Oh my, Eternal Hunt is actually two years old now — and has been for a week, to tell you the truth: I just missed posting this last week, although I have to say that showing you a new model just seemed more important than celebrating myself ;-)
Seriously, though: Who would have thought that this blog would actually survive for two years? That I would manage to publish 195 posts (this one included), 94 of them during this last year? That the blog would manage to attract about 183,000 views and a sizeable crowd of followers? Not me, that much is for certain!
Not to bore you with numbers, but I am really proud of the fact that the number of views has actually tripled, compared with last year, and that attracting 10,000 views a month, something that seemed like a one-off success last year, has now become an almost regular occurence — nuts!
Indeed, I could go on all day about how awesome this blog is, of course, but I would only be tooting my own whistle and reiterate huge swathes of my look back at 2013, and you can just as well read that part yourself, if you are that way inclined.
For now, let me take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you reading my pointless ramblings week for week! Being able to post my stuff here and in my various threads and getting feedback has become and integral part of my hobby experience, and one that I wouldn’t want to miss. I am especially thankful to those of you following this blog or commenting (regularly), because it’s the discussion with fellow hobbyists that has made my hobby life what it is today and has given me many cool ideas for my various ongoing projects.
Chief among these is my beloved World Eaters army for 40k, Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, which continues to be a project that gets my creative juices flowing:
If you have looked at this blog before, you should already know these guys. And if you don’t, well, what are you waiting for: Go read up on them! ;-)
Beyond this army, there are many bigger and smaller projects, from various smaller armies (like my Traitor Guard or kitbashed Custodes) to my INQ28 models and all kinds of stuff in between, my productivity has certainly profited a lot from getting in contact with many talented hobbyists and from getting your feedback here and on my various threads. So this is certainly something I would like to continue!
At the same time, I also realise that making time for blogging can become a bit of a challenge from time to time: There are times when RL issues take over (and rightly so: this is a hobby, after all) and getting some new content up in time seems like a slog. At the end of last year, for instance, I really needed to take a break after a couple of pretty stressful months, and blogging wasn’t exactly my foremost interest.
But then the strangest thing happened: Through a number of smaller projects, I rediscovered my motivation (as well as parts of my painting modjo), and some recent developments in the hobby have also managed to pique my interest. So while I cannot promise you that there won’t be times when I take small breaks every now and then, cutting back on the number of posts when necessary, I can safely say that this blog is something that I want to keep working on!
So, to dispense with the self-referential stuff, do I have something for you to look at? You bet! ;-)
Last year, I celebrated my blog’s birthday by showing you a real blast from the past, namely my very first 40k (or rather, Space Crusade) models. This year, let’s do something slightly similar: To begin with, here’s what might be one of my very first models altogether. A partially painted HeroQuest barbarian. Behold it and weep:
Yeah, I really didn’t know what I was doing, did I? My only excuse is that I realised it even back then and stopped painting, never finishing the model. This was a stain upon my honour as a hobbyist, of course, so a while ago, I went back to finish the job: The thick coat of piggy pink was (mostly) stripped away and I gave the model a second try. Here’s the result:
Granted, the model was too thickly covered in the dregs of that dreadful pink to be completely salvaged, but I am still reasonably happy with the result. What’s more, I still have a second, completely unpainted, Barbarian, so there is still hope.
In any case, painting that old model gave me an appetite for working on even more HeroQuest models, and so I tried to speedpaint some of them, trying to finish each model in no more than an hour. So here’s an Orc I painted sometime during the mid to late 90s:
And here’s a similar model, painted fairly recently:
You all know how it goes, though: Once you get started, it’s hard to stop, so I then painted a Goblin:
I realised that these models are actually quite a lot of fun to paint, and if you’re trying to keep each paintjob below the hour mark, it’s a short and sweet romp for each model, and the results are still pretty convincing, don’t you think?
Before I knew it, I had moved on to the undead, painting a skeleton…
…a zombie…
…and a mummy in relatively short order:
The mummy was especially interesting, because the model was basecoated using GW Rakarth Flesh and then merely painted by using different washes for the bandages and skin and slight drybrushing afterwards.
Revisiting those old models has really given me a new appreciation for their design: They are almost unbelievably characterful, especially given their age and single-piece nature. And there’s that hugely nostalgic feeling, of course, related with HeroQuest being my (and many hobbyists’) entry to the hobby — I am pretty sure there’s a sizeable Totally Worth It article in there somewhere….
For now, painting these has mainly been a fun exercise, but the models are also a look at what may or may not become a full-blown project. Don’t hold your breath, but like many hobbyists, I would love to own a completely painted HeroQuest set, and seeing how I still have a mostly complete boxed set in my possession, it seems like an actual possibility. And even the missing parts didn’t end up being a problem — fellow hobbyist Alexander was actually awesome enough to send me the HeroQuest Chaos Sorcerer model (possibly the coolest model in the box, and, invariably, the first one to be lost) — yet another example of the amazing things that happen when you start blogging.
Which nicely leads us back to the beginning: Maintaining this blog as a part of my hobby life has become a very interesting and enriching experience, and I hope you’ll all stick around for the coming twelve months! As always, feel free to contribute feedback, criticism or any idea you might want to share! I would love to hear from you! On a semi-serious note, I am also accepting bitz donations, of course (doesn’t hurt to try, you know… ;-) ).
Here’s to the next year! Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!
Filed under: old stuff, paintjob, Pointless ramblings Tagged: anniversary, blast from the past, blogging, eternal hunt, heroquest, old models, old stuff
