Choosing a new project ?

[warrenpeace]

Deedles, you must like desert if you're just finishing up Sudan and are thinking of doing a French Foreign Legion project next. Perhaps you live in a cold wet place and are dreaming of a dry place where the sun always shines. And you don't even have to stop with deserts on earth, as some of those fine VSF Mars threads show. I comment on that because a project that leads to imagining things we want to imagine is important.

I'm often influenced by what other's in my group of friends are doing because I like to work on projects as a team. Miniatures is a social thing for me. That got me deep into War of Spanish Succession and some other topics.

But when I'm working on my own thing I'm inspired by jungle and by the pulp literature that I read as a teen. So pulp scenarios set in the Congo, the Amazon, Central America, New Guinea, and French Indochina appeal to me. Darkest Africa is major for me. Too much Tarzan & Sheena when I was a kid I think. And the tropics impressed when I was a young sailor in the US Navy. Jungle is much harder to do in terms of terrain than desert. Fortunately I've got a friend who already has three boxes of jungle trees. And pulp as a topic means that I'm always on the lookout for airplanes, boats, and vehicles from the 1910's, 20's, and 30's. Those things are fun to collect.

Movies matter. The Sand Pebbles is a particular inspiration. Want to work on some Yangtze gunboat scenarios. Pulp Figures Chinese, US sailors and Marines, Foundry Chinese from the pirate range, Copplestone Chinese warlord troops, and ship guns and fittings from Reviresco make the Yangtze gunboat topic a very doable project.

On the other hand, one can get interested in a topic and then lose interest, as I did with pirates from the 1640's through the 1720's. Hopefully Black Sails and another friend who is interested in pirates will get me back into it.

Good luck with your next project!