From BartekR: Challenge XIII in the can

A much belated wrap up - I’ve been travelling for work but to put a full stop on my AHPC XIII

Adding my voice to the thanks and appreciations: to Curt and Sarah as our gracious hosts;  the hardworking minions for getting the posts up and keeping things running (big shout-out to Martin for keeping the Sunday Crew on the rails, and for his patience as I found my feet). A nod to Mr Roundwood for creating the Studio challenge - fantastic stuff which had me diving into random pockets of my pile of shame (and at least one impulsive purchase of Murch Pulp figures). Lastly, thanks to everyone for their posts and comments – inspirational and sometimes intimidating stuff, but the sense of community and camaraderie has been a definite high point.

Challenge XIII was my first time participating in the AHPC and a definite case of 'long time listener, first time caller'. Its been an absolute blast despite/with its periods of pressure (a few late nights). Most importantly (and I can't overstate this), its pushed me from what has been for years pretty much ‘collecting’ (hoarding) and being in this hobby in investment and theory ('fellow traveller' might be an apt description) to actually getting paint on plastic and metal. Really baseline stuff but a massive shift after close to a decade of overthinking and umming and ahhing on getting back into the doing. 

In terms of actual output, I aimed low in terms of points and walked away pretty satisfied with the result – a lot to improve in terms of technique (I am an utterly inefficiently slow painter) but happy with the journey so far. 

The output, minus the Conquest unit (back with my brother)

From a target 300 points, I came away with 332 pts for painted minis with another 140pts in Studio bonuses for a 472pt total. Not bad for a first attempt I reckon. A really scattered bunch of topics - worked against me a bit but also got me deep into the ‘miscellaneous’ stuff in my stash/pile and let me indulge a lot of nostalgia and fave topics. Amusingly, looking back on my first post, barely anything I did was in the original planned pile and there is a lot more sitting around I didn't get to. Oh well, there will always be a next time! :-)

As an aside, I have to admit the ‘Work in Progress’ Studio really made the difference to kickstarting things at what was up against the clock for the first post. I don’t know if a ‘WIP’ studio/space will remain a thing, but I’m a definite fan of the concept as a fast-track gateway (even if the points values are reduced to account for it being what it is).

Hope to see you all back here for XIV. In the meantime, my plan is to do a hard reset on a very defunct blog and then choose a project from the pile to keep the momentum rolling on.