Wednesday, January 22nd 2014, marked four months of operations here at the League of Underwhelming Miniature Painters (LUMP).  I hope we’re able to continue for many more months and years.  I want to reflect briefly on what we’ve done in the past two months and where we’re headed.  First, if you’re reading this, thank you for taking a few minutes to read our articles.  I hope you get something out of them because without an audience we’re not accomplishing much.  Second, we would appreciate any feedback you have.  If there is something you want to see more of, or just see, please let us know and we’ll do what we can to bring you new content.

While I actually opened the blog on September 1st, 2013 our first content didn’t hit until the 22nd.  We continue to see a general upward trend in page views and users.  However, the single biggest source of traffic has been Faeit 212 (natfka.blogspot.com) and our biggest content has been the occasional rumors.  Once we were added to Gary’s blog roll we started to see some real traffic.  It continues to be exciting to see new views and to see our reach expand from just our local community in Elk Grove/Sacramento across the world.  We now have had views from over 36 countries, up from about 10 countries two months ago.  We’ve kept a pretty steady pace of publication, doubling our post count from 18 to 36.  That continues to be about 1 article every 3 days.  Most of these tend to be updates on projects and relevant rumors, because they’re easier to produce, but we know that the articles that are more detailed receive more interest.  Our goal is to produce more in-depth articles, and we have a few ideas in the works:

• Product reviews
  • Alpha Abrasives – completed
  • Secret Objective Markers and Glyph of the Portal – completed
  • Vallejo Liquid Metallics – in process
  • Minitaire Air Brush Paints – in process
• Painting and Photography Tutorials
  • Simple Airbrushing – Screamers of Tzeentch
• Modelling Projects
  • Homemade Zone Mortallis Tiles – concept stage

The hobby aspect of miniatures gaming is, as always, a love-it or hate-it sort of thing.  We want everyone to love it, but that isn’t always fair or reasonable.

LUMP also has a Facebook page where, in addition to letting people know about new blog posts, we post links to cool articles and pictures from around the Interwebz.  You can find us there at: https://www.facebook.com/#!/Leagueofpainters.  If you like what you see, then like us on Facebook.  As of this article we’ve grown slowly from 53 to 61 likes.

Looking to the future, especially with a bulk of the year ahead of us, we will start listing out some painting and modeling goals.  Stephen has taken a writing hiatus.  I know he is working to finish some commission work and then plans to switch his focus over to his fantasy miniatures for a while in the new year.  Hopefully I can convince him to send along some finished pictures for the gallery, if nothing else.  You’ve also probably seen a new face at LUMP.  Erik Kenneally joined us about a month ago and has posted up a few articles, including a nice review on abrasive (sanding) products for prepping your miniatures.  Erik is local to Sacramento area as well and like myself a little older than the college crowd, but someone who refound the hobby after many years away.  Erik has also convinced me to join the Independent Characters Hobby Progress Challenge.  You can read more about the IC HPC here, and see Erik’s Death Wing army take share here, as well as the beginnings of my Tyranid Vanguard Infestation here.

This past week or two I decided to cull the herd.  My office was a wreck and my hobby desk (and my work desk) was overloaded with too much crap to allow me to get any real-time in at the workbench.  I realized I need to take stock of my models and my inventory and get rid of the product that I have not real plans for.  This left me with a pair of bookshelves full of models in various states from assembled to painted.  I have the following armies:

Warhammer 40K

• Chaos Daemons (primarily Tzeentch with some from each of the other gods)
• Chaos Space Marines (small allied detachment)
• Imperial Guard (a medium sized allied detachment)
• Space Wolves
• Ultra Marines (a small 1500 point early 5E starter army)
• Tyranids (a small 1500 point early 5E starter army)

Warhammer Fantasy

For reasons still unknown to myself I have both the makings of an Ogre and Wood Elf army.  I like the fantasy genre, but not the game mechanics.  I’ve decided not to make any progress on these, so I sold off all of the models still in boxes last week to make room.

As we move past the big football game and through the rest of winter we hope you get some hobbying done, play a few games with friends and tell them about LUMP!

– Pete and Erik