Happy New Year and Painting Summary 2013

Happy New Year!

The Painting Log closes out 2013 and begins 2014 on a fresh page.  Well, I have one more set of figures to share that was completed in the final day of 2013.  For some, an annual recap of their production is a ritual.  For others, tracking figures painted is akin to bean counting and summarily dismissed as a waste of time.  These two alignments are not much different from our other debates: Process vs Result; Journey vs Destination, Simulation vs Game, etc..

Under the old adage that you can't manage what you don't measure, I track my painting output.  Besides, these data provide an occasional interesting insight.  For painting output in 2013, the Painting Log shows 1,472 figures completed.  While not my largest annual output, that total number of figures places 2013 production in the number four slot.

A review of the time series on painting production by figure size (I'll call it "scale") on a raw or unadjusted basis shows 590 28mm figures crossed the painting desk in 2013.  A quick glance at the Figure 1 graphic suggests this to be my largest 28mm productivity to date.  

Figure 1

When categorized by era, a number of projects saw action with the paint brush.  Figure 2 graphic illustrates that the Punic Wars projects took top honors at 335 figures.  Of course, that total includes both 28mm and 6mm projects.  The new Reconquista project, begun in July, came in second place with 227 painted figures.  That result was a bit surprising.  Seemed to me that I spent more time painting Moors.  Maybe in the latter half of the year I did but 6mm ancients can pile on the numbers quite quickly.  

Examining 2013 in isolation shows that projects Punic Wars, Reconquista, and Samurai Battles ranked 1,2 and 3.

For 2013 by scale, these figure totals are broken out in the pie chart below and confirm that 28mm dominated the painting output.

Raw output can be skewed by scale so I took the scoring from Analog Hobbies Painting Challenge and applied these criteria to my own painting output.

After adjusting for scale-points, the Punic Wars projects fall from first to second with the Reconquista project taking top place.  Adding in the 6mm Ancients did bump the Reconquista project down in the rankings.  

To provide a better understanding of painting effort over time, Curt's figure scoring mechanism is brought into the analysis mix.  Since I have maintained a painting log for a number of years, I extended my annual painting totals to produce the charts below.  Again, these charts show adjusted painting totals by ERA and SCALE from 1995 through 2013.  With these adjustments, 2013 was my best year ever! 

Notice how a focus on painting 28mm figures affected adjusted output.  I guess if one wants to maximize painting points, paint 28s!  By producing both of these graphics, I can tell at a glance where my efforts have been focused over the years.  Each project tends to have a unique life cycle ebbing and flowing as either interest increases or wains and as projects are finished or left to languish.  For example, the SYW project finished as the leading project in years 2008 - 2011 only to fall to no higher than fourth in ranking in 2012.  In 2013, the 28mm Reconquista project dominated with 1,345 points while the 28mm Punic Wars project came in with 959.  The 28mm AWI project also did well (830 points) given my early push to field figures for a planned game.

Did I stick to my 2013 project plans?  What is in store for 2014?  Stay tuned.