Welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly miniature painting and accountability blog, where this week we managed to knock off an absolutely huge target! Strap in for things to get pretty exciting. (If you like plastic models from 1996)
Let’s not get too excited though, and start this week with the scorecard, just like every other!
SCORECARD
Another clean sweep this week, with no hold ups! For the second week in a row I am typing this pretty late on Thursday evening, just about hitting the deadline. I had really gotten used to having everything done and dusted by Wednesday evening, and don’t love having to have the deadline push me every week!
I really do blame these Saurus warriors, they are surprisingly hard work to get up to the standard I would like in the time I have available. This batch should have been the last of them, but I do have five more knocking about in a box for some reason. I still do not know where they came from, but if I am going to paint every model that I own I will have to come back to them at some stage.
But, none of that really matters because we hit some huge milestones this week! First of all, we cleared one of the major rocks of the quarter by getting the WFB 5th Edition Starter Set Lizardmen painted, photographed and online. I really all stupidly pleased by this, especially because the lizardmen didn’t speak to me as much as the Bretonnians did. Whereas with the Bretonnians the fun of painting them carried me through, with the lizardmen (especially the tricky Saurus warriors) it really was the Hammer the Backlog process that carried me through. A great win for accountability and productivity.
Even more, even more exciting though, is the fact that one of the yearly targets is also now achieved! One of the two main goals for the entire year was to Get Warhammer 5th Edition Box set fully painted, photographed and online. Amazingly, that is now pretty much done!
The next couple of weeks will consist of finishing the Green Knight and then maybe a few bits and bobs.
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
Look, it’s five more slimy lizard boys! These were painted almost identically to last week’s five, the only difference being that I started from a Grey Seer base coat rather than Wraitbone. And once again, you would need to have the lazer eye of a space Sherlock Holmes to see any difference.
I tried to give myself three options with the Saurus warriors. They can be divided into two units, either the light skinned and the dark skinned, or by shield colour.
Or they can all be mixed into one big unit. I think it has worked out nicely. If I do the last five some day, I imagine I will paint them an intermediate shade between these two.
THE GREAT PLAN COMES TO FRUITION
So that means the 32 Skinks and 20 Saurus warriors from the box set are fully painted. I am quite pleased with this little gang. Do I feel a pressing desire to expand on them? To be totally honest, no. Having said that, if I came across a great deal on one of those gross all metal 5th edition froggy Slaan, I don’t think I would pass up having a nice general/mage to lead them.
Well, would you look at that!
32 Skinks, 20 Saurus Warriors, 12 Knights of the Realm, 24 Bowmen all painted to a standard I would be happy to put in a display cabinet.
The entire Warhammer Fantasy Battles box set, first purchased as a birthday present in 1998, finally finished. After a few weeks on my childhood desk, many more years in various boxes in attics all over Dublin and then six months in my fun little dinosaur tin, they finally look like what I imagined they would look like when I walked out of the Games Workshop on Liffey street with that box of exciting potential in my hands.
I’ll be honest, I thought the photos were going to look a lot more epic! This amount of models really pushed my small photo setup and studio lights to the maximum. I think the only solution is naturally light, which is not in abundance in Ireland in November.
I am hoping to get a few bright hours of natural light this weekend to get everything fully photographed the way I’d imagined it.
SOCIAL MEDIA
I think because my own excitement has been growing as I come towards the end of the quarter, it is being reflected in social media growth. People are obviously much more inclined to be interested in a project as it is hitting one of its peaks than when it is just getting started.
At almost 1,900 Instagram followers at the time of writing, it seems pretty sure that Hammer the Backlog will maintain the ratio of about 1,000 followers of growth per quarter. That means in two and half years I will be considered a nano-influencer! How exciting.
Also this week, one of the pictures from the Bretonnian period ticked over 1,000 likes! 1,000 likes on a single picture! Can you imagine? I thought I would get one thousand likes combined on all of the pictures for this whole endeavour!
Sure look, sure listen, that’s enough out of me for one week! See you next week for the completion of the green knight and some full on glamour shots of this quarter’s models.
Good eggs, the lot of you.
Hammer the Backlog 
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