Year end wrap up and a look ahead to 2018.

First of all Happy New Year to everyone!  May you all have a wonderful, safe, healthy and prosperous 2018!

This has been a good year for me not just in a hobby sense but life in general. I received a promotion at work, my daughter is closing in on being a teenager, we've done a bit of traveling as well this year.  I can't complain.

Of course the hobby stuff is the most important aspect of life, right! 

This year I was able to attend 3 conventions. Enfilade in Washington State is always a great 3 day weekend. So much so I volunteered to be the Event coordinator for the next 3 years.  More on that as I figure out what I'm supposed to be doing and how to do it.
I was able to attend Historicon in Fredericksburg, VA in July.  That is always a lot of fun. Not just the gaming but the catching up with old friends and making new ones or even just putting faces to names that I know from the internet.  I won't be able to attend again in 2018 but 2019 is on the books for me to go.
The last convention was our local Ambuscade!. Always a fun 1 day event and the nice thing about it was that it grew by nearly 50% from last year.  We went from about 14 attendees the first year to 31 or 32 this year.  We will continue to coax this convention along until it dwarfs Historicon. :)

My purchases for the hobby this year have been mostly gear related. New brushes, paints, new lighting for the desk and so on. I did not add too much to the lead pile this year.

I did however take a leap into learning how to paint figures with oils.  This has been an eye opening experience for me.  I've been teaching myself how color works and the theory that lies beneath it all.  The idea that I can at some point drop all of the acrylic paints I have and only have to use at the most 10 colors to paint everything is amazing. I'm still working and learning on how to do this but I'll get there soon.  I like the oil painting process. The ability to put paint on a figure and a day or even two days later come back to it and still be able to work with it has been fun.

I've entered my first painting challenge: the Analogue Painting Challenge. At this point I've completed 120 points out of 500 and I have another 120 points waiting to be verified.  The challenge has certainly lit a fire under me to get stuff done.

The gaming group has grown this year to 30 people. We all don't gather at the same time but we are there. We've been able to game twice a month and have run a variety of games from ancients to WWII. I am hoping that that will continue into 2018.

Now for the big reveal for this year end review. If you have been following this blog you will know that I've been working on 10mm War of Spanish Succession figures.  I kicked this off at the end of June and as of today I have painted 1,200 figures for the project! 
When I sat down and figured out the number completed I nearly fell over. I had no idea that I had painted so many!

Just a couple of photos of the latest units to be completed.  

What will be new in 2018?  Well I'll be painting more WSS figures. Now that the French infantry are done I can concentrate on the Spanish. I'm hoping by June I will have them done.  The month of May will be busy for me as I gear up to run Enfilade.

I will continue pursuing painting with oil paints and learning more about color theory.  I hope by the end of 2018 to completely off of using acrylics to paint figures.  

I'm sure there will be other side projects that pop up, like the idea I have for building some terrain boards.  I have to get my garage cleaned out first before that can happen.

We shall see what happens with the rest of the year.

Thanks again to everyone who follows this blog and takes an interest in what I'm doing.