Oh, hi there. I didn’t notice you coming in. You’ve just caught me writing this week’s update for Hammer the Backlog, the weekly miniature painting, productivity and accountability blog. Why don’t you have a seat there, while I regale you with the tale of week 10 of the last quarter of the year? The ups, the downs, the holidays, the models, the working on the buildings, the whole lot. This week, with so much going on, I have been starting to feel the pressure (and therefore the motivation) of deadlines, as well as a longing to return from sci-fi models to fantasy.
SCORECARD
Another week fully in the green, although just barely this time. I only did two Instagram posts this week, for the first time in months I forgot to plan a Throwback Thursday picture. The main reason is that I took a little holiday last weekend, spending three days in Cork with my lovely lady, celebrating 18 years together. Hard to imagine, I know, from my youthful countenance. I also spent a good amount of time working on the buildings, getting pretty much everything that was up to me to do, done.
Since the Zoat is the one and only model from the Deadly Alliance expansion, getting him done within the week also meant that another of this quarter’s smaller rocks got ticked off!
In terms of getting the storage room finished, a lot of the scope of the project has gone off track, while still overall being on track. Does that make sense?
Mostly this is due to being a bit naive regarding the order in which things would need to be done back when I started this project. Like, why did I give myself until 08th June to get the doors installed and the garage cleared out, when it is now obvious that they needed to be done first in order to not hold the rest up? Regardless, I now have very little doubt that everything will be done on time and I can go back to painting models in my spare time.
THIS WEEK’S MODEL
Just a single model this week, but he’s a big one. One of my favourite things about Blackstone Fortress (fittingly enough) is that it dredged up some of the flotsam and jetsam of Warhammer 40k history. The Dreaded Ambull from a few months ago was one of the best examples, but this week’s model is probably the peak.
I won’t get fully into it here, but the Zoats were originally a type of Tyranid creature that ended up not fitting in with the way the Tyranids were developed, and where then retconned to not be Tyranids at all, but instead some sort of slave race. Then the slave race thing didn’t make sense for Tyrandids as a mindless all devouring super organism, so zoats were quietly shelved. Until the 2020s when one popped up in the second to last Blackstone Fortress expansion.
As usual, I was somewhat intimidated by this rather large and unexplored model. I was going to have to pick a scheme, make colour choices and try things out. All processes which I hate, as I have a natural aversion to things going wrong, and I like to know from the start that things are going to work out.
I started with a base coat of wraithbone, as the flesh and scales of the zoat seem to mostly have a yellowish undertone. Two coats of gutrippa flesh contrast set the base, followed by layering over militarum green, dark angels green and ankellion green contrast onto the darker parts to gradually fade into darker tones. I then highlighted up with orruk flesh, ogryn camo and krieg khaki, with the lighter parts getting an all over glaze and the darker parts only getting an edge highlight. The darkest scales were instead highlighted up with warpstone glow, giving them a different feel from the rest. Finally I used Biel Tan green shade to smooth out some of the transitions and darken some spots to up the contrast.
If I hadn’t decided to make this guy 5 points, and therefore one week’s work, I definitely could have spent more time on the skin and focussed more on glazing up rather than shading down. In the end though, I think he fits in nicely with the rest of the collection and I am happy enough with how I painted him.
WORKING ON THE BUILDINGS
Once again team Working on the Buildings came over and gave me the mother of all dig outs, letting me get this project pretty much wrapped up. This week I learned:
- How to hammer a hole in a ceiling
- How to fix that mistake with a saw
- How to replace plasterboard on a ceiling
- How to use expanding foam properly
- How to drill a 100mm hole in a wall.
With all of that done, we now play the waiting game for the electrician to finish off the wiring, the following people to deliver and install the floor and the plasterer to skin the entire thing. Then it is the simple matter of painting the walls and assembling the furniture and shelving.
I tell you what, I have hated every moment of doing this, but it is very satisfying to see it starting to take shape. I even spent half an hour in the garage on a cold night and didn’t freeze my balls off!
WHAT’S LEFT FOR YEAR ONE?
So with the end of year one rapidly approaching, it feels like it’s time to look ahead at what’s left to do and get it written down.
The two obvious ones are finishing off the last two rocks.
Get Ascension painted, photographed and online.
Convert Garage with Storage and Workspace
They should go without saying, obviously. But there are a few other things I would like to get done before the end of the year, which I will pop in here, as much as a reminder for myself as anything. Getting all of these things done would be a great bonus, but the two rocks above take priority.
Paint up Saurus command group from Emil.
Record year 1 review video.
Get all of the year one models in magnetic storage.
Record year 2 planning video.
Well, thanks for reading this far. See you next week for hopefully the final 2 Blackstone Fortress models.
You are the best of eggs.
Hammer the Backlog 
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