Another “milestone” was achieved and so Wieselhead.de celebrates it’s third anniversary of being an a lively and passionate bishoujo figure blog. The blog started back in May 13th 2010.
In this anniversary post I want to talk about the third year of blogging, I’ll take look back to certain posts, happenings and changings concerning my blog. Lets start with a few numbers.
In year 3 I created over a thousand 52 Post (56 in year two)
12 anime related posts (18 in year two)
26 figure review posts (23 in year two)
7 pre-order posts
7 posts related to other topics
I remember some funny things of the year, like the Stocking review, where I seemed to be the only one who liked her XD. The post where I reviewed Yukio Okumura a male figure, which was rather odd on a blog mainly known for boobs and moe. The day where I was asked out of left field by a fellow blogger to take over his figure order, it was a nice occasion since it brought me the adorable Menma from ALTER, which I probably hadn’t bought out of own impulse. I also liked my reviews of the old Saber Maid and the so much better new Saber Maid R.
Aside from figure and anime reviews I also had fun in the Anime Interrogation Game, where my very valued fellow blogger Hoshiko invited me to. It was a quite interesting experience.
Figures
Figures are obviously quite important, since they are the topic and main attraction of this blog. In this 12 months time period I received exceptional great review material, the majority consist of new figures, but I also received older ones. It’s difficult to choose a most favorite figure or a certain review that I had most fun with, but the following ones are among my favorites.
I made a little (my first) video about the figure reviews of the 3rd year, best quality at 720p.
The music is cool, but might be not everyones taste, please deal with it. :p
be thankful that I haven’t chosen the Figumate Gunchacha Kyu song.
httpvh://youtu.be/GkIe7CU-yB4
Anime Reviews
I always liked it, but also had a few problems with writing anime reviews in the first years, but in this year I felt more convinced in my writing and had even more fun with writing about the shows I’ve enjoyed or in case of Eureka Seven Ao felt totally frustrated in the end.
Thanks to the people
At first, thanks to every single person who visits or even comments on Wieselhead.de, Im very happy about that. Of course, special thanks to the people that go the extra mile and comment in a very regular manner like feal87, hoshiko, Kai, Bakayaro, Nopy, Adam, Aya, Fabrice, G.K. Sil Kamina, Tier senpai and Miette. Especially I want to thank, the, beautiful talented blogger and photographer, one of the masterminds of Otagamers, the busily figma friend, Dollfie owner and fellow Takamachi Nanoha fan, the inhabitant of the desert, Miette-chan. The one who always listens to my “exciting” figure adventures and whining about the downfall of blog culture.
Hmmm…
not many blogs survive or can produce regular content over such a long time, exspecially running a regular figure blog takes a lot of passion, the pictures doesn’t appear out of thin air and ideas have to come in mind. Writing the text also is always something challenging for me.
My blogsphere changed quite a bit in this recent time I have to say. Be it motivation, a new way of living or other personal reasons, it’s natural for people to change and blogs will go on hiatus or in worst case die. However it is nice to see the missed people back with a post once in a while.
I told this to no one, but actually I thought about quitting this little free time activity of mine a few times this year, but don’t worry I love to run this blog too much to stop. In the first place, Im blogging for myself since it’s an activity I enjoy. Taking pictures, writing text filled with the things I want to say and the exchange with other people from around the world, it’s great!
New Theme
Finally, Finally! After years of searching I found a new theme for my blog, that allowed me to finally say good by to Photocrati which really wasn’t the right choice back then. The new theme is called Paula, ( like my dog ^^). It is actually more or less what I was searching for. I love it’s modern look with the sliders, sidebars and I find the overall appearance appealing. It also offers a lot of options. So far I haven’t edited all post to match the new layout, but Im working on it.
Stats
The new theme doesn’t support Jetpack’s Stats, so stats were a real mess and pain to measure.
In the end of December I tested the new theme and Jetpack ceased working, from then to February I tried several stats plugins Statpress reloaded among others, but I didn’t like the design. Now Im using StatCounter Stats which is a bit friendlier than this Google Analytics that Im running casually. If I calculate the Jetpack stats and the ones from the other measured data, my all time stats should be around 190.700 visits.
further goals
Two goals were still unreached in the last year like [ ] finding a better looking wordpress theme and [ ] Improving my html and css skills. The theme has been found, but I guess Improving my html and css skills is hopeless, I’m too lazy to invest much time in it anyway XD That aside I should purchase the goal to edit all old post to match the new layout.
Thanks for your attention and stay tuned for more reviews and stuff to come…
Kaetemi
gz on the three years 🙂
wieselhead
thank you 😀
super rats
Three full years of posting. Excellent!
Editing old posts to match new themes isn’t fun at all…don’t look at your old posts!
wieselhead
Hehe, thank you very much.
I know, but I can’t let it be like that, I already edited around half of the old posts XD
Miette-chan
Wait what? Only three years, you sure about that? You sure did a lot of stuff this past year. My favorite photo shoots were Hibari, the Saber Maids and Noel. You just reminded me, I want Neol so badly! Maybe next time I get a job I will just drop the cash for it. I actually considered using that song for my video but felt Kimi ni, Mune Kyun was just too perfect. Anyways, that was a pretty neat video.
Man, exilhero was right that description does make me sound so self centered and narcissistic… But whatever, I do to enjoy our chats quite a bit.
Funny thing you mentioned about quitting… I have asked myself that question before, when will I stop blogging? My answer ended up being when everyone else does, meaning my figure blogging friends. That ended up turning into whenever Fab does, since I always thought you will be the least likely to stop.
You new theme is nice, works out pretty well, the only thing that bugs me is the comments eating up the line spaces. Perfect little thing to flex your HTML and CSS!
wieselhead
Yes, from 2010 – 2013. Haha it was fun, everything of it ^^
Ah I see, yeah Hibari is a fantasic figure, I became quite the Phat Company fan, now.
They have a number of promising prototypes at the moment. Haha the whole Saber Maid story was fun, buying the more or less same figure within some weeks,
but Im glad to have ordered the R version. Noel is very cool, one of Amakuni’s best works so far. If I ever feel like selling her, you can have her for cheap.
You already gave Misaka a nice home and even got a sister for her, good to see her in good hands.
Thx a lot, I felt a bit embarrased about it actually, at least I could train a bit with flash ^^
Really? I can change it if you want, but you had a chance Xp Me too, me too miette =)
Lol now you put me under pressure, but somehow it sounds like a nice promise.
Ah yeah, that really sucks, I’ll look into it.
Thats beyond my skills XD
Nopy
Congrats on reaching your third anniversary. It’s great to hear that you’re still going to stick with blogging, I look forward to seeing some more of your figure reviews, especially since I have to cut back on my own figure buying.
wieselhead
Thank you, Nopy. Yeah I just enjoy it so much and looking at this blog, even though it’s not perfect, makes me proud.
In the year I will get more nice review material. Im a bit sorry to hear that, Im sure other times will come again for you.
Bakayaro
Herzlichen Glückwunsch!
Ich respektiere deine Zeit und Liebe die du in deine Reviews investierst und muss daher eher dir danken. Ist immer toll vorbeizuschauen und neue Fotos betrachten zu können. Ich hoffe, dass dies auch lange so weitergehen wird. So ein Hobby löst sich schließlich auch nicht einfach in Luft auf. Also weiter so! ^^
Achja, Bakayaro.de wird Ende des Monats 2 junge Jahre alt =D
wieselhead
Dankeschön
Naja, wenns spass macht kann man da auch etwas Zeit investieren 😀
Hehe danke, das ist ja immer schön zu hören. Ja hoffentlich, genug Material ist zumindest vorhanden.
Och schon 2 Jahre, das ist schön, du hast einen sehr schönen deutschsprachigen Figuren Blog,
es freut mich das du so aktiv bist und viel Freude an dem Hobby hast ^^
Nightmare
Happy anniversary Wieselman. I think the key to longevity in running your own site is something you mentioned in this post, that the driving factor is to do it for yourself and not for others. Sharing your work and interacting with others is a great bonus to that primary goal. I do feel that forcing yourself to produce content solely to please others will take away the fun in the long run and start chipping away at why you started the site in the first place.
wieselhead
thank you, Nightmare.
Ahaha thx I thought it was weird to write something like this, but I guess it is true nevertheless, thx for your appreciated feedback 🙂
It seems to happen to a number of blogs that they lose the mood to create regular content.
Tier
Happy year three birthday! It’s a rare thing to make it to the third year when you produce all of your own content – particularly when it seems like a lot of your peers lose interest in running their websites (or in collecting figures). There have been a couple of times where I looked around and was like, “Where the hell is everyone?”
Your website is one I always enjoy reading. Your posts are always thorough and frank when you describe figures, and often humorous, too. When I skim through the comments for figures on Tsuki-board, it’s not always a fun experience, but your website is always fun to read. Good luck with year #4!
wieselhead
Thank you very much Tier, you have been my support at the time as blogging showed it ugly sides for a few months.
That has been a rather rough experience that people went on hiartus or turned their back at me. Well, nothing last forever, but stilll it’s no nice experience, finding new peers became a lot more difficult as well. Some just don’t care about comments and some never bother to reply. I find myself commenting whenever I like the content, but I now know when it makes no sense, well not always XD
Oh thank you, Im happy to hear that from you. I do my best, even though I sometimes think that I should write less.
Yeah sometimes I can’t identify myself with the views of other collectors on Tsuki, or find no interest in long discussion about figure boob sizes or stupid kiddy ranting and the likes.
Thanks senpain, please keep it up as well ^^
Luth
Congrats on your anniversary! That’s a big achievement, especially since you managed to crank out 52 quality posts, thats pretty much 1 a week! Thanks for the good reads (I should comment more often!) and looking forward to another great year for wieselhead.de
wieselhead
Hey thank you. Some weeks I did nothing and weeks where I managed to write more in one week.
Thanks for reading, haha it’s up to you, but I like reading your comments.
Jup, lots of good stuff is coming in summer 😀
Pinkcheeks
Congrats on your 3rd year as being one of the most awesome toy photogs on the planet! Cheers to Toy Photography my friend! 🙂
wieselhead
hi there and thank you a lot. Aww thats so nice of you, it’s the first time I was praised like that.
Thank you again ^^
Aya
Happy 3rd anniversary, I thought it’s been 5 years already lol
wieselhead
Thank you Aya ^^
haha 5 years that would be funny, maybe I can make it happen
hoshiko
No no no!! Don’t quit! >.<
It's good that you said that you're blogging for yourself and that you're enjoying the process. I think that's the best way for a blog to keep on continuing.
Sorry this comes quite late! But CONGRATULATIONS!! Keep on rockin'
wieselhead
Ok, ok I won’t XD
Yeah it’s a lot of fun for me and I think everybody should do what is fun for one, without feeling the need to met the expectations of others.
sorry for the late reply, vacation preparations kept me occupied and 1300km can be quite exhausting.
Thank you very, your one of my most dearest readers and commenters ^_^
Kai
A belated congrats from me :p It’s nice to see that you’re still going strong with blogging. Figures reviews are indeed quite tough to come by, especially for blogs specialized in them. I had to cut down my figures purchasing a lot more so I hope you will still spread your figures collecting hobby^^
wieselhead
Thanks, yes it became an important and lovely hobby for me.
Yes sometimes it’s challenging to deliver text and pictures on time, finding the right words is the most difficult thing.
Ah thats a pity, at some points space for collecting things is limited, either you sell old stuff or have a cellar.
I’ll do my best.
feal87
Congratulation! You’re getting old man! *_*
wieselhead
Thank you.
Thats true, but on the good side you are also getting old XD
Fabrice
Heyo wiselhead, first i want to apologise, cant believe I missed out but I do want to congratulate you on another wonderful milestone, Its good to see this because this last 1-2 years we have seen a sudden change in the blogpshere, unfortunately more and more bloggers have decided to call it quits which is sad because It feels the community is getting smaller. One of the biggest swift was to facebook groups, twitter and figure.fm.
I hope this changes and we see more and more blogs coming up.
I happy to have visited here i think it was back in early 2010? Im not sure exactly but i think that was the time because I remember you being one of my early followers on my blog too ^^
What i remember was that I came here through the aggrevator of myfigurecollection, Saw you were doing figure reviews and since I was just starting collecting them I thought to have a visit and well ive been a visitor since then lol
You have a wonderful blog, what makes me in awe is your photography abilities, your creativity is something to be proud of and you pictures always makes it more interesting that the normal. Thats what makes you special imo and also how interactive you are with your followers. Thats a great thing and no wonder you have good stats (man that is 4 times mine! wow!)
I hope to see more of your reviews, actually im going to look at one now which is Kanbaru ^^
Keep up the good work, and if ever you need help with your blog design, let me know Im soon done with uni and will have finally some time in hand XD
wieselhead
No, problem my busy buddy, I know your short on time, but it’s always nice that you visit from time to time.
Yeah indeed, these are also comfortable ways to spread your opinion and media, but while using Twitter, Flickr and figure.fm.
I prefer to have something own and not depending alone on a third party web service.
Sometimes it feels like nothing new is coming, but I recently found some interesting blogs around figures.
Yeah it was around that time, oh I thought I arrived pretty late 😀
Thats nice to hear, it’s always nice to remember the times where I started blogging and it remids me why Im still doing it with passion.
Ohh such kind words you make me all blush (๑>ᴗ<๑). Yeah I love commenting on the blogs I enjoy. When commenting on blogs I just noticed, it's funny when it turns that they already know me, someone called me "Oh it's Cesar! XD Really!? I thought you had a million hits more with your variety of contents. Yes, as soon as I sorted my holiday impressions, Im back to business with a ton of figure rviews 😉 Thx and you too, the days of uni slavery are over soon, congrats buddy ^^