Keep Moving Forward

The last two months of 2017 are a general blur in the rear view mirror, leaving a year-end summary in spreadsheets to crunch the miniature painting numbers:

	Start	End	Change
Unpainted	2359	2150	-209

More than 450 unpainted minis were sold, turned in to Metal Trade at Reaper Con, or otherwise removed from inventory.  The Mountain was further reduced by painting 18 minis, mostly early last  year.  Most additions came in using Metal Trade credit to shop the Reaper factory, plus filling in some boxed sets for Zombicide: Black Plague.  While it is nice to see the Mountain shrink by 209 minis, continuing that rate means another 11 years (2018 thru 2028, inclusive) to eliminate the Mountain entirely.  That's unacceptable.

Worse, that rate will be a challenge to maintain going forward due to Metal Trade credit remaining with Reaper, plus swag at Reaper Con, plus Zombicide: Green Horde KS fulfillment due this year, plus the Reaper Bones IV KS fulfillment likely due next year, and so on.  I could be looking at adding nearly 500 new minis before the end of 2019.

In other words, I need to seriously ramp up the rate of both sell-off and painting.  But, how?

Well, a one-time reduction comes from corrected accounting.  Previously, the unpainted total included small models that don't typically stand on their own, the small animals, familiars, objective markers and such one might use with a standard mini, vignette, or diorama.  Example: 10 of these vultures are now counted as Bits instead of Unpainted minis.

Making that correction starts 2018 off with a good, albeit rather artificial & singular, reduction of 160.  The new total stands at 1990, oddly matching the year I married my beautiful, loving, understanding, and very hobby-friendly bride.  :-)

Looking ahead at 2018, I've already moved 320 miniatures into the sell-off pool, leaving them unpainted.  If that works out, and I paint just 20 this year, then I'll have a total reduction for 2018 of -500 minis, more than enough to offset the influx of Z:GH and Reaper Con.  On the other hand, that will probably not be enough to maintain or improve the -209 annual rate.  As previously noted, I think I need to be more aggressive with both the sell-off and painting plans, but again, how?  And why?  What are my goals, here?

Well, this is where I stop writing in the blog and go back to over-analyzing priorities & goals for games, contests, and sales.  Hopefully within a day or two, I can post again with some realistic goals & plans that don't conflict too much with each other.