Best laid plans of Wee Sleekit, Cowrin, Tim'rous Beasties and Short People

Mulligan, Schmulligan

So December began with a plan, an easy one to reach the 200 points of necessary dwarfs. I had done 16 of the Clansmen for November so merely finishing that unit would get me past the 200. I had time off from the 22nd, what could go wrong?

I had assumed that I'd get about half the unit finished before Christmas and the remainder after that.

So here is a list of things not to do instead of painting 12 dwarfs, a musician and a standard bearer:

1) Reorganize your workspace completely, adding table space and redoing all the shelves. Necessary, and very useful, but took too long,

2) Decide that the dragon that you dropped in November needed to be fixed and put on a more stable base first. Necessary before any bits got lost, and the fact that a dragon stole time from the dwarfs is symbolic.

Can I claim him as an Emperor Dragon?

3) Change plans. Deciding that I was short of time and that the artillery might be a better investment points wise was a good idea, unfortunately I didn't check it's point value, only 108, not the closer to 200 that I had in mind when I started it. I also then decided the initial colour scheme was a bad one, needs redoing.

4) Decide that taking and processing 450 shots of miniatures and publishing them on the web won't take long. 

5) Curse the Republicans for changing the tax laws. Realize that charitable donations needed to sorted in 2017. Spend a day driving round to donate a recent dining room table and eight chairs being told that they only take perfect chairs without scratches. Doesn't anybody recover anything these days?

6) Get sick. Never recommended, but wasting two days basically lying around doing no painting didn't help.

7) Change plans twice more. Given that I needed at least 8 dwarfs to go with the "stone thrower" and I had 4 done, bar the shouting... decide to do the General for 197 points and cheat (in my mind) by claiming that as a month's work. I then spent too long deciding which guy would be the best General (front left) only realizing too late that I had already done him last month. Think that a female General would be fun (front centre), and would annoy a few people, but then having finished her, decide she was too plain to be the General, even with a  puritanical back story. Pick another model (front right) and do that, then realize that his shield boss had been cut off and it would take too long to fabricate another before dinner on New Years Eve.

At least I have a heads start of January, February and some of March.