As 2025 comes to a close, the year when I finally achieved some bucket list dreams (including the decade-long dream of becoming a peer-reviewed, published author) I think back on what has been an unusually creative year for me in the words of an infamous cartoon pufferfish: “Are we ready for that extra credit? That’s the spirit. All you have to do to earn the extra credit, pass the class, and never come anywhere near this school again, is write a ten-word sentence on what you’ve learned in boating school! Here, I’ll help you get started. ‘What I learned in boating school is…’ There! That’s seven words, only three more!” In shorter form, I find myself asking: What did I learn in boating school this year? What sort of things did I create, what did I come up short on, and what do I intend to take with me going into a wild new 2026?

On a purely academic front I think I need to read more. I think I need to get back to some basics and bedrock with respect to historiography, Indigenous history in Canada and Newfoundland specifically, and I also want to re-familiarize myself with a lot of classics and primary works. I read through a lot of Edward Said, T.J. Jackson Lears and Franz Fanon earlier in the year and I’d like to try and dive back in a little more to authors like Thomas King, Sherman Alexie, and one of Tanya Talaga’s books have caught my eye. But that’s not why we’re here, so much as the miniatures – or, at least, that’s why I’m here. I just felt like if I was going to use the boating school analogy it would be remiss of me not to bring at least a little of the book-smarts into it.

2025 was a year where I had the privilege to achieve a lot of things that I don’t think I would have been able to in a normal year. I was laid off at the end of March from a government job I’d been working in for the last four years, and spent the following six months or so scrambling to attain employment. The job market is a mess right now, but so despite putting out a lot of applications and doing a lot of leg work there I also found myself with a good chunk of downtime while I waited for new postings and between stages of different hiring processes. The first order of business was bringing a project to life that me and my partner XenonMage / BrittneyStucklessArt (psst, follow her on Instagram!) had thrown around conceptually for ages – the idea of an Aeldari Genestealer cult. Not just a cult, but one where the Aeldari were willingly cooperating symbiotically with the Tyranid hive mind in order to shield themselves from Chaos by way of the Shadow of the Warp. Lore-accurate? Definitely not. But it makes an outstanding excuse for us to get to work and play and grow on the same team, which becomes more important to me as I get older and (hopefully) a little more grounded and wise, both on and off the tabletop.

This year wouldn’t have been nearly as singular an experience as it was if it was just a paint-heavy year where I took a lot of pictures of things in the lightbox and called it a day. I got to do some fantastic outdoor photography work with Amanda Sproule Photography for the Aeldari Genestealer army I completed, the tongue-in-cheek named Path of the Star. I got to play a fantastic array of Warhammer 40K and One Page Rules games, and a new friend is going to try and get me into Kill Team in the new year if all goes well. I got to play a rematch with my friend Kevin and his Blood Angels at a local FLGS event, and got to play a ton of games with KinpatsuSamurai, who always builds the best tables. The man outdoes himself constantly on terrain and now that he owns a 3D printer I fear that there may be no limit to his power. I’ve started getting more involved with occasional, friendly games with new friends locally and it’s been a great time. I still haven’t won in year, but I’m having a lot of fun, and I think that’s the most important thing.

This brings me to the other big project I took this year: a demo army of World Eaters previously gifted to me by the pre-eminent Brent Slade, an ace photographer and well-known part of the Avalon Expo and Atlanti-Con convention experiences out here in Corner Brook and St. John’s, as well as several other cons throughout the province. Brent has been a friend for more than a decade and I’ve been trying to pay his gift forward. This army has started to make the rounds at Sandbox Gaming events and at local conventions where I’ve started to demo Warhammer 40K and One Page Rules as tabletop games in a community-based setting where I get to meet new people, play some great games, and sometimes it helps out local charities too, as in the example of the Sandbox Gaming carnivals. (I’m planning a fun new workshop for the carnival we’re running in February, so I have that on my plate in the new year at least!)

So, where does that leave me going into 2026? Well, while I know that for a lot of folks this year has been an ugly one (and it’s certainly had its challenges for me), 2025 was a year I think I’ll look back on fondly and that will be hard to top. I think the first thing I’m going to be doing is more real-life engagement, whether playing games with friends, attending cons with XenonMage, or doing more charity-benefitting events like the workshops I’ve done with Sandbox Gaming. I also (finally) want to get the Blood Ravens done that have been sitting on the bench forever, and alongside a Kill Team of those I want to made a full Blades of Khaine roster for Kill Team. (Anyone surprised?) A friend who plays Thousand Sons also helped me finesse my way into some very nice Eldar proxy and Slaanesh sculpts that I want to try and work on in the new year, and XenonMage got me some very nice Fire Dragons for Christmas that are also near the top of my list. And remember how I mentioned KinpatsuSamurai being unstoppable with a 3D printer? Yeah, that’s come to come back to haunt us all. (Stay tuned.)

I know it’s going to be a year where I have a little less time on my hands and a little less freedom to work on what I want, but I’m optimistic about 2026 on a bunch of fronts all the same and I hope I can keep up some of the momentum I’ve built in the last few years, especially this one. There’s gonna be one more fun little treat to cap off the year that I’m hoping to post tomorrow, but after that I’m looking to dive into a fresh new year to keep building, and painting, and growing. I’m looking forward to the new year, and I wish a very merry and Happy New Year to all of you and yours! Thank you for reading this and coming along for the ride.