Heresy & Heroes

Those of you who regularly read this blog will know that at the tail end of last year, I made some rather bold statements about what I was planning to do this year to keep both myself and yourselves entertained. Well, I’d like to sheepishly and ashamedly request that you forget/ignore all of the timings involved in those project ideas. The ideas themselves stand, and I want to do it all still, but in terms of promising you two completed armies this year, plus open competition projects and what have you, there’s almost no way that’s all going to get done in 2015.

Time makes fools of us all and at the moment it’s making my best laid plans look like the dribble-splattered ramblings of a certified lunatic. To give you some idea of what’s going on, and why this blog has become relatively quiet these days, it’s simply a lack of time on my part. Last year, I had maybe three or four nights a week where I could get down to some painting and post writing. So far this year, I seem to be lucky to get one evening. And it’s nothing exciting that’s keeping me away – it’s basically just work (and occasionally the need to drink to try and forget about the work).

This isn’t a unique problem. Lots of us toy soldier enthusiasts go through it. I’ve had dreams of winning the lottery, quitting my job and just spending my days painting in a luxury penthouse in central London (in between the class a drug binges, sexy parties and attempting to become a super villain). But we must put our dreams away and acknowledge that sometimes life has to come first. Ergo, I have scaled back my plans for 2015 accordingly, but don’t you dare think for one second that I’m out of the game – I shall persevere.

The 39 Steps

No, not the book/film – my plan. The first thing I scaled back on were the sheer number of projects that I can focus on, and the big one for me, as you may well be aware, is the Mortifactors army that I’ve been slaving away over for more than a year now. When I started on this, I wanted to create a detachment large enough, varied enough, and painted to such a standard that it would have a good chance of getting into Visions as an Army of the Month. That’s been a dream of mine for many years now and this is the best chance I’m going to have, so I’m going for it. I’m not saying it will ever get into that magazine, but I want it to be at that sort of size and standard so that I can look at it and say ‘yeah, that’s pretty awesome’.

So I started planning things out, and worked out how to ‘complete’ it. There would be 39 steps or, if you prefer, 39 units, that would need to be completed in order for me to do this. To date, I have completed 13 of these. That’s one third of what I’m hoping to achieve, which means I’ve got plenty to do, and at my current rate of about one unit a month, it means I’ve got a couple of years of ‘all the skulls!’ to look forward to (unless that lottery win happens). Want to see my fevered scrawlings? Well here they are:

That doesn’t mean that all you’ll be seeing from me is Mortifactors. No-one can stare at black and bone for a whole year without feeling the dire need for a bit of colour once in a while. This will not become a Mortifactors only blog and I already have some fun ideas for what I can do to keep this place lively and colourful, and if I’m lucky, they’ll all fit into my schedule too.

Fear not, loyal readers. Though I am not as vocal as once I was, I am still doing my thing. It’s just a bit slower than it used to be. Onwards!

Are you struggling for time to spend with your hobby? Share your problems, solutions and general gripes below!