Old year / New year

I love New Year.

It's not that I'm a party animal, or that I have any great fondness for Auld Lang Syne, I don't make resolutions that I tell myself will make my life better. I don't use it as an excuse for catching up with family as I am thankfully on good terms with all of them, and I'm lucky enough not to need to undertake some punitive diet or exercise regime for the sake of my health, so there's no false self-promise of "this year it will be different". I'm a fairly contented chap, really.

I love the freshness of it, though. I have previously admitted to my enjoyment of stationery and to the deep sense of satisfaction that a new sketchbook or notebook gives. New Year (and any new beginning, for that matter) shares some of that same potential for me. I also am something of a traditionalist (conservative with a small "c", if you like), and it is traditional to review the year just gone set out one's stall for the year ahead. Here goes.


2015

At the beginning of 2015 I set out three aims for myself, modest aims. And I failed in all three! I didn't finish writing Knights' Quest, I didn't finish painting my giant, and I didn't build my gladiators' arena. I did, however, build a gaming table, paint some of the aforementioned gladiators, and get my teeth into developing Knights' Quest in a way that made the core more solid and the additions (skills, traits and magic) consistent and balanced. I was scrupulously honest about my spending (an interesting exercise!). I put together some thoughts on undead creatures in 2nd and 2rd edition Warhammer that were well received. I also painted fifty-six miniatures! More than my secret goal of averaging one per week, and some of them turned out to be pretty snazzy in my eyes. In addition to December's splurge of skeleton painting, my chaos warband in particular got some attention:

That lot, along with the more recent chaos warriors that I painted will form a burgeoning warband for Dragon Rampant as well as their Oldhammer duties!

Enough of the old, on with the new! Look at that lovely blank page....

2016

Encouraged by the kick that painting for Deadcember gave to my output, I looked around for another structured project approach that would kickstart my output and minimise my outlay. But what to choose? I needed a kickstarter... no, I needed a:

Borrowing the structure from the crowdfunding site, I shall set out my core project and stretch goals to see if I can successfully complete my stated project by the end of this year. I'm going to have four categories: Painting, Building, Gaming and Blogging. Each will have their own core and stretch goals and I will monitor progress towards them each month in the way that I tracked my spending in 2015.

More on the details over the next few days, but now to bed.

Happy New Year,
Rab