Hello! Hi there! Welcome! Thank you for checking out Hammer the Backlog, my tiny little corner of the internet where I talk all things warhammer mini painting, productivity and accountability in an effort to paint up half a lifetime’s worth of grey plastic and white metal miniatures to a pleasing standard, without driving myself mad in the process.
It has been a relatively quiet week of Backlog Hammering this week, with a relatively simple single character miniature to paint and a small amount of backbreaking manual labour.
Let’s start this week with a look at the scorecard. It’s good to mix things up. Keep it fresh. Keep readers on their toes.
SCORECARD
Green and mean, just like the ninja turtles. As I said above, a relatively straightforward week. The only real delays were that this week’s model had a few colours that I haven’t used before, so there were a couple of trips to the hobby shop. I also spent the weekend doing manual labour, clearing out the garage space and power hosing the years of dirt and grime off the concrete to prepare it for the levelling compound which I am planning to put down this week.
I have also, without really noticing it, slacked on getting my scenery painted up. I cut out the base for my next little woods, stuck down the trees, sanded the base, put it aside to dry and completely forgot about it. Having it at the weekly meeting reminded me that I needed to finish it, so that will be done before this time next week.
THIS WEEK’S MODEL
This week’s model is Gotfred de Montbard, the Imperial Crusader from Blackstone Fortress Escalation. Old Gotfred has a special place in my heart as the character that I played when we played through Escalation. He is unique in BSF as the only character without ranged attacks, meaning you have to get up in the enemies faces and chop them up into little bits with your giant sword, and then hope that your magic shield keeps you alive long enough for your friends to kill the rest of the hostiles.
It broadly worked out for me, but the final mission was a heroic sacrifice for Gotfred and he got his shit mixed by multiple hostile groups shooting him before he even got to leave the starting spot. His noble sacrifice meant that the other characters had to attempt a very dangerous tactic to lure out the big boss, and hope to kill him before he wiped them out. Great craic altogether!
Gotfred was an interesting challenge to paint, mostly because I have never really liked the “Blue Steel” look that GW uses for modern Grey Knight and Crusaders. But, since I have skewed so close to the box art on everything else for this project so far, I decided to give it a try. This was the process.
| Base coat | Grey Knights Steel |
| Wash | Diluted Leviadon Blue |
| Recess Shade | Leviadon Blue |
| Reset base | Grey Knights Steel |
| Highlight | Runefang Steel |
| Edge Highlight | Stormhost Silver |
In terms of the final result, it is probably a little too blue for my taste, and looking back I should have been a bit less of a coward and gone for a bigger transition to a neutral metal colour in the mid tones.
I’m pretty happy with how the red on his loincloth looks too. It’s the normal dark red recipe I use, but it really pops (in a dark way) against the super light blue and the black base.
This guy had a real case of the work in progress uglies. He really didn’t come together until the base was painted and all of the disparate textures started to make sense. I wonder what he looks like under the helmet? I assume a comical moustache?
OPERATION: MIDDLE AGED BACK PAIN
The other project that progressed this week was cleaning out and scrubbing the new work space. I managed to get blisters on my fingers and pull a muscle in my back. I consider myself a fairly fit and active 40-year-old, but this goes to show that you can’t just leap up off the couch into a day of heavy lifting without expecting some repercussions!
Although this part of the project is coming along nicely, let’s see how this weekend pouring self levelling concrete goes. This is definitely something outside of my skill set. It is both interesting and terrifying having the Hammer the Backlog process in action on a non painting project, forcing me outside of my comfort zone and learning new things. If I didn’t have the quarterly rocks, I would definitely prefer to spend this weekend sitting on my bum painting up a psyker. If there is no update by this time next week, I have become trapped in quick drying cement, please send help.
Well, that is all I have for you this week. See you next week for a look at the success or failure of the concreting and painting in the walking smite stick.
Good Eggs!
Hammer the Backlog 
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