Blog Update: The State of the Blog & A Huge Thank You!

Mid-Year Check-in: The State of the Blog & A Huge Thank You!

Welcome back to A Load of Old Toby!

Between working through the 10mm Mordor Host, wrapping up the 12-part Empire series, and painting up Dwarven Kingdom, I took a look under the hood at the blog's back end stats today. I was genuinely blown away by how much this little corner of the internet has grown, so I wanted to share a quick update and say a proper thank you.

Some Gretchen that I painted a while ago.

📊 A Quick Look at the Numbers & Growth

• 9.4k+ Total Views: We've officially crossed 9,430 total views and fact approaching 10k! Looking at the trajectory, the blog went from averaging around 200–300 views a month early last year to breaking 1,000+ views a month recently. I just wanted to say thank you to you all, its truly mind blowing.
  
  
• 126 Comments: A special thank you to everyone who takes the time to leave feedback, share painting tips, or just chat about Middle-earth and Old World lore with me. It makes the hobby grind infinitely more rewarding, and the special few I interact with feel like real friends.
  
  
• A Global Hobby Desk: While the bulk of the readers are tuning in from the United States (1.97k) and the United Kingdom (1.9k), we’ve got regular visitors coming in from Singapore (856), Hong Kong (803), Germany (707), and beyond! 
  
  
• The Bluesky Effect: Huge shout-out to the community over on Bluesky (@freexerjin.bsky.social). You folks are officially the top named referral driver bringing new eyes to these posts! That might be because I have set this Blog up to work that way, but still worth pointing out it works. 

🖌️ What's Next?

Seeing this kind of steady growth is a massive shot in the arm for motivation. The desk is currently cluttered with more plastic, resin, and lead, and I’ve got plenty more updates, unit breakdowns, and ramblings lined up. However, over the summer this year I did promise myself a little painting break, so apologies if there isn’t as much activity as normal I will be back soon.....promise!

Whether you've been here since the early days or just stumbled across the blog from a search engine or social link, thanks for following along on this journey.

Back to the painting handle! What are you all currently working on? Drop a comment below!

Super Close up of some ACW Perry Confederates I am working on.