100% painted Challenge - Organizing the Collection

Hi All,

Upon some reflection and the realization that I was starting to acquire multiples of the same model, I decided to try and sort out my collection and tally what I had and what I had painted.

I got the idea from Anthony at the Lead Collector in his post here.

After my last post Anthony told me that he got the idea from You Magnificent Bastards. The link to the label of 100% painted Challenge is here. I only watched the first two videos to get an idea of what he was on about. Mainly I wanted to see what his spread sheet looked like.

Here is his. Part of his plan was to shift his percentages by selling off some of his stuff and commissioning others to be painted. It appears he also just did a strait model count, no "this counts as two" accounting.

My rough start to a spread sheet. My intent is to not only catalog painted but also models and manufacturer. Not sure if I'll bother to update with codes and sculptor information, though that would be nice. I don't want to get so bogged down in minutia that I completely stall.

The idea right now is to make a sheet for each genre and then break out by Manufacturer. So far I'm starting with Sci Fi themed stuff as it is a much newer and smaller part of my total collection. I haven't sexed up the sheet with colors and formatting yet. That will come later. I'm using Open Office Calc because I refuse to pay Microsoft extra for a suite of programs. I'm still stuck in the mindset when all that shit was bundled with your computer and it pisses me off to have to buy it separately.

That is all.

Fighting Burnout and getting a handle on the collection

Hi All,

As I blunder forward in the hobby I come across things that speak to concepts that gnaw at the back of my mind. Occasionally they come to the fore, only to subside as some other idea bubbles up. This past week two ideas came back up.

Fighting Burnout, restoring Mojo

Someone, I think it was Curis, posted a link to a blog I was not familiar with. The top article was about fighting burnout. The blog is called When Cannons Fade, the said post is here. In it the author develops the concept of having small groupings of miniatures and making a d20 table to keep it sufficiently random to keep your interest up. I like this idea as you can put stalled projects on the list. But I digress. The other part was a link to a youtube video talking about our tendency to be hoarders. I, for one, really need to stop buying the new shiny and/or the too good to pass up deals. I'm starting to buy things I already have and inadvertently getting a lot of doubles.

This leads into the next thought.

Getting a handle on the Collection

I have zero idea of how many models I have in total. I have vague recollections of things, but no precise idea of where they are in my shoddy storage system. I'm pretty sure I have doubles of a ton of stuff. I'm also pretty sure that over 75% of what I own is unpainted. In comes the concept of 100% painted. Now the idea of a general accounting of models painted versus bought/ in the leadpile is nothing new. Anthony, over at the Lead Collector, introduced me to the idea of focusing on trying to bring the ratio of unpainted down by posting about the 100% painted challenge. I think this also ties in a little bit with the "no unpainted models" thing. I need to hold my feet to the fire about painting, rather than buying so much stuff.

So, what's the plan?

Well, my hobbying is a little bit dictated by finishing the Old World Army Challenge and getting ready for Kublacon on Memorial Day weekend. So I think it looks like this.

1. Finish April OWAC submission
2. Finish terrain, extras for final OWAC Army shot.
3. Help my son get his Orlock gang ready for Kublacon
4. Paint up a Mordheim Witchhunter band?
5. Unit cards/ sheets for Genestealer/ Abdul gangs
6. Space Apes (Jokaero)?
7. Squats?

Anyway, you get the idea. Somewhere amongst all that hobbying is taking the time to catalog the collection an get painted unpainted ratios. If you have thought on how to organize a database I'd be glad to hear them. I'm thinking Excel type thing and adding linked sheets based on categories. I was thinking of starting with 40K as I have less of that.