Target achieved

With a months and a half to go I have achieved my target of painting 100 models this year. Here are all the models together on their shelf:

As part of encouraging myself to keep going, every model I painted this year has been put on a shelf in open view. Nothing like seeing models you’ve already painted to spur you on!

I also moved any models still in their boxes and those just assembled and undercoated away into cupboards and boxes. Not so much as an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ but more to keep me focused on my progress, not what I still had left to do.

It worked, and I began the year by putting models on the ruined tower piece:

Once that was filled the models spread out across the shelf:

In the top left you can just see Squad 217 looking down on the painted models. If I take your pictures in black and white, you don’t need to be painted!

On targets

I both did and didn’t like this numerical target. It definitely gave me something to aim for and a reason to keep picking up the paint brush. If I didn’t have a number to think about I may not have completed much more than the Space Hulk models, to be honest. With the target, I looked at how much time it was taking me to paint an ornate Blood Angel Terminator (a lot), and searched for simpler models to increase my ability to stay on target. The pikemen might otherwise still be waiting for their corrective work.

For next year I won’t give myself a number to aim for. Instead I will focus on picking up the paint brush as often as possible, every day if I can, even if it’s only for 30 minutes or so.

Of course, I acquired quite a few models this year and so painting 100 has taken me from having just over 1,000 unpainted miniatures to just under 1,000! Seriously, I have 988 still to go. I know this because they are all in my spreadsheet I built to track this stuff!