preparing for them.

Of my entire list of 2022 hobby goals I only succeeded in two hobby goals.

Success!: Paint more models than 2021
Success! Play two new tabletop games.

Group photo of my 2022 Painted models.

For the past year I have painted 42 models to 100% completion this is greater than the number in 2021 which was 26! Yes I know it still does not feel like enough but for me building a routine and navigating my perfectionism in models it is harder to accomplish. I do have easily do have easily double this number with only a few hours of paint time left. This list includes a Snotling Bloodbowl team (20), my 2021 benchmark model, my 2022 benchmark model and 2 units of hobgrots from the Kruelboyz army in Age of Sigmar (20 models).

I have spent a very long time assembling, gathering, priming, basing and painting a Kruelboyz army for Age of Sigmar in 2022 but tended to jump around quite a bit and didn’t finish as much as I would have hoped. As you can see a lot of progress has been made it just requires a bit of focus to knock it out.

As for playing two new tabletop games I actually count playing 3 games. The first two are Age of Sigmar which has been my primary go to game for the year, Gloomhaven online (which still counts in my book), and Dungeon Bowl.

Game of Dungeon Bowl in Progress

New Goals for 2023?

While I have a lofty list of goals for the upcoming year I have decided to boil it down to five “simple” items

  • Finish more projects than I start
  • Finish more models than I buy/print
  • Limit the amount I print for others and focus on my own hobby
  • Paint more models in 2023 than I did in 2022 (42 in 2022)
  • Focus on improving the skills of my painting

Some of these definitely sound easier said then done especially the reduce the backlog goal of painting more than I buy. With the new Cities of Sigmar book coming later this year I need to do a ton of painting to reduce the model count. But overall I think its more doable than past years while also tackling the backlog of projects.


Conclusion

What do you think? Do you set annual goals for yourself? How did you do last year, let me know in the comments below.

As Always Happy Hobby,

Carrie the Crazy Mad Scientist