Welcome to 2019!

First, a quick glance at 2018:

• Wonderfest was a blast!  Louisville, KY at the beginning of June, a real treat with an airbrush workshop, great friends both old & new, amazing models, new minis...can't wait for 2019!
• Reaper Con was absolutely fantastic!  Denton, TX at the end of August into Labor Day weekend.  Took some classes, led four, and had a seat in Artist Row for the first time.  Made some new friends, caught up with many, enjoyed the road trip and hanging out with my brother-from-another-mother.  Probably spent more and ate more than I should have, but I really enjoyed the whole thing, start to finish, so no regrets.  
• Painting numbers:
• 19 in one private commission, including 1 huge kit-bash 
• 1 commissioned for studio/box art/display
• 13 of my own, mostly minis, but including a few small terrain/scatter pieces
• Total: 33 painted in 2018, none that counted in 6MMRPC but 13 toward my backlog.
• Speaking of backlog...Wonderfest, Reaper Con, Kickstarter fulfillment, and a few stock-up sales & impulse buys, gifts, trades, swag...added somewhere north of 550. Add another hundred-ish for small terrain pieces and other items previously not counted in unpainted inventory because they were listed as 'bits', and my backlog or Unpainted Mountain grew by more than 600 pieces.  In other words, I fell off the wagon and then flipped it, cut it up with a chainsaw, and made a bonfire out of it.  I am ashamed.  x-)    

Plan for 2019:

My approach will be very different this year.  Time spent with family through the Holidays changed my perspective, and time invested in organizing & planning resulted in scrapping goal-setting in the traditional sense.  Instead, I'm moving toward healthier relationships with family, friends, money, spirit, food, exercise, and hobbies.

By first adopting an attitude of gratitude, then implementing 'systems' or processes to develop habits of continuous improvement, I will use goals only as benchmarks.  This will free me up, allowing me to enjoy the work, rather than delaying happiness until a moment of pass/fail assessment.  I may blog more about these concepts and their application later, but for now, some benchmarks are below.  Note: they should be taken very loosely in a format like goal, stretch goal, super stretch goal, and "It Would Take a Miracle!".

• 6MMRPC Jan 1 to Jun 30 - Reaper's Bones IV KS fulfillment will drop 50+ into the mix, but I count them as purchased long before this Challenge began.  So, I'll start with the usual 3 Jokers and have the opportunity to earn 1 more for each completed project:
• Painting
• Counterblast - 15 Edo, including 10 minis and 5 egg clusters already finished (!!)
• Counterblast - 15 in a combination of 6 Neiran, 9 Lancers (including proxies)
• Zombicide: Black Plague - 78 minis, mostly zombies to tabletop standard
• Zombicide: Black Plague - 72 minis, mix of zombies, survivors, abominations
• Zombicide: Black Plague - 71 minis, more survivors than NPC zombies & archers
• Zombicide: Black Plague - 58 minis, mostly Wolfz and Crowz from Wolfsburg
• Selling
• 130+ painted - while not counting as reducing my unpainted Mountain, I think the effort involved and money earned for paying medical bills and reducing debt should be good for one Joker.
• 600+ unpainted - these definitely shrink the unpainted Mountain, so I'll break it up into one Joker for each 150+ sold.
• Conventions:
• Wonderfest - definitely will go!  Too much fun and local for me to miss it.
• Reaper Con - hoping to go, but a great many variables will need solving for it to happen.

Obviously, these would be unrealistic as traditional goals, constrained by pass/fail in a 6-month span.  Again, as long as I develop regular habits of painting and selling, great progress will be made and I will be happy with working on it.  If it takes all year to get everything done, or even close to it, then I will have had an incredible year by any measure.  If commissions, contests, and other work (Dragon of the Month?) slow some of that progress, then I will be grateful for those successes instead of being disappointed by failing to meet arbitrary goal numbers.

So, there you have it, an outline of plans for 2019.  Happy painting!