Friday, January 25, 2013

A Prisoner of My Own Projects

I am currently working feverishly on adding new British and Continental infantry regiments to my American Revolution war game armies so as to have them ready in time for this year's annual Seven Years War Association Convention in South Bend, Indiana on April 5 & 6, 2013. I wanted the Americans to have three brigades of Continentals (increased from 2 brigades) and one militia brigade and the British would have two brigades (3 regts each) of regular infantry, one light brigade with jagers, and one elite brigade of guards and grenadiers.

Based on this plan, I will need to paint two regiments of Continentals and three regiments of British over the next 9 weeks. That seems like a doable painting pace as I have dialed it back to about 60-70 figures per month ( a far cry from the glory years when I could knock out 120 28mm figures per month). Assuming an average unit size of 30 figures at a 1:10 ratio, that's about one unit too many to achieve my goal at my normal painting pace.

It looks like I will have to step up my output a little bit, n'est-ce pas?


This becomes a problem only in the sense that I have so many other things to paint, and as much as I love painting Fife & Drum AWI figures, I would like to find the time to paint other regiments in other historical periods. Thus I am a prisoner of my own AWI project, which admittedly is designed to help promote the range and trigger more sales, the proceeds of which go back into more Fife & Drum greens.

For example, I would like to get back to work on my Minden Miniatures SYW project and finish all of the Austrian artillery wagons, add a pontoon train, Prussian and Austrian cuirassiers and some hussars for both sides.

Or, I would like to paint some Napoleonic French chasseurs a cheval and start on another British regiment for our Peninsula Campaign.

Or, finally paint some SYW British cavalry so that my redcoats can stand up to the French on equal terms. I have a 24 figure regiment of dragoon guards from Elite Miniatures that are primed and ready to paint. I'd like to also start on The Blues using Stadden figures. I need to finish the grenadier companies for my line regiments so that I can converge them to create a free unit, so to speak. A few 12-pounders for the Royal Artillery would also be useful.

I could go on and on, but I think that you get the point. I risk burning out on AWI figures given the tight deadline so I'm not sure what to do. Well, I know what I should do, but I'm too stubborn to do anything other than try to meet my deadline. I tell myself that after April it is all free kreigspeiling with respect to painting as I can then do whatever I please.

What would you do?

5 comments:

  1. I can also become victim to a project so now I always try to have just odd individual figures available to paint up and break the monotomy of a project

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  2. I fear you will regret it if you miss your target by veering of course to other things. So stick to your guns with the Fife and Drum up to the deadine - whether you make the full target or not - with the promise to yourself that after that you can really do whatever takes your fancy at the time; even a small closed project that's not on your radar yet.

    whatever you choose all the best with it.

    Duke of Baylen

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  3. One word -- Coffee, preferably the good ol' fashioned 'leaded' variety.

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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  4. You could set out to meet the convention deadline, and assess your progress in a month. You can always reduce the size of the armies then.

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  5. Either reduce the size of the order of battle, or ask some of your gaming colleagues if they are up to painting a regiment?

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