It's the end of my first full year of writing here at Panel Lines, so I'm giving you a peak behind the scenes at my hits and misses.
HIT: Churchill AVRE Mk.IV
My Churchill is not only my most visited gallery by a large margin — well into four figures of unique visitors — but the most popular article of any type. Curiously, it has the shortest average reading time among my galleries: the KV-122 showcase is read for an average of nearly two minutes, or about three times as long as the Churchill. Nor has it garnered any comments, unlike the other galleries. Then again, it's not actually my favourite project: that's the KV-122.
MISS: M60 Magach Gal Batash
It’s not my biggest miss of the year by any stretch (we’ll get to those!) but in comparison to the Churchill and the KV-122, the Magach has tanked (pun intended) in terms of unique views. The average reading time is about what I’d expect, so the people who view it are interested enough; it’s just that there's not many of them.
HIT: Five Great 54mm Painters at Putty & Paint
This one caught me by surprise. I showcased my favourite 1/35th figure painters back in April 2025 and it pretty much bombed, with few views and a high rate of abandonment (visitors who stay on a page for only a few seconds). But in the autumn, it started to pick up quite a lot and the viewing time improved, although it will naturally be brief because of the article’s format. Interestingly, it’s a hit in Italy, possibly because I included an Italian painter.
MISS: Dust in My Gloss Finish!
I enjoyed writing this tongue-in-cheek complaint about the bane of automotive modelling, but literally no-one enjoyed reading it. It was categorised as humour, but either people overlooked that or my surreal musings utterly missed their mark. Writing it was cathartic anyway.
SLEEPER HIT: Focus Stacked Close-Ups with Affinity
I didn’t actually expect this focus-stacking tutorial to be a success with many model makers… and it wasn’t! 😢 But then Canva (which owns Affinity) announced a new version in the Autumn, with a price tag of free, and somewhere among all the hullabaloo I started getting hits from search results. It has done better than I expected lately, so I’m claiming this as a hit. Thanks, Canva.
MISS: Five Weird Things About Scale Modelling Culture
This kind of op-ed content — personal viewpoints about model making — was what I really wanted to write when I started this website, but the engagement has been mixed at best. My article about over-weathering did OK, largely on the back of a link from my most popular gallery, but my take on some of the stranger phenomena in modelling gets few views and a high abandonment rate. It’s a pity because I put a lot of effort into crafting it, finding a humorous way to make serious points, and to show a bit of my personality in the process.
What can I take away from the past year?
Modellers like Churchills. This doesn’t help me much because I don’t envisage making another when there are so many other subjects which I’ve yet to make. But, somewhere down the line, there will likely be some adjacent things which should appeal to the same audience.
Modellers don’t really want op-ed, or at least not mine. This took me aback, partly because I enjoy expressing what I think — who doesn’t? — but also because I most engage with that kind of content. One of its past masters is Matt McDougall (aka. Doogs), and he made it work, although he’s in a very different stratum of popularity compared to me.
What will I be publishing in 2026?
Well, in some ways it will be more of the same because I started this website to publish whatever I want to write and what I always wanted to read but didn’t find very often. That won’t change. Not everything is a popularity contest, believe it or not. And it's easier and more fulfilling to write about whatever resonates with me.
On the other hand, I would be pig-headed and stupid to ignore the hints in my analytics, so I’m always thinking about what may land with my audience, both current and potential. I have a long list of article ideas and drafts organised in Obsidian, but only some of them existed during the site's development: some were quietly dropped, while others were created in response to the data. This is the tricky balancing act which all aspiring writers have to perform in front of their judges.
I hope to do more product reviews, tutorials, and explainers in 2026. And, of course, more showcases because my finishing rate hasn't met my expectations this year, let alone yours. I also have some ideas for new kinds of content.
Much of this is still a work-in-progress, though, and after little more than a year, I still have plenty of learning to do. If you want to have some influence over my direction of travel, please complete my brief feedback survey.
Happy New Year! 🥳
Add your comment