Saturday, March 22, 2014

Ruminations on the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge

Well my first time participating in Curt's illustrious event went about as well as could be expected. I experienced the gamut of emotions; excitement, despair, frustration and anxiety but overall it was a positive experience.

If you want to get the perspective of a champion, check out Loki's post mortem here.

Lessons learned:

1. Have a plan. I followed Andrew's lead and made a list and planned it all out. It quickly fell apart as I dawdled and had to scramble to get in my first themed entry. I never really recovered as I seemed to always be up against the next themed deadline.

2. Be flexible. I am a fairly dogmatic person, I like to do things in a certain order. Allow yourself to improvise and don't get locked into an idea that means not meeting the deadline. I probably could have had my last stand/ entry figures as one submission if I had just let go of my original last stand idea.

3. Work in batches. I think Andrew had it right when he said he worked on large projects 3 units at a time. I personally got bogged down in groups that were too big for me. At this point I think 4 or 5 figures is the sweet spot for me.

4. Get things prepped before the challenge. A lot of my themed entries were completely fresh/ on the sprue before I got to work on them during the challenge. Don't do that to yourself.

5. Don' be afraid to go for it. I held myself back quite a bit as  I was afraid of messing things up and thus not be able to submit them. In the interim I plan to try and improve and expand my technique so that it won't be so much flying blind in the future.

And that about sums it up.

Here's a few shots of the stuff I didn't finish that will be done in short order when I get back from my trip.

Just need the teeth painted , shields touched up and glued on. Then varnish and flocking.

My Cross of Iron themed entry figure group. Need to sculpt a tiny bit.

My aborted last stand theme project. I'm still going to try grayscale. It seemed original at the time.
This will be scheduled while I'm in flight.

14 comments:

  1. Well done on surviving the Challenge. As Andrew says, over three months you do go through a range of feelings, get distracted, abandon some projects and start new ones.

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    1. Thanks Tamsin. I enjoyed it and I do think my experience was par for the course.

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  2. Other things get in the way, you did good Sean.

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  3. As a fellow first-timer, I think you've got the right idea - all those points are good ones and will stand you in good stead for next time.

    Boy those figures are *green*! Are they from Zombicide? No wonder some many people are painting them up!

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    1. Thanks Edwin. The figures are a set I got off of Amazon, there were duplicates of the blue ones as well. All about 40mm and fairly good casts.

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  4. These things happen to us all. It's the learning we take from it that is important to me. Sharing a rich and diverse hobby with fellow challengers is great. You did really well.

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    1. Thanks Dave, the camaraderie of the challenge was definitely the best part.

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  5. Well observed Loki. And I'd Kent had not had withdraw that would have been a further spur to keep us all on our toes!

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  6. Nothing the rest of us haven't experienced before. You did well mate. Hope to see you next year.

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    1. Thanks Michael, I fully intend to enter next year. Better start priming now.

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  7. Thanks Loki. I thought your post on your journey to first place this year was very good. I immediately took your idea for the spreadsheet. I think my overall hobby mindset needs to change to one of working every day and focusing on finishing, rather than as much half finished stuff as I had.

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  8. Very well done Sean! I achieved far more than I could have!

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    1. Thanks Rodger. I do need to remember that as well. I think I increased my output by 10 fold.

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