Since I purchased a new camera during the holidays the doors to full-HD video tutorials are now open. I like the idea of video tutorials since it takes up way less time than writing one, editing in pictures, etc.

So here's my first one, I hope you like it.

Here it finally is, a picture of my new painting desk. As you might notice there are two desks. There's one for assembly and basing (that's my old desk) and dedicated desk for painting. This white table has regular legs on one side, and drawers on the other but these are mostly empty since my old desk offers plenty of storage space. Also included is a display cabinet and a dedicated photo setup.

I used some leftovers from a wooden floor I placed in the bedrooms recently to create a "stadium" for my paint pots. And although I rarely paint during the day, it's a pleasure to sit next to a window. On the far right of this picture you partially see my computer desk, which I use to play music during painting. At first I planned a computer at my painting table, but decided not to do this because it will probably distract me too much.

Nighttime video tour:

This is the last post concerning the new year, I promise :) After this it's back to usual, in fact I have some interesting stuff lined up.

Okay let's get straight to it shall we? The number of visits I had in 2010 was 14.392, that's only 2500 more than 2009, but not that bad if you take into account I've been virtually inactive for a few months. There were also less blog posts, only 34 as opposed to 57 in 2009. For 2011 I have set myself a target of at least 50 blog posts, preferably 75 or more.

The visitor chart above shows two peaks. The one in August was caused by my Red Box Games review, the one in October by the coverage I did on the German GD. Both blog posts are in the top-3 of the most viewed pages in 2010, but neither of them are the number one. That honor goes to my downloadable cloud backdrops which can be used for photographing your miniatures. They have proven quite popular, there were a bunch of other blogs and forums linking to the article, and they were even mentioned at the miniature photography classes at GenCon.

Apart from the traffic that comes here through links and search engines, I have a decent amount of loyal visitors, about 30% of the traffic comes from returning visitors. Most visible are my followers of course, at the time of writing I have 123 of them. My Facebook page has 87 fans. I know it isn't much compared to some of the other blogs, but for me personally I think that several hundred people who are staying up to date with my painting endeavors is quite a lot!

So I want to conclude this rather dull post with a special thank to you, the visitor. Let's make 2011 a great year for painting!

Around the same time last year I wrote a great post called Top 10 of 2009. I listed some of my favorite things of the year that came to be, together with some crappy things as well. This year I want to do the same, but I'm lacking a bit of inspiration to come up with 10 good things. I also think it's extremely difficult to put a ranking on them as well.

So here's my list, in alphabetical order.

Favorites

CoolMiniOrNot

The times when I was in the top 10 posters of the forum are (alas) long gone, but the site itself is

still one of my favorite resources. Even the best painters around the globe take time to submit their latest works to the gallery. It's lovely to see how the website is turning into a real

enterprise to suit miniature painters. The shop has grown considerably, their booth at Adepticon was downright amazing, and both the 2008 annual (read the review here) and the painting secrets dvd have a very profession feel to them.

Facebook

In April I started the Corvus' Miniatures Facebook page. Apart from notifying the fans of the page on new blog updates, I think it's a great platform to share interesting links, such as articles and exceptional paintjobs. Currently the page has 85 fans (thank you all folks), but if you have a Facebook account why not join as well?

Manufacturers

The following manufacturers have caught my attention in the past year: Bederken Miniatures, Red Box Games and Imbrian Arts. I got some Bederken figures two weeks ago, there will be a review soon. Red Box Games you already know, I reviewed this company back in August. Of Imbrian Arts I yet have to buy some figures, but the resemblance with Rackham is so striking I will probably get some very soon.

Massive Voodoo

A fellow blogger once told me about Massive Voodoo "this is the blog which puts all of us to shame", on which I can completely agree. In 2010 the blog has attracted the best German painters, resulting in a huge amount of incredibly qualitative content. Founder Jarhead really puts his soul into the blog, like he does with all the miniatures he paints. Really a blog that is a joy to read and follow.

My new painting table

2010 was an important year for me personally, since my family and I moved into a new house. Work in the house, moving and getting settled deprived me of a lot of time which I would normally spend painting, but in the end there was a great reward: a new room for my painting desk! I still have to blog about this I know, but might have already seen a small teaser in my new year post earlier this week. I went for an extensive two desk layout (one for assembly, one for painting), a dedicated photo studio and a display cabinet. I spent a couple of nights there painting and it's a real joy.

WAMP

This community has been in existence for a while, but in 2010 it really boomed, with some big painting competitions sponsored by manufacturers such as Red Box Games and Kingdom Death.

I spent some time on the forums last summer. There are a lot of familiar people there, a very nice community all in all, but I heard some of the regulars complaining that the forum is getting too big and is losing the friendly atmosphere it once had.

Honorable mentions

Winsor & Newton

In last year's top 10 I put Rosemary & Co on number 6. At that time I really liked the brushes which I bought to replace my worn out Winsor & Newton Series 7 #1. Shortly after I ordered another batch of R&C brushes, but I wasn't that happy about them when I started using them. One of them had a split point, and the others weren't holding their tips as well as the first one I ever used. Last summer the Ken Bromley Art Supplies online store was running a discount on their W&N brushes, so I decided to order a batch and start using these again. And I'm happy with them, won't ever change brand again :)

Angel Giraldez

Also in my last year's top 10, I'm still following his works with great awe. To make things better, Angel started to blog about which colors he uses on his figures and also writes for the Vallejo blog.

The bottom list

Rackham

In 2010 this once great company went bankrupt. The news didn't really come as a surprise, we all knew they were screwing it up for a long while now. For me the company already died when they announced their first line of pre-painted plastics.

Crisis

Just like Rackham this was also listed in last year's bottom list. For those who don't know, Crisis is a big wargaming/miniature event in Antwerp, with a very tough painting competition hosted there. In 2009 they really messed up the organization of the competition, but last year they did even worse: they cancelled it! I decided not to visit the event, just like a handful of other people I know. Those who decided to go anyway were disappointed: less fantasy-related stuff than usual, too crowded, etc. Apparently the event has lost a lot of its magic it used to have roughly five years ago.

Privateer Press

I've never been a great fan of Privateer Press, although I painted some of their figures. They surely have quite a few good sculpts, but 2010 was filled with crappy releases. Bulky sculpts, silly poses, bad paintjobs... I've seen them do a lot better in the past.

MiniArtCon

MiniArtCon 2009 was one of the greatest miniature painting events I've ever visited. Friendly, cosy, good traders and display painters, rock hard painting competition, you name it, it was there (well except for decent food then :). I was really looking forward to a 2010 edition, but it was canceled... Freebooter Miniatures, the main organizer behind the event, decided to put all their resources into the development of their game "Freebooter's Fate"... can't blame them for making that decision though. So fingers crossed for a 2011 edition, but it's still painfully quiet on the MiniArtCon website...

Jenova

As a member of the "old gang" we used to have on CMON and the long-gone Headblast forums, her comeback was really a surprise. Too bad it didn't last long. Her blog is silent and the forum on her website is broken. I know she has some private reasons that keep her from painting, but I sincerely hope she will be back some day.

Conclusion

It seems that 2010 had less highlights than the year before, but it could be subjective since I haven't been following the industry as closely as usual for a couple of months. I wasn't able to spend as much time with my hobby as I wanted, but of course moving to a new house is more important than painting toy soldiers :)

The thing I definitely liked the most is that some companies are really developing themselves, filling up the gaps where others seem to fail to keep me interested. I sure these rising stars will get to shine very brightly in 2011 and beyond. I'm curious about what the new year will bring to our hobby!

First of all best of wishes for you and your family. And of course I hope there will be some great painting inspiration for all of us in 2011.

I know it's been very quiet (too quiet) on this blog lately. I'm bursting with inspiration, but didn't have the time to use this on a miniature. But I've been working on some miniature related things recently, the most important one is my new painting room which I will showcase very soon. The picture below has been taken there. I will write some posts about the past year and the new one so some plans will be revealed.

In the meantime take care and I hope to write to you all very soon!

-Gerrie

After a break of more than 8 weeks I'm painting again... it's a reminder of how quickly painting skills can dwindle if they are unused for a while. So I'm not aiming very high with this figure, just painting it for fun :)

I've been wanting write a blog post about this for some time, but I never actually started it. But I think now, with more than 8 weeks without painting, is a good time for it.

I've been on a painting hiatus for more than once now. They range from one to six months, but in the end I always make it back to the painting table. Since my oldest daughter was born I've had more than before, I think that's normal. Real life business tends to take the focus away from the painting, at least for me. The last couple of weeks I've spent too much time in traffic jams, I've been ill now and, and so were my kids. For me that's sometimes enough not to find the spirit to do some painting. So real life business is the first possible cause for a hiatus.

The two other factors are motivation and inspiration. I think motivation is much related to your real life situation. For example I'm currently putting quite some time in a video game I'm really enjoying (Minecraft). Of course I enjoy painting, but currently I'm having more fun playing the game. So it's very hard to motivate myself to skip a night gaming and do some painting instead. All the same: when I've spent way too much time in a traffic jam when driving home from the office this usually results in having all the household tasks done late in the evening, too late for me to motivate myself to pickup a paintbrush.

The third factor which I already mentioned is probably the most important one: inspiration. I draw a lot of inspiration from music, literature, nature, etc. And of course watching other people's work, which I did at last month's Golden Demon contest in Germany. I've also recently discovered the joys of the audio book. I've decided to start listening to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series again. I never made it any further than book 8 with the paper version, but an audio book really allows more time for "reading". The rich fantasy world really gives me a lot of inspiration currently. I might try it out when painting, instead of music and see how it will affect my concentration.

My inspiration level is currently very high. But the motivation isn't really there yet, I'm still putting quite some time in the Minecraft game (which you should really check out if you enjoy sand-box building games) but I feel I'm nearing the point where I get tired of it. Another problem I have is that I'm still lacking a dedicated painting desk. I moved my old desk over to our new house when we moved back in August, but it's not really ready for painting: most of my stuff is still packed up and the plan is to buy a new desk and a display case. Maybe I should simply force myself to go to Ikea and buy the stuff, and the rest will probably follow.

If I bored you with this post, I'm sorry for it, but it's something I'm writing for myself in the first place. If you have some motivational/inspirational problems sometimes too, please share your story in the comments.

I still can't tell when I will return to painting, probably in two or three weeks I think. But writing on my blog again is certainly a step in the right direction. This blog, and the few hundred loyal readers I have is probably the best motivation there is.

In the meantime take care and enjoy painting!

-Gerrie aka Corvus