Unit-Ed October – Personal Round-Up &October 2018 Painting Round-Up

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Another month down, and another month with a disappointing overall outcome. While knuckling down in the last week did get me over the line for my 1-model-for-each-day minimum for the month (with 32 completed in the 31-day October), I did have some larger plans that didn’t come to fruition. A unit of Orcs (because Orctober), a unit of Goblins (because Orctober), a unit of Wargs (because Orctober), a unit of Skaven (because Wudugast), two Imperial Walkers (because Dreadtober) and a Daemon Prince (again, Dreadtober) were all on the planned list, but none of those got completed (or even worked on with the exception of the Orcs).

So now we add this 32 to the 464 so far and have 496 so far. What was I hoping for in 2018? I think it was about 600. After the last couple of months, that’s looking less likely, as I’d need to hit an average of 53 each in November and December, and what with it being about to get ker-azy at work as we hurtle towards Christmas and the end of the year, and my own relentless exhaustion, I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. Still, 500 is all but guaranteed now, so that’s something, right? When I do my final 2018 round-up I’ll have to see just how many are bits of nearly-meaningless scatter terrain…

Oh, and here are my units once again. A bit weak by my usual standard with only 25 models/3 units, but there it is:

Undead Legionaires/Poxwalkers.

Imperial Officers.

Uruk-Hai Berserkers.

My plan is to get the community round-up for October done sooner rather than later, but at worst the plan is to have it up in two days at best and by next weekend at worst. So if you’ve still got to varnish or photograph (or link!) your pics, then get it done ASAP! Link them in the comments here in the announcement post if you haven’t already done so!

38 thoughts on “Unit-Ed October – Personal Round-Up &October 2018 Painting Round-Up”

  1. Please do not take this the wrong way but I think you are being far to hard on yourself and wonder if you are the victim of setting unachievable (?) goals. Once again your incredible haul exceeds what us mere mortals can only dream of achieving and at a standard which is enviable. Oh, and the barrels make it 😉!

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    • I see where you’re coming from, but the fact is that they are very much achievable – just as long as I can keep up the motivation and stave off exhaustion and burnout. I’m pretty good with knowing my own capabilities. Just sometimes I’d rather be playing videogames or sleeping or just aren’t in the right mood to paint.
      Remember – I’m rarely ever painting models from a cold start to completion in a single month, and even when I do, they’re (usually) relatively simple jobs.
      But thanks! 🙂

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  2. Still a pretty impressive lot by any objective standard! And they look great all gathered on the Temple of Skulls like that.

    All I managed to finish during the month was my two Dreadtober Models.

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    • I’m so far behind on other people’s blogs – especially since I’ve spent most of the last week trying to catch up on my own blog comments. Eventually I’ll catch up on both! (There are a couple of your posts still sitting open in tabs for a week or so). I’ve still got 2/3 of my own Dreadtober models that I didn’t touch during October to do. I should finish at least one more of them, but the third might need to wait until December…

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  3. A great ‘collection’ of miniatures. They do look rather snazzy on the skull temple👍. Out of interest how does one join the challenges thing. I suppose that this Month I completed a lot of stuff. A whole horde of Mongols and a DBA conquistador force. During November I want to get the Mongols finished as well as my New DBA Aztec force. If time permits I might make a start on my Witchlands Ghoul unit (Think Napoleonic undead Russians) there a few Posts knocking around on my blog showing some of the earlier stuff.

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    • He is linking to the original post for the october challenge at the end of this one. If you provid a link somewhere in your post about you completed unit(s) then he well get a ping back from that on his site alerting him to your entry, ready for him to include in the community Round up.

      For good measure I always link to the original post of each challenge from my post AND provide a link to my post from a comment on his original challenge post.

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    • Pandora’s BB got it.
      Basically, every month has a new “theme” that I try to keep pretty broad so that most people can find something that they wanted to do anyway that will fit in.
      I try and publish the announcement post for the following month a week before the end of the month to give people some warning. So for example, The announcement for November went up on October 27 (yes, it was late this month).
      Then at the start of the new month I do my own personal round-up which also serves as a final reminder to anyone else to get their own stuff varnished and posted, so I usually give a week’s grace into the new month, because this allows for people to finish their work at 11:58pm on the last night of the month and still have time to varnish, photograph and post their stuff.
      Last month’s (October) theme was units of 3 or more models, so to participate, just post a link in the comments of the October announcement post with a link back to your own blog post (link for Oct is also in the last sentence of the post above). If you finished them in October there’s also no limit to how many units you can share.
      November’s theme is “mechanical”, so that post is here if you want to check it out:

      Mechanical November ’18: Monthly Hobby Challenge


      December will be something about centrepiece units, but I’m yet to write it up.
      The other thing to remember – and it’s an important point – they aren’t and never will be “start-to-finish” challenges. I only care about what you finish. I don’t care when you started it. Two days before or two decades before. Also, the challenges can often “roll into” each other depending on what you’re painting.
      So for instance if you were working on a platoon of three tanks in October but didn’t finish them, then you can easily call them mechanical for November. Doesn’t work for all models every month of course, but it works out often enough…
      So just link whatever you’d like to share for October that you want to share in the comments of the link in the last sentence of the post above and I’ll add them in. (No offence, but I don’t have time to go searching through people’s blogs for what might qualify – there’s already more than 20 I’ve got to add in just from the links people have provided!) 😮

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  4. I second the comments about your unneccesary level of disappointment in your efforts. You set a criminally high standard I could never hope to keep up with, and being disappointed in your self might not help your motivation. I think these things look great! A cool mix of successful mini’s. Also you should not undersell the scenery, scenery is super important and i don’t see enough of it done, by myself included. I wondered if you might ever do a scenery challenge in fact. It would be interesting to see what priorities people have for scenery and how the approach it. It’s too easy to ignore the immersive scenery for favour or characterful models with rules… When in reality it much cooler to have the characterful models taking cover on a skull temple rather than on a book covered with in a grey cloth.

    Not to mention you gave to put in the extra legwork of collecting and producing these community posts, which itself shouldn’t be undersold! That’s why we thank you for the challenges every month. You could be spending that time trying to meet your insane goals… But tmyou manage to always devote some time to the benefit of the community instead.

    Thanks man. Your doing great, your a very cool guy and I’m grateful you make this happen and to be a part of it.

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    • Thanks mate – as always I do appreciate the kind words. As I said to TIM above, though – I don’t underestimate my own capabilities – and I’m also self-aware to know the difference between how much I’d *like* to get done and how much I “should” get done. Which is where being disappointed comes into play occasionally.
      At the moment the plan is for January to at the very least have the option for scenery – both exceptionally large pieces right down to the tiniest bits of scatter terrain. The difficult part right now is thinking of a theme/title/etc that isn’t exclusively about scenery, so that people wanting to work on other models of some kind aren’t excluded.
      My current plan is to have 2019’s challenges all mapped out in advance, so I can have the calendar up on it’s own blog page in a way that people can see each month’s challenges way in advance.
      I’ve got 6-7 of the months pencilled in so far, and I want to repeat the “units” and “neglected models” themes 2 or 3 times each over the course of the year.
      Also, I aim to abuse the adoption of alliteration across the annum! :p

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      • I cannot for the life of me think of a good J word to alliterate with January, but how about something like Backdrop January, to cover scenery but also bases. Encourage some more elaborate or experimental basing?

        Liked by 1 person

      • I’ll keep thinking on it. There’s still a solid month to figure it out, though I doubt I’ll be able to alliterate each month, so that’s no biggie. Maybe it can be an explicitly “dual-mode” month. Or something.

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  5. PBB and TIM both nailed it Az, your output might have missed your personal goal but man oh man you got a lot done! And as I have written, all are done to exceptional levels. No two projects are alike, so that scenery piece alone is worth two weeks of individual figures or more. Love the collection pic, it ties October together wonderfully. Thanks for all you do, it is appreciated, and I only wish I could buy you a beer or two my friend. 👏👏👏👏👏

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    • Yeah I know. I just look at the other 29-32 (specific) figures that were achievable and on-point for the challenge in October and get annoyed. Even if I’d only finished some of them instead of all of them, more should really have gotten done.

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  7. No way around it, that’s a nice bunch of minis and I’d be more than happy if I had painted that number at that level, in a year! Personally, I’d be just as happy to see you post half that many in a month. As anything you put out, even barrels and bales of hay, is impressive. Busy time at work will hopefully pass, and here hoping you can enjoy the bits of painting you’re able to get in.

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    • Yeah, it’s a public holiday here today. If I spend most of the day knuckling down I can get a good chunk of the extra work from work done. It’ll still be busy of course, but one less flaming tyre around my neck is always good!
      …now that’s a scatter terrain piece that’s neglected while everyone dies barrels and 44-gallon drums. Stacks/piles of discarded tyres!

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  8. I’m agreeing with the others, you may not have reached your personal goals but you’ve still got a hell of a lot done. That said I appreciate that you know yourself better than I do so I won’t try to tell you what to feel about your hobby output. Anyway, great work this month and I’m glad to hear the challenges will be continuing in 2019 🙂

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    • No worries mate. Hopefully I’ll get a list worked out before too long and get it posted up here before the new year so people can get working on those June and November challenges well in advance. 😉

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  9. Fantastic amount of work shown this month, don’t be too hard on yourself for not reaching your personal target, as the quality and amount you have achieved is brilliant

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    • Very kind of you, Dave. I guess the rational way to look at it is that I hit my hard target, but missed the soft ones this last month. I’ll just have to work harder on getting stuff done this month!

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  11. Mate, I’d struggle to paint as much as you if it was my actual job – and to such a consistently high standard too! I’m firmly joining the ‘don’t be so hard on yourself’ chorus 🙂

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  12. Crikey, I’m well behind on comments here! Nice to see this month’s minis all lined up on the temple! I’m helping you out here by not finishing anything in October that counts towards the challenge and I haven’t posted for weeks (that will change) so that’s less for you to read through! I reckon what you’ve painted so far this year is impressive but remember, above all else, enjoy what you do (oh, and stop counting that carnivorous plant as a mini, ’cause we all know it’s a real plant)!

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    • Cheers JNV. Hopefully you’re able to get something done in November if you get a chance to get painting again. I’ve got to get back to the last one of those plants, as well – thanks for reminding me!

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  13. Pingback: Unit-ed October: 2018 Community Painting Challenge. Also, Orctober/Orktober. Community Round-Up | Azazel's Bitz Box.

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