So the "inbox zero" thing failed fairly early on last year. As evidenced by the lack of blog entries. However, I'm back to try again for 2024! And this time I have a (simple, ugly) spreadsheet to track and shame myself with! I haven't gone to the trouble of documenting everything in my pile of shame - such an exercise would be depressing, time consuming and I'd frankly rather not know. So instead I'm simple tracking models in (bought) vs models out (painted or sold). If models out is bigger than models in then pile is getting smaller, I'm winning, and that's all I need to know to keep telling myself everything is fine. Hence the spreadsheet. What can possibly go wrong with my digital assistant on board!

Well....

The Old World. Now this forum isn't the place to discuss this topic in detail, so just know that TOW launching in January put me in a 78 model hole to start the year. Checking my notes on how to succeed in my quest to inbox zero this is not considered a Good Thing. 

So the need to redeem myself was a motivation to pick a project or 2 that were never getting completed and pull the plug. It was also a motivator to paint some darn models. Happily I managed to do a bit of both before the month was out.

Projects to drop ended up being some Horus Heresy Alpha Legion (my Sons of Horus are my main HH army and I have a bunch of Space Wolves things as well to paint. A third army in a niche system - for my gaming group - would never see the light of day) and some AoS Flesh Eater Courts (new book meant perfect time for someone else to take it over). Decision made the clearout has begun. More projects may follow (my Aeldari and Sisters of Battle armies were impulse starts that lost momentum quick), but it'll do for now.

Painting was more fun. Not exactly prolific, but being as it's done in lunch hours on the days I work from home I'm happy with what I got done. Continuing at this pace for the year would mean over triple digits painted which I'd be happy with.

First up was building up my Orlock gang. I'd done a test model at the end of last year and, happy with how he turned out, extended out to 5 gangers.

My road captain is one I'm particularly happy with

Next up is a Wrecker and an Arms Master to round out 1000 credits and actually start hitting the table. Hopefully they'll appear in next months run down!

The other completed group this month was some Skitarii who are essentially my test group for my Ad Mech army. Yes AM suck right now. No the dataslate didn't do anything to change that. Will they be good by the time I get enough points painted? Also no. But who cares. They're cool as heck and that's enough for me.

I decided to try a few new things for these guys.

1. Airbrush. I've done little bits before, but I figured I'd do all the robes using the airbrush and start getting the hang of it. This went fine - I learnt stuff and the result is ok. I do see the appeal though so will continue practicing.

2. Streaking grime. I love this stuff and have used it sparingly before. I've also used oil washes so I have a rough feel for them. Decided to go the "cover everything" route here though. This was fun. Mixed in a little brick red oil paint to tint the colour. Really enjoyed this and the "scary middle phase" before the cotton wool sticks come out got less scary quickly.

3. OSL. Completely new this one. But in for a penny and all that. Also gave me another chance to practice with the airbrush. Went a bit heavy and I still need to learn how to add contrast back in afterwards, but it was fun and I'm reasonably happy with the outcome.

And here the full 10 man/machine squad after basing.

Definitely doable for an army without too much of a headache. Looking forward to continuing these.

So that wraps up the activity for the month. In total we had:

Models In: 80

Models Out: 64

Giving me a month one, pile of shame size update of...

+16

Hmmm. Month two will require more restraint and/or more painting. Let's see how that goes.....