The end of each year tends to push me towards rumination and melancholy, but I’m avoiding that this year as best I can, not of the least of which by leaning into my various hobbies. Speaking of which….

The figure is “Vivian” from the Zombicide: Invaders main box set. Clearly reminiscent of Ripley from the Aliens franchise, I decided to try to put a little distance in that by making her a blonde. She brought my total for 2021 to 38, beating my 2013 total of 37. Still not one of my larger numbers, by any stretch, but since I am just getting back into this aspect of the hobby (versus running roleplaying games and building terrain, which was the more common) it is not terrible.

This is especially true when you realize that some years, like 2012, featured my weighing some miniatures as being more than one point. In fact 2012 had me only painting 66 figures and 10 vehicles, rather than the 100+ that you might think.

Which brings me around to the upcoming year. I have mixed feelings about resolutions. Sometimes they feel like helpful guidelines towards discipline and self-improvement, and other time they feel like more and more obligations and responsibilities for me to take on. So I am going to try to keep it both meaningful and generally attainable.

The 5150: Hard Currency campaign is turning out to be even more fun than I realized, but doing the detailed write-ups takes a surprising amount of time. I’d like to try to get at least one 5150: New Beginnings gaming report done each month (which ironically is the time-scale in the campaign).

To go along with the 5150 campaign, and the (slim) possibility of the home D&D game continuing, and the (even slimmer) possibility of getting some wargaming in, I’m going to try to continue the goal of painting four miniatures a month, which would beat this year’s total by almost a dozen. This might be a little challenging given that right now I’m painting more individual character miniatures (i.e. the ones for Lane, Stanovic, etc.) than identical units.

The “four minis a month” thing is actually one I adopted (but am already struggling with) a few months ago, along with the final one reading two books a month, one for fun and one for work. Obviously the work ones are less enjoyable, but have more intrinsic value. Given how little interest most people would have in them, though, I won’t bother sharing those.

Well, that’s it. Nothing too complicated, but enough to keep things going. What are your hobby-related resolutions?