Resolute in my blog and my hobby.

The rumours of my demise are much exaggerated... That's right, I'm back!

Back on blogger to be precise. Although the blog has been silent for quite some time, if you take a peek to the sidebar on the left you will see my Instagram feed. I have actually been really productive on the hobby front over the last year, I just didn't have anything in the way of drive to update my blog much to my chagrin.

So what's changed?

Why now?

Well to be quite honest I've had the blog in my mind the entire time it has sat dormant. I know it's a bit late in the year to be talking about resolutions, but I'd like to bring mine to your attention for the sake of this post:

 Indulge me as I cover each one:

1. I have been working on several projects over the last year and posting all of my progress on Instagram. Many of these projects first started here on the blog and the end goal was always to have finished content to post here.
2. There is/was a lot of work involved in trying to get the blog back into a functional state once again. After the "Photobucket Embargo" debacle I lost a lot of my earlier content because many of the images were also lost physically as my back-up drive they were stored on died. I am still in the process of fixing the articles that remain. Those of which I still have images for will be getting cleaned up, some more may end up being either condensed or deleted. As you can see I've gone right back to my roots with the simple template, I don't want any more distractions from posting here.
3. This one hasn't gone anywhere thus far, but should be coming to fruition soon as it is tied to the blog. I may have been posting all of my work in progress on Instagram, but I am dedicating the blog to all accompanying narrative and set-piece photography of my finished projects much in the same vein as my Huntsman post. 
4. I had become a little too reclusive and distanced myself from my circle of friends for a time. But for several months I have been regularly attending Wednesday games nights at my local Games Workshop store with my friends and getting to know the community at the store a lot better and I've been thouroughly enjoying it (I even won an Age of Sigmar doubles tournament at the store recently).
5. It hasn't got to that point in the year yet. But I do plan on taking part.
6. It wasn't just in fleshspace that I'd become something of a recluse. I'd become a pure consumer of hobby content online. Lurking and watching, but never really taking part. That has change somewhat in recent times. I have started to engage and comment/converse a lot more across several different hobby communities, on Instagram, Facebook groups, Youtube, Twitch and even the odd comment here and there across the Blogsphere. If anything I'm more active now than I have been in years, it's just that it's in so many disparate places that it still probably seems I'm a little quiet on each one. 

So... All in all I've been doing quite well with my resolutions. And it's not going to be too long until it starts to pay off for my blog too. I have several articles in planning that I will be publishing in the very near future.

For those of you that have missed out on my hobby activities (which is probably most of you), I'll let you in on what I've been working on and what to look forward to seeing completed on the blog:

• Daemons of Nurgle - With the release of the new Great Unclean One I gained the impetus to finally get back to my rotten little blighters and have very nearly finished painting an entire force, some of the members which started here on the blog many moons ago.
• I missed the deadline on the last ExProfundis competition to Create a Monster, but I'm still finishing mine off, because I want to tell his story on the blog.
• Beastclaw Raiders - I picked these up at the end of last year, mainly as a hobby project; but they ended up being used in the doubles tournament and bringing me sweet victory. They are a good contender for my armies on Parade project to come.
• Skaven Pestilens - I have just started a force of ratmen to go alongside my Daemons.
• Slaanesh Warriors of Chaos Warband - A little side project with a Realms of Chaos style, mainly aimed at playing skirmish level gaming.
• Inq28 Warband - You'll recognise most of these characters from past articles on the blog, I thought it was high time they got some attention.
• Death Guard Chaos Space Marines - I started a small force with the idea of doubling down on my Daemons to start playing 40k again. And I have.
• Terrain - In between other projects I've been building lots of terrain I've had lying around for both fantasy and 40k.

I do have some other projects in mind, but I'm focusing on completing much of the above before anything new gets started. For instance I want to paint up some Primaris Marines, get back to my Orks (both modern plastics and RT/2nd ed projects), Ironjaws, a Giant/Gargant clan, Necromunda Orlocks (they were my guys back in the original and will be again), Shadespire. I'm all abuzz with ideas and want to clean off projects to move on to others.

And that's where I am at the moment. I'm plugging away at my current projects and I'll be fixing up the broken parts of the blog in my spare moments. There may be a few hiccups with old posts getting re-posted as edits occur and I apologise for that.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Is there anything in particular you're looking forward to see? Is there anything else you would like to see? would you like me to post works in progress on the blog again?

I'm really interested to know.

But until I next post,

Take care.