Quarter 3 Week 8 Update: Another Cup of Whine

Welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Wahammer (mostly!) mini painting, accountability and productivity blog. Each year I set myself some overall targets, then break those targets down in quarters. I then break those quarterly targets down into weekly steps, which I record here on this public blog, both to keep myself honest and to hopefully entertain and inspire you, the dear readers! This week has been an absolute slog of a week of HtB, let’s get into it and hopefully not be too negative!

SCORECARD

I’m really going to try to not be too negative this week! Please bear with me! Mostly green on the scorecard this week, thanks to a very late night and a very early rise this morning. Motivating myself to finish these five models has been the closest I’ve come to giving up on a week’s painting since I started the Hammer the Backlog project. I got them done, just about, in time to put green on the scorecard this week, but it was through genuine gritted teeth. I really and truly leaned on the public accountability side of the project this week to force me to get it done. If it weren’t for the blog and the Thursday scorecard I definitely would have given up this week, and that would have been another ¼ complete project put back in its box and ignored for a few years. 

I even had to spend a good chunk of Happy Love Day in the garage on my own getting them finished. Sorry, lovely lady!

Since it took almost every last drop of resolve that I had to get the models painted, a lot of other things were neglected. Since I clearly don’t love these models at the moment, either the sculpts or my end result, I haven’t been excited about posting them online anywhere but the official Hammer the Backlog instagram. I have committed to posting them on the 40k reddit next week, even if they only get a couple of upvotes each.

One of the issues that made painting these less fun is that my Series 7 brushes have definitely lost their points. This weekend I need to get into the art supply shop and get myself a new size 1 and 2. Maybe that will bring back a little of my mojo!

THIS WEEK’S MODELS

This week’s models are 5 more of the Chaos Cultists from the Dark Vengeance starter set from 2012. Not quite modern: they are a little bit chunky and awkward in places, with odd CAD artefacts and mould lines. Not quite retro: I don’t think anyone is looking back on 2012 with a haze of nostalgia just yet.

 They are just detailed enough to be annoying, with little straps and chains and buckles all over them, and yet unique enough that you can’t quite settle into a rhythm on them. One of my favourite things about painting the Bretonnian bowmen last year was that after the second batch of 5 I could literally do it in the dark. 

But with these, they have to look like a rabble, so even when you learn a model, you are painting the next one slightly differently. Then you get a completely wild card like the shirtless guy thrown in and suddenly you are painting large areas of exposed flesh.

I know the variety and randomness would probably appeal to a lot of people, it is the nature of Chaos after all. But, it just doesn’t appeal to the order loving part of my brain. As I was working on these I kept finding little details on them that could do with a bit more care and attention. Sadly, that didn’t inspire me to want to put in more care and attention, it just annoyed me that I would have to add another step to getting them done! 

See, I told you this would be a whiney week!

I will concede that when all twenty of them are done, and they are mixed in with the more elite marines and the terrifying hellbrute, they are going to look pretty cool!

FALLING BEHIND

So, since my motivation has been sapped painting these assholes for the last month, I have started to notice other aspects slipping too! I haven’t been posting on social media as much. My lovely organised work space has gone to ruin, with paints on the floor and in the wrong place. My brushes have become frayed and less usable. I haven’t even started on the Blood Bowl video!

I think what I need is a little reset. I am going to take a day this week, probably Saturday, and get everything sorted out. Clean my brushes, buy some new ones. Organise my workspace. Photograph the whole blood bowl set. Just reestablish a little order on the project.

Well, that’s it from me this week!

See you next week for the last 3 cultists and the first Chaos Marine!

You’re the best eggs!