 Hello, everybody, and welcome to another hobby-cheating video. Today is going to be a little different, as this is New Year's Eve. I thought it was time we look back over the year and look forward to 2023. So, let's get into it. Let's strict techno-mancer that is Vinci V. Let us get to the technique and learn it Vinci V style. As I said, this week will be a little different. I hope you'll forgive me for not directly teaching any particular technique or painting thing today. Instead, as it's the end of the year, I'm looking back over what progress we've made as a channel, what I've done as a painter, and really just where I am and where I want to go and where I hope all of you will go with me. This has been a really fun year. I started off this year talking about how change was coming to the channel. And I think we've done that. And I'm going to talk about a lot of it today. So let's just jump right in and start talking about some things. The first thing I want to talk about today is the projects I've done this year. This has been really a pretty intense year of painting. A whole lot of stuff got painted. And that's great. A couple armies hit the table and or got finished. Lots of individual figures for competition and just a lot of stuff that was really, really fun. Some things are just one-offs. So some of the projects that I'm most excited for from this year, I got a chance to participate with GW in the Horus Heresy launch event and got to paint up an entire Alpha Legion army. This was a really fun project. I did a video on it. I've always thought they were the coolest. Like I just I love the their duplicitous nature. And so being able to do a whole army and then ship it over and have it, well, at Warhammer World for some amount of time, even though it was late showing up was awesome. I loved the event. I love getting to hang out with everyone else and I really loved the chance to paint this particular army. This year also saw me doing some really fun projects, especially with my storm cast. I finished up several of the storm cast minis over the course of this year and managed to get my whole army on the table, bringing them to a couple tournaments and winning multiple best painted awards for them, which I was really, really proud of and honored to be given. It was such a fun thing to bring the rat cast to life, to bring Skig's army to the table and to play it in so many different events. Really just an absolute great, great time that I had a lot of fun with. I also got to paint with oils in different mediums a lot this year, doing fun things like painting new Skaven, painting a new big vermin lord model. It's just been a lot of different projects. I got to work on a big custom kit bashed giant for my sons of Vamod army. That guy was at the end of the year and man, was he a great time. So overall, there was just a lot of fun projects this year. I'll scroll a couple more here at the end as I'm just kind of talking, but the most important thing that I learned this year in my painting was that I need to keep alternating between different styles of projects. I hope this is something that you can take away from this video. I found what motivates me, what keeps me painting and what keeps me really enthused is when I'm doing different kinds of projects. Whether it's doing a fun one-off just to put in the cabinet, something to let me experiment and to take all the stress away that's not part of an army, whether it's a single display piece that I'm trying to take to the highest levels for competition, or whether it's just speed painting a bunch of stuff to see if I can get it on the table. Actually intermixing all of those different projects, I found very rewarding. And I will say it's helped fill up the cabinet, so I guess that's something and it has helped kill out some of the pile of shame or pile of opportunity depending on how you look at it. This way this year was a sort of mixed bag for awards, speaking of competition. I walked away with three commended entries at Golden Demon, but sadly didn't win any demons such as life that happens. No big deal. We'll come back ready and rare in next year with I hope some really strong pieces, but as always we'll see what happens. I was super honored to take Best in Show at GenCon as part of the MAG event. So that was incredible, really, really wonderful. Lynn ran an absolutely amazing show and actually I took multiple first places with those as well as Best in Show. That was just incredibly rewarding. Nova was also some, was also just a really, I'd say honestly vindicating experience. I don't know how else to say it, because my knight, my renegade knight that I had worked really hard on that didn't quite do as well as I hoped in Golden Demon did end up taking Best Vehicle in the Masters category there and I was really honored as part of that. So that was just an incredibly fulfilling experience. It was awesome to be there to judge that event. I got to judge the apprentice category and for the first time in my life I got to hand out awards to people to give people their medals and it was a transformative experience. It was honestly life-changing. I've never experienced something I felt more rewarded by and I can't wait to do it again next year. To be able to show people, you know, to hand them this physical token, this trophy, this medal and say, you did well. This is great. Keep up the good work and watch their eyes light up and to watch them smile and to know that they're going to keep painting and that they feel rewarded and vindicated for the hours they put into that piece and to be on the other side of that, to be able to sort of take any small part in that joy I just can't explain how life-changing and revelatory and wonderful it was. I want to do that every year from now on for the rest of my life. Like it was just wonderful and judging like that is such a responsibility and something I take so seriously, but it is such a joyous one. Number two, let's talk about the channel. Back at the beginning of the year, I said change was coming and boy, howdy has it. I'd like to think over the course of the year, I've actually learned how to use the camera I record on, at least to some degree. I'm getting better with it. There's still a lot more to learn. I fixed lighting. I fixed sort of how I shoot the models. I've changed sort of what I shoot in. Now, you know, I'm like shooting in a proper distance with proper light, shooting in 4K, all of that, figured out how to better balance out my audio and actually record the miniatures that I'm painting so that you all can see what the heck I'm doing. Boy, what a novel concept to discover like 300 videos into your channel, huh? But it's going to continue to be a focus for me in 2023. I want you all to know that. I want to continue making this channel better, producing higher quality content that takes you on the path of becoming a better miniature painter in whatever way that, in whatever way that means to you, right? Whatever your next step is on your hobby journey, I want to help take you there. Now, I'm never going to have the quality of videos or the fun that, you know, Ninjon or Minniac or people like that have. I love their stuff and they're incredibly good at making videos. That's just not me. I'm going to always be probably the more boring college professor type that's just here to teach you something. I hope to have some fun along the way, but I hope that you enjoy at least putting out the higher quality stuff and I'm going to keep pushing that. Over the course of next year, we're going to try to go to higher and higher quality stuff so you really get the full experience and can always see what's going on as best as possible in every video I make. So I'm really focused in on that like a laser. I hope you've seen the progress so far. There's more to come next year. I've also tried to expand some content this year, bringing back some interviews with the artists where I can and bringing back additional product reviews. Those as well are going to continue. Now, mixing up that other content, I don't, I won't always have time for it. It won't be regular. I'd love to say I can put out reviews on a regular schedule or that every X day I'll have an interview with the artist. But the reality is with the extra time put into hobby cheating and plus expanding out and doing other things, especially around snarling badger and publishing games. We put out Space Station Zero this year, which again, not really what this is about, but I was thrilled to put out that game and there's going to be more to come as we keep making new games. You know, working on all of those has meant that that takes up a lot more time and I just have less time to do these other videos. But every chance I get, I will be doing more reviews. I think reviews are incredibly useful. I use a lot of hobby products. I'm addicted to trying new tools, new paints, new things. So I'm always going to be bringing you additional reviews as much as I can on the channel. Number three, Patreon. Obviously, I mentioned at the end of every video and have since March when it launched, but I just want to start by saying thank you to all my patrons. You all are amazing. You all keep me going. I love seeing what all of you paint. It's incredible. Being in the Discord, watching people share their hobby, being able to give people real time feedback on what they're working on and help them through a project is one of the most rewarding things I do in my life. I so look forward to when people share photos and I get to then give some advice and then they share the photos again I watch the growth. I see the improvement. It's incredibly awesome. So thank you to all the patrons who've supported the channel. I want to do more with the Patreon next year. If I can expand out the one-on-one coaching next year, depending on the time I have, based on something I'm going to talk about in just a moment, I will. So if there is more slots, if I can in any way make more time on my schedule for teaching, which is another thing drawing me away from making other videos, I will absolutely do so. Hey, I mean, look, who needs sleep, right? You got plenty of time for that when you're dead. Let's get on to talking about more miniatures and doing more hobby and painting more. That's what's important. So I will absolutely be trying to do more through there. But thank you so much to all the patrons who've supported so far. If you want to join this Patreon, as I said, focused on review and feedback and taking your next step, links down below. So what's coming next year? Well, 2023, as I mentioned already, we're going to try to keep the progress on quality going. I'm going to be pushing that as much as I possibly can with the time and budget I have allotted. Certainly, I try to reinvest a lot of stuff from like Patreon and those kinds of places into the channel. But we're going to keep pushing on all of that. As well, 2023 should finally herald the return of more teaching and traveling for teaching. I'm looking forward to getting back on the road some next year. Obviously, I will be teaching at all the big conventions here in the U.S., other than LVO. Sadly, can't make it after that one in January, but I'll be at GenCon, I'll be at AdeptCon, I'll be at Nova again. So I will be teaching there. I'm looking at how I can get over to Warhammer Fest to have a class down in London sometime around Fest. So look for more updates on that real soon. I'm just really excited to get back out there, get back on the road, go some places, visit some game stores, teach some big classes. It's a lot of fun. It's great to meet everybody, to sit down for two days, and to just talk hobby and paint. Like, there are a few more rewarding things in life. So I'm looking forward to that coming back. And as I mentioned, I will try to expand the 101 coaching. So even if you don't happen to live in the U.S. or a place where I can teach, hopefully you have more options to learn one-on-one with me in some way. So that's me looking back at 2022 and what's coming for 2023. In the end, I never really do actual resolutions. That is to say, I don't write out a list and think to myself, these are the four things I want to accomplish and do or not do. Instead, I like to think of it as just constant growth, something I'm always focused on. Whether it's in my hobby and my painting and improving that, whether it's in the video content and the production for this channel, the books I write with Adam and that we publish through Snarling Badger, whatever it is, I look at life as a chance to constantly grow, to learn, and then hopefully to share it with others. That is truly what I find rewarding in life and why I do this. So thank you so much for watching this channel. We're on the road to 100,000. So I really hope we can get there this year. It's a big milestone. I've been at this for a while now at almost 400 hobby-cheating videos, just hundreds of years, like eight, nine years of, it's gonna be nine years here soon, of Warhammer Weekly never missing an episode. I take this all really seriously. And I do that because I value your time. If you're gonna spend the time to watch my channel, I want to try to deliver to you something entertaining, something interesting, and hopefully something you can learn from. So I hope you continue on with me on the hobby journey. If you haven't subscribed already, please do so. Hit like so more people can see this and hopefully join us for all the wonderful things that are gonna be coming in 2023. If you've got any questions, and most importantly, if you've got things you wanna see on the channel next year, drop those down below. I want to hear from you. What do you want me to put on the channel in 2023? What are the hobby cheating lessons you wanna see? What other videos would you wanna see? What do you wanna see improved? Or what do you want me to stop doing? Anything like that. Please share, comment, tell me what you want because that really does. Your voice reigns supreme in the content I make. So please don't hesitate to give me that feedback because it's only gonna help me produce the best possible content for you next year. But as always, thank you so much for watching this. I really appreciate it. Don't forget you can join the Patreon down below. But as always, we'll see you next time.