Year In Review: Figures Painted

When 2024 began, I laid out two goals on the painting front.  For the first goal, I planned to cut back on the number of figures painted from 2023's total of 1,015.  The New Year's goal was reduced down to a more leisurely pace of 750.  I missed that goal but in a good way by painting 959 figures.

For the second goal, I challenged myself to paint more figures than purchased. On reducing The Lead Pile goal, I actually surpassed my expectations.  I managed to paint 945 more figures than purchased in 2024.  While The Lead Pile still looms large and I hardly notice even a little dent in its size, good progress was accomplished.  Setting this goal really helped in curbing my impulse buys.  In 2024, I only bought about 100 figures.  Now, that is progress!

Looking back over the last 31 years that painting records have been tracked, the last three years suggest my painting has fallen into a predictable pattern.  That is, roughly 1,000 figures have been painted and Seven Years War has dominated work at the painting desk.  2024 saw a few more figure counts in other periods, however, broadening my scope.  Those details are examined later on.  For figures painted, one foot, one gun, and one cavalry figure each count as one.  No increased counts for horse and rider.   

Let's examine the 2024 figure counts in more detail.

Monthly Totals
As the chart below shows, much of 2024 averaged a monthly output of about 60 figures.  Without the two big spikes in productivity in June and August, I may have hit the 2024 goal of 750 noted above.  Production began to look up as the year closed out with 100+ figures painted in each of November and December.  January 2025 maintained this trend.  December saw only SYW figures mustering out from the painting desk.

Totals by Era and Scale
Switching from the monthly bar chart to a pie chart, the total effort given to the SYW project continued into 2024.  Nearly 36% (350) of all figures painted were in this period.  The FPW project fired up in 2024 with 212 figures painted.  Even Biblicals saw a renewed interest in 2024 with 169 figures painted!  All three of these projects were goals set up for 2024.

When the counts are broken out by figure size (scale), it is no surprise that the emphasis on painting 15/18mm SYW and FPW figures pushed the weight to that figure size.  The chart below illustrates that nearly 63% of all figures painted fall into the 15/18mm classification.  25/28mm was a distant second with 239 figures painted.

15/18mm SYW/WAS Project Still On Top

As noted in the 2024 goals, expanding the SYW/WAS collection was a top priority.  That priority was in mind throughout the year and it paid off.

The graphic below shows that six countries saw units mustering out from the painting desk.  Not only did the main objective of fielding more Spanish and British/Hanoverians pan out but Bavaria, France, and Genoa all added units to the project.  Spain saw the largest influx of new recruits at 139 figures.  Hanover came in second with 70 figures added.

The graphic below illustrates the composition of each of the slices in the pie chart shown above.  Notice that Genoa and Bavaria only saw infantry painted while France and Britain saw only cavalry painted.  Hanover and Spain saw both infantry and cavalry painted.  Curiously, no country saw any artillery fielded in 2024.

    

In summary, 2024 was a solid year at the painting desk.  I hope to build on these successes in 2025.