Happy Birthday Blog! - and 2011 re-cap.

Ghazgkull Thraka vs Commissar Yarrick 

(painted by Mathieu Fontaine and Kirill Zhilkov respectively)

Well, it would seem that "happy" has been the intro to my last three posts (Holidays, New Year, and blog birthday). It has certainly been a happy time for me and my family as little Lucy keeps us all smiling (and awake at all hours). Not much hobby stuff has been done, hence the lack of solid content, but I'm sure I'll get back to more of the good stuff once we settle into a routine that doesn't involve waking up at 1am and 4 am etc.

Anyway, here's a bit of a look back at 2011's cavalcade of hobby goodness:

2011 saw another 346 folks join the "Blog Followers", and everyone got to see me reach my goal of two posts per week (110 posts in total, although a few of those might have been fillers).

My "Hobby Tracker" says that I painted 603 miniatures, not too shabby. That's almost 12 per week. I counted every single miniature as one model, so a 15mm German was 1, a Steel Legion Chimera was 1, and a Marienburg-class Landship was 1. I'm quite happy that I achieved what I did, but I'm completely sure I won't get anywhere near that many models painted this year, so I'm not even going to count ; )

2011 Month-by-Month

January - I added three new units to my Napoleonic British collection (Highlanders, Rifles, and Royal Horse Artillery), painted up a model for charity, and announced the winner of the Steel Legion Army List competition (which cunningly went on to be the list we used for the Heroes of Armageddon project later in the year).

February - I jumped into work on my Armies On Parade - the Artillery Train of Nuln, added another unit of Highlanders to my Brits, and showcased my Genswick Armored Company.

March - I got to show off the chariot I worked on for Gorgon Studios, and built a few Space Marines as part of a charity auction to help raise money for my flood-ravaged homeland. It wrapped up with a few work-related jobs - the building of Napoleon's Rearguard and painting the GF9 Fantasy miniature done for Adepticon.

April - Saw the launch of the Heroes Of Armageddon charity project with plenty of talk about what the benefits would be (and a guest post by FTW's Ron Saikowski), some painting done on Napoleon's Rearguard, and the Greatswords for my Empire army.

May - A showcase of the HQ units for my Genswick army, the artillery for my Empire army, and loads more work on the HOA Steel Legion army.

June - This month was focused completely on Heroes Of Armageddon and Armies On Parade, lots of tank weathering and final touches on Empire artillery.

July - So many posts about the Heroes Of Armageddon. They must have done some good as we raised over $31,000 for Doctors Without Borders. Wonder how much we'll raise this year?

August - A look at the HOA at Games Day, a closer look at the Golgotha and Landship, and a bit of a departure for me - a whole bunch of 15mm Germans for a Flames Of War collection. Oh, and some more Tanith models from my ongoing commission.

September - Tanith, Germans, Ogres, and some cavalry for my British.

October - More Napoleonic cavalry, some BIG Ogre models, and I started preparing for upcoming baby expenses by selling off a few of my models.

November - I finished up another unit for my Napoleonics, wrapped up the Ogre Thundertusk, started posting on two other blogs (Celebrity Dreadfleet and Guns Of April), and launched into my next Armies On Parade project - The Procession of Morr. Most importantly my second daughter was born!

December - More Morr, a start on the command stands for my British, and the sale of my LatD army and my Grey Knights army.

All in all it was a crazy, busy year with all sorts of things going on.

And now it's getting late, 2011 "Promises" to be reviewed in my next post, along with my 2012 "Promises".

Until then, keep painting and have fun!

Cheers
Dave