Hello there, welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer mini painting, productivity and accountability blog, where I try my best to keep things on track with small business-like methods. Of course, with your level of psychic prowess, you knew I was going to say that. I was a little undisciplined this week, getting easily distracted and leaving a lot of the work until today, Thursday. A good week to have a scorecard and rocks to keep me on target.
SCORECARD
Another week fully in the green. The scorecard really did most of the heavy lifting this week. I completely forgot to upload any pics to facebook or reddit this week until I had the ‘weekly meeting’ and saw I was off track and went ahead and did it. Having the reminder to finish off the scenery was also very useful.
This week’s model was one of the least inspiring of the entire Blackstone Fortress set for me, being essentially ‘just’ an imperial guard psyker. That slight lack of excitement made it hard to get motivated to start painting. Luckily, Aradaia Madellen is a pretty small and simple model, so even though I only put about 5 hours into her before Thursday, I still had plenty of time to get everything done to a nice standard.
With four explorers done, that leaves only the Rogue Trader and the hostiles to do for Escalation, putting us at over 50% for the first big expansion.
THIS WEEK’S MODEL
A pretty straightforward model this week, an Imperial Psyker painted in fairly standard Imperial Guard officer colours. Judging by the colour scheme, I assume she comes from a Cadian guard regiment?
The most fun colour to paint this week was the burgundy silk inside of her great coat. It was achieved by painting my new favourite colour, Sigvald Burgundy, over Corax white. This was followed by two coats of Carroburg Crimson to move it over into a redder colour. The highlights were Wazzdakka Red followed by Cadian Fleshtone.
I’m going to carry this same purple over onto the inside of the Rogue Trader’s coat, as well as the robes of the cultists over the next few weeks.
CAN’T SEE THE WOODS FOR THE TREES
One of the things that really distracted me from the main model this week was getting the next of my 5th edition style trees stuck down to a base and painted up. I am really getting excited about the idea of having a fully 5th edition style table, with a few bases of woods, some coffee stirrer fences and cardstock buildings on a flocked mat.
Getting this week’s woods painted was another step in that direction. I had originally planned to put a little easter egg (fittingly for this week) into this scene, with a magic sword half buried in the earth for the players to find. Just like the Sword of Might from the Grudgebringer games! But then…. I forgot.
THE CURSE OF KINDNESS
The Hammer the Backlog project overall took a major blow this week, sadly. As you know, if you have been following along this whole time, I have not banned myself completely from buying new models. I can’t start whole new projects, but I am allowed to buy models to fill gaps in my collection, like new command figures or banner bearers. I can also buy supplies and missing pieces. I found a really nice deal for a metal Saurus champion this week, which included the entire set of cardstock buildings and ancillary paperwork from the 5th edition box set. I lost the cottage from this set nearly 30 years ago, so I couldn’t turn it down, what with my desire to have a 5th edition table and all. Sadly, the seller turned out to be such an awesome guy that he threw in a little bonus. The entirety of the Lizardmen set from the starter box, for free! 29 brand new skinks and 18 Saurus warriors, many of them still on sprues! I guess I am a Lizardman collector now!
WORKING ON THE BUILDINGS
Project: Garage Storage Space (note to self; need a better name) progressed a lot this week as I managed to successfully lay down a layer of levelling concrete without it cracking or being too thin or too thick.
I really thought it was going to be a much harder job than it was, but that was probably because the last time I was doing work like this, 8 years ago when we bought our house, it was usually a bit half cocked.
A few weeks of preparation, including clearing the garage, powerwashing last weekend and spending the time researching to make sure we had all of the tools and equipment to hand before we started, and it actually turned out to not only be a breeze, but actually quite fun. The next steps for the garage is to start working on insulating the exterior walls and ceiling and get an electrician in to get some nice lights set up.
I’ve found myself with a 5 day weekend this weekend, so I’m hoping to get quite a lot done. At the moment I am aiming for the next and final BSF Escalation explorer and getting my brand new set of 5th edition buildings built up and attached to bases. What a fun weekend ahead!
Thanks for sticking around this long, you are all the very best of eggs.
Hammer the Backlog 
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