Old Stuff Day

Image created by Tamara "FirstKeeper"

Rob over at Warhammer 39,9999 has proposed an "Old Stuff Day" on March 2nd, which as it happens, is today. The idea being to dig up material from the past, dust it off, and display it again.

This is a great idea. A lot changes since the inception of our blogs, and as more people begin reading and following, they don't always go back and read all the old content. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to say a few words about some of my popular posts as well as revisit a few that started with the blog. To try and keep EVERYTHING I've ever posted relevant, I have created indexes at the main page - Steps, Techniques, Supplies and Musings.

I always like to start out with my Hobby Safety post, as it's a good primer for even advanced artists who aren't aware of some of the chemical properties and dangers in the things we work with. It was one of my very first posts when my foray into blogging was in it's infancy - and Ron slapped it right at the top of From the Warp's tutorial page. Many of my first readers found me through that link. (So says my stats)

I made the mistake of posting some musings early on - a young blog isn't the place when you're looking for feedback on things. I'm still interested in your thoughts on these topics, so please, clicky-read-share. The first was Art of Noise where I describe background noise/music/shows while hobbying and was hoping to hear from you as to what you like to do while in your hobby zone. Another was Picking Your Army, and I discuss reasons we pick our armies and ask why you picked yours. A little more obscure was also my questioning Does your army colour your view of 40k? Does it? Maybe - I'd need to hear back from more of you on this topic to see if I'm onto something, or if it's just how we interpret things in general.

For those who enjoy detailed tutorials, I had two very popular posts detailing how I painted an old Eldar Guardian, and another on turning a WarMachine character into a Dungeoneer. I also joined my first collaborative From the Warp post to talk about Photographing Your Minis. (also covering editing the photos and sending them) A lot of people also found my Following RSS Feeds post useful as it helps you consolidate all the sites you follow in a single place.

A brief post I'm particularly proud of was talking about my Eldar Harlequins, for the simple fact I love my idea and near as I can tell it's completely unique and not used anywhere else still - but perhaps it can act as inspiration to others.

Another helpful post, this time for the gamers, (An area I tend to stay out of and leave up to the pro-gamers) is Random Terrain Placement. A friend and I came up with these rules to cover our rather large 8'x4' table since we play drastically different armies. (Shooty Eldar vs Nids) Now we let fate build our table and it's always worked well for us, so you can too.

The post that really attracted a lot of attention for me, bringing new readers in from all over and being featured in many places was Bringing a New Style to the Hobby. (It flat out increased my readership 3-4x) In this, I talk about different styles that artists paint in and offer suggestions on diversifying the way our minis look. Even I need to return to this topic, and I will - when I have the time I want to experiment with creating some varied and unique looks.