Quarter 2 Week 6 Update: Get Down Off There!

Well hello there fellow mages! Welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, my weekly accountability, productivity and warhammer painting blog. I promised myself a slightly easier week after the strain of getting 20 highly detailed High Elf infantry models painted over the last four weeks, and an easier week I did indeed have!

Let’s take a slightly shorter than usual look at the scorecard and this week’s model. 

SCORECARD

Still no Instant Agency Tools this week guys! Really those guys need to get this figured out. I thought they were the accountability and productivity experts?

Luckily there is not much to report anyway, as you can see by everything being on track.

Hold ups due to missing supplies	0
Instagram Posts	5
Facebook/Reddit Posts	5
Models Finished	5
Blog Post	1

I did treat myself to a slightly easier week this week by focusing on one model, the mage from the Island of blood. I just about put 5 Hammer the Backlog points into this guy, coming in at around 10 hours, give or take.

This was made even easier by the fact that this guy is easily my least favourite model in the boxed set, so I didn’t get hyper focused on getting him done to the best of my abilities. I’ll talk a little bit more about why I dislike him so much in his own section.

While I was at I also got my first set of Bretonnian bowmen commands cleaned up, based and undercoated, and decided that I would order myself a second set rather than continue to scour ebay. It’s not like repeated models look out of place in a 5th edition army anyway!

THIS WEEK’S MODEL

So, as I said, this high elf mage from the 2010 Island of Blood boxed set is my least favourite model in the set, but I managed to get him painted anyway. I’ve been sticking to the rule of having “not too much” gold and blue on these models, so that white and silver are the main colours.

White is a lot easier to paint these days, that’s for sure, but it is still tricky to keep it nice on such large flat areas as this cloak.

There are two things I dislike about this guy. The first is that he is over the top. There are so many layers to this damned thing! The scarf, the belt, the robes, the cloak, all separate pieces with gaps in between them I understand that this was the early days of the CAD model design era and they were a bit excited about what they could do, but take it down a notch guys!

The second thing I dislike, and I have always been vocal about this, is the build in magical effect. I prefer not to have magic (or any other non-solid) effect sculpted on my models. I decided to paint it like sea spray to 1) ground him in physical reality and 2) tie him in with the Sea Guard a little.

I much prefer the Loremaster model that was released around the same time, as a more grounded model with a more sensible action pose. I do still hate his magic squid ball though.

Well, that’s more or less it from me this week. I appreciate you staying and reading this slightly whiney update, but I was glad to spend a little less time and energy on a model I am slightly less attached to before getting started on the Reaver Knight and Prince on Griffon!

Catch you next week for a bit of progress on one of those kits!

Best Eggs.