Hello and welcome back to week six of the first quarter of Hammer the Backlog, my effort to get all of my accumulated models painted and ready to be put on a shelf, never to be used in actual wargames! We have passed the halfway point of the first quarter and things are well on track, it looks like we might just do this!
I have already started thinking about the next quarter. The current strong favourite for the next quarter’s goal is the Lizardmen from the 5th edition box set, which would give me a full starter box set all painted up in time for a little break for Christmas 2022!
Let’s take a look at this week’s scorecard.
Once again totally in the green! Nothing much to add this week, all of our metrics are on track and all of last week’s to-does are knocked off. We’ll take a look at each of them more in depth below.
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
Two more noble Knights of the Realm painted this week.
The first one, the Black Crow of Parravon, was inspired by an instagram post by the user @bonefyre_. He did a knight for his own Bretonnians in a darker scheme than I am used to that really caught my eye. I decided, with permission, to give it a go in my own style. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I went for a neutral grey black here, as opposed to the cool blue-black on the other models. I am not entirely as happy with the transition of the highlights, the initial jump from black to dawnstone grey seems a bit too stark, but a big part of this blog is trying to learn and not be afraid of experimentation.
One of the big wins for me this week was that both models have my first freehand shield designs. I am a little disappointed that they turned out much smaller than the sculpted-on blazons of the other models, but very happy with how they turned out otherwise! Much confidence has been gained to add freehand on the remaining 5 knights.
The white knight was painted in the colours of Ulster, the province in the north of Ireland. I was trying a new thing of having the knight and his shield be a totally different colour from his horse, but still making sense as a whole. I will know how I feel about the success or failure of it after a few weeks of reflection. I will probably sneak the colours of the other three provinces of Ireland, as well as my own family crest, into the remaining five knights.
WARHAMMER PAINTATHON
I got the majority of this week’s painting done on Sunday during the Warhammer Paintathon, in scorching 30 degree heat. The Dorn and Phalanx yellows really fought me in the heat, drying on the brush before it could get to the models.
To be totally honest the Warhammer Paintathon was a bit of a let down. Obviously Games Workshop employees can’t talk very freely and it very rapidly devolved to eight hours of ‘What does Volpus Pink look like over a grey base?’ ‘What does Abomination Purple look like over a silver base?’ ‘What does Disappointment Blue look like over a beige base?” I could see the boredom setting in on the hosts’ faces, as much as they tried being upbeat and energetic about the whole thing.
I think I will be sticking to independent streams and hobby challenges in future. I have been getting most of my best hobby work done during Mediocre Hobbies’ streams from 8-10 Irish time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s nice to put on something not super distracting, but ‘on-topic’ and get on with painting.
PHOTOGRAPHY
One of the to-do’s for this week was to get the brown base painted up and ready for photographs. Halfway through I started to doubt myself, thinking ‘Why am I doing this, again?’. Then I remembered to trust the process, that if I put it on the To Do list there must have been a pretty good reason.
The reason turned out to be that I wanted to be able to photograph some of my Throwback Thursday models for Instagram on a more appropriate base. Models made and painted in the mid 2000’s and later don’t make a huge amount of sense on a bright green base with a blue sky.
This picture of the Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard, really) Taurox on the new base and backdrop is my favourite photo that I‘ve ever taken. And I don’t mean of a miniature. I mean any photo.
I finished this guy in 2014 and he was promptly popped in a drawer, never to be seen again. Since I don’t really play Warhammer, this was likely to be the final thing I ever did with this model.
But! Photographing models has turned out to be one of my favourite things about this project. I know when gamers get a new unit painted, they love the very first time they get to use it in battle (and it invariably dies without doing anything). I think for me taking a nice photo of a model I have made and painted has much the same satisfying effect. I am still an abject beginner at this, but I hope one of the things that this blog shows is a gradual improvement in my photos.
REPAIRS AND RENOVATIONS
In regards to the broken lances situation, I ended up ‘converting’ one to be a standard bearer by chopping the lion crest off of an unused knight’s head and sticking it to the top of the broken lance as a topper, and the other to be a unit champion or hero with a hand swap for the simplest sword I could find in my bits box. I think it is from an Empire set, swordsmen or free company militia. The hand isn’t armoured, but the paint scheme should hide that nicely.
I HAVEN’T BOUGHT ANYTHING
Nope. Nothing. Thanks for looking. Not even remotely tempted to buy a 3D printer and add a whole 1000 point army of 90’s Alan Perry style 3D printed Chaos Dwarfs to the backlog, just as I am starting to clear it.
Thanks for reading this far. I hope to see you again next Thursday.
Cheers, you’re good eggs.
Hammer the Backlog 
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