Now we have a very belated round-up for November of 2023. As you can see with the count of only 11 models, this was when I just petered out and stopped painting for the year – taking a break from painting and blogging to pretty much just play video games and do other things until mid-January when I started painting again, and mid-February and a resumption of posting.

So let’s do the numbers. I had 364 models at the end of October – we add the 11 more and I’m barely over my personal annual “soft target” of 365 with a total of 375 models painted in 2023.

Obviously I could have gotten far more done if I’d kept painting in November and then gone hard in December, but to be honest, the end of year stretch at work was a lot more taxing for multiple reasons than it’s been the past few years, so another excursion into Azeroth was what I needed instead. I’ll do one of them “hobby reflection and new years goals” posts a bit later, but in the meantime I understand that Dave Stone is still running challenges, so I need to get the stuff I’ve done in 2024 posted up before February ends…

October’s Round-Up! As we hurtle as ever-increasing speed towards the end of the year, it’s time to look at what I managed to get done in the month of October. Also known as Orctober, and Apocalypse Me month.

I didn’t get huge numbers done for any of the monthly challenges, and in fact didn’t get a single model finished for Dreadtober. Who’d have thought that recovery time off work would need to be used for actual recovery rather than hobbying and relaxation?

As is now usual, the month had a strong board game miniature focus, with of the 20 of the 33 models completed being for boardgames with miniatures rather than “miniature wargames” per se.

I also finished a few more Cthulhu: Death May Die models, though in October I did not manage to get my required pair of investigators painted. I’ve really stalled out on those mdoels, and I only have four left to paint. Gotta force it in the next 6 weeks or so, I think! I did at least paint two types of minor enemy, in the set of five Deep Ones and the set of five Ghouls, so still some forward progress on the DMD front.

Zombicide makes an appearance as usual, though it’s pretty light output with only 8 models combined from the 1st Edition and more recent Marvel versions. Luke Cage made an appearance in several forms, and I did at least get a pair of models painted for Marvel United, which is a nice change.

For the month-by-month count so far, I had 331 at the end of September, and in October I managed to complete a further 33 models, so at October’s end, it turned out that I was at 364 models when aiming for a minimum of 365 models for the year.

Spoiler alert: while I haven’t really been able to crank up the production speed in November, but I have managed to paint more than one additional figure….