Hammer the Backlog's Chaos Dwarf Quarter

[Hammer-the-Backlog]

Hello and welcome to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly miniature painting blog where I use productivity and accountability methods to get all of my thousands of euro worth of unpainted fantasy and sci-fi minis painted before the singularity renders human existence pointless. It was a pretty straightforward week this week, focussed entirely on getting the first unit of Chaos Dwarf warriors finished and the first unit of Blunderbusses started. Let’s take a look at the weekly scorecard, then we’ll have a goo at the models, and finally check in on the side project of updating the website.

SCORECARD

Even though the Chaos Dwarfs themselves are predominantly red, it is another week in the green for Hammer the Backlog. Everything is nicely on track, and it looks even at this early stage, like we might have another quarter in the bag!

It does bother the part of my brain that likes order that I finished one unit and started another in the same week. I think it would have been more satisfying to finish a weekly update with the warriors done, then spend the next two weeks working on the blunderbusses, get them finished, and so on. Unfortunately the number of models this quarter and the way they break down mean that is not going to work. So we are going to have to live with slightly piecemeal completion of units. I have more of less broken down the remaining weeks to keep my brain from getting confused.

Week	Models	HtB Points
5	Front rank Blunderbusses	5
6	2 Blunderbusses1 Bull Centaur	5
7	2 Bull Centaurs	6
8	2 Bull Centaurs	6
9	Lord on Foot	5
10	Lamassu	5
11	Lamassu	5
12	Sorcerer	5
13	Bits and Bobs?	5

The only question I have is whether the Lamassu will actually take two weeks. It is a decently large and detailed model, but it is also a fairly straightforward colour scheme. I might just get it done in one week, freeing up a bit of time for a side project or two.

I based this whole little army on the high elf force from the 8 edition starter set, as strange as that may seem. So I should be able to use exactly the same plan when I get around to them in a few years.

Elves	Dwarfs
10 Swordmasters	10 Greatweapon warriors
10 Sea Guard	10 Blunderbusses
5 Reaver Knights	5 Bull Centaurs
Mage on Foot	Lord on Foot
Prince on Griffon	Sorcerer on Lamassu

THIS WEEKS’ MODELS

This week’s models are five more of the absolutely delightful Fabelzel Chaos Dwarfs. Two more warriors, finishing off the unit, and the first three rear rankers of the blunderbuss unit. Once again, an absolute joy to paint. My only complaint is regarding the gunners with their guns held in front of their check. Sadly having the gun in this position hides a lot of their gorgeous scale mail and makes them pretty monotone from the front in my colour scheme. Maybe for that reason black was not the right choice for the colour of the guns themselves.

I love seeing these two together. I think, and I may be wrong, that the warrior on the left was one of Fabelzel’s first efforts on his Evil Dwarf army. It is a great, characterful sculpt, but you can definitely see the improvements and the refinement of the concept when you compare him to the gunner on the right. They have basically the same look, but everything is just that little bit more proportional and fun on the gunner.

One thing that I think this little army is missing is any link to the original GW lineage. If I add anymore to this army in future, I think the first thing I would add is one or two of the plastic monopose Chaos Dwarfs from the 90’s box set. Making the warrior unit up to 12 (or 3 ranks of 4 in 4th/5th edition rules) with just two cheap plastic models would be pretty fun, I think.

Here’s the whole group so far. I’m looking forward to building these up over the next 8 weeks!

WEBSITE UPDATE

So, as you know if you’ve followed the blog for any length of time, I also like to have meta targets each quarter. This quarter’s meta target is to upgrade this very website, www.hammerthebacklog.com.

The first task was to look around at other websites and decide what exactly I wanted. I’ve managed to narrow it down a little bit to:

Social media links on the main page.

A welcome page that explains the project.

Artwork in the margins like Warhammer 5th edition.

Updated search function.

The ability to browse categories.

I’ll be getting started on this over the next couple of weeks, so any feedback or advice on this totally new skill I have to learn would be very much appreciated!

Well, thanks for reading this far.

See you next week for the front rank of the gunners!

Good eggs!

[Jasko]

Cheers mate and well met!
Really great work on the Fabelzel minis, they look fantastic.
You’re amongst many friends here who also struggle with getting their piles of shame/opportunity down, any method which does the trick is certainly a good one.

Excited to see more of your progress!

[Bassman]

Excellent job here.

Asa fortunate owner of the “classic” Big Hats I can tell you Fabelzel’s have nothing to envy.

[Hammer-the-Backlog]

Quarter 2 Week 5 Update: A Blunder of Busses

Boom! Crack! Bang! No, that’s not the sound of Halloween fireworks, it’s the sound of 5 chaos dwarf blunderbusses shooting their load into their unfortunate opponents. Thanks for coming back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly warhammer miniature painting and accountability blog, in which I try to paint my 25 year backlog of hoarded plastic, white metal and resin miniatures before the slavers of the Dawi-Zharr come and drag me away for a short life of suffering in the underground slave pens of Zharr-Naggrund.

Let’s start this week, as every week, with another look at the scorecard.

SCORECARD

Unlike the blasted and barren plains of the dark lands, everything is shiny and green again this week. There was an ever so slight change of plans necessitated by a lack of shields, but nothing that caused any delays. The original plan this week was to paint the front rank of the blunderbuss warriors, but the leader model has a shield peg and I realised I had run out of shields. That would also mean no shields for the next three weeks of bull centaurs. So a slight rearrangement later and I painted five rank and file this week, while also 3D printing enough shields that I will have a couple of spares / choices for the rest of this project.

In fairness though, any excuse to break out the old 3d printer!

THIS WEEK’S MODELS

This week’s models were another five of Fabelzels’s fabulous evil dwarf blunderbuss warriors. I know I’ve said it practically every week, but these things pretty much paint themselves, the detail and sculpting is just that good.

The faces, in particular, are so deeply sculpted and yet so natural that even though they probably look like I spend ages on them, they are really only about 10 minutes of work each. He is the general method, without pictures sadly as I only thought of this after the fact. I might arrange some pictures for next week if there is interest.

Wraitbone base coat

Full coverage with Fireslayer Flesh

Darken the eyes with Black Templar

Cadian Fleshtone to cover any rough spots, hide any mistakes or splashes.

Glaze a very thin coat of Volupus Pink over the nose, as rough as you like. More irregular and splotchy is probably better.

A big wash of Magos Purple around the eyes, focussed on the baggy bags.

A dab of Shyish Purple at the nostrils and right under the eyes.

A light highlight of Kislev Flesh.

A dab of Pallid Wych flesh on the highest of highlights.

The faces are just so craggy and characterful that a lot of the subtlety is picked up by the contrast paints, and the roughness and contrast of the sparse highlights gives them a great evil look. I certainly wouldn’t use this method on, say, a Bretonnian Damsel!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I love these models. The amount and depth of the detail in them is exactly what I want from my models. One of the choices that I had to make was consistency versus randomness. I have obviously settled on the colour scheme of red, black, blue and gold for the warriors, with the occasional cream embellishment for horns and skulls. The decision was whether to mix the colours around or to have them feel standardised. If I have the same model 3 times, do I give them all a gold skull, or do I give one a gold skull, one a silver skull and one a skull skull? In the end I went with a standard look.

In a way I feel that Chaos Dwarfs aren’t really that chaotic. They are more lawful evil, to use the DnD term, so it feels better to have them look somewhat organised.

Next week is going to be a fun week, with one more gunner, a characterful hammer wielding warrior who is doing double duty as a unit leader and the first of my new, in-scale Bull Centaurs! Very exciting!

IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY

Last week was my birthday, and one of the gifts I received from my lovely lady was 6 5th edition metal Kroxigors! What a lady! It doesn’t count as breaking the rules if it is a gift, right?

With my starter set lizards, the command groups and champions I gathered for the Wrath of Tlaxtlan battle report, the Slann Mage Priest I recently couldn’t resist on GW’s made to order service and now these 6 big boys, I definitely have a fully functional, realistic and characterful 1,000 point 5th edition Lizardman army. Now I just need to get the frog and the big lizards painted and they can have a pretty nicely matched battle with my brand new Chaos Dwarfs. When they are also painted. This hobby, eh?

I think that is more than enough from me for another week.

Hope to see you again in seven days for some more evil craggly short bois!

Good egggs!

[tjub]

They are so good! Both painting and photos is a joy to see, great work and thanks for sharing.

[Fuggit_Khan]

Beautiful miniatures with outstanding painting
I love how you’ve given a lovely touch of old school colors with a modern fresh approach…and thanks for the painting tips

[Hammer-the-Backlog]

Quarter 2 Week 6 Update: A Motley Crew of Weirdos

Hello and welcome back to the almost halfway point of quarter 2 of year 2 of Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer mini painting, accountability and productivity blog. And what better way to celebrate the almost halfway point of a quarter than by painting the almost halfway creature, the Bull Centaur. But look, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Before we take a look at this week’s models, let’s start with the weekly scorecard.

SCORECARD

It’s another green week this week, with no hold ups worth mentioning. It was a lovely relaxing week of painting this week, with only three models, each in the same scheme but otherwise nicely different from each other.I also had a bank holiday and an annual leave day off work this week, which made hitting this week’s targets feel almost (but not entirely) trivial. The main thing is not to let this confidence get to my head and keep up the momentum for next week, but I have now finished all of the “rank and file” for the quarter, with only lords, heroes and cool monsters left to paint!

THIS WEEK’S MODELS

This week’s models are done and dusted. Well, not dusted. They are brand new, the dust hasn’t settled on them yet. For this week we had, as a starter, the final blunderbuss warrior. He was painted exactly the same way as the rest of his unit mates, with a dark red surround on the blunderbuss for a little bit of variety.

As an amuse bouche, I painted up this fantastic angry little Chaos Dwarf warrior with a hammer and shield to be the unit champ for my blunderbusses. Fabelzel, just like GW back in the day, doesn’t seem to have been too interested in making a warrior command group and a blunderbuss command group.

Since they are the same type of creatures with the same type of armour, you can use them pretty interchangeably. If he ever decides to go back and make a second standard bearer and maybe a horn blower I will paint them up and add them to this unit. This guy is such a cool, fun little model. He was the very first model I successfully 3D printed, so it’s great to get him painted up.

The main course for the week was my Bull Centaur. As the first of a unit of 5, he was the test for getting their colour scheme figured out. Of course, this was not my first time painting this model. Regular readers will remember that this model was my first ever 3D printed model, which I bought from an online printer over a year ago. In fact, he was my favourite single model of last year overall.

Sadly, one thing I noticed about the original version was that he was a little too small. I think the printer offers old style and new style options and I went for the old style. The other thing I noticed was that people (and cats) kept dropping him and he was irreparably damaged.

It was a fun challenge to go back over a previously painted Hammer the Backlog model and try to meet or beat the standard of a year ago.

The biggest change was that I decided to go for a deeper, richer red this time for the bull body, as opposed to the slightly pinkish red of the first attempt. For my own record as much as anything, here is the recipe I used.

Undercoat	Mechanicus Standard Grey
Base	Flesh Tearers Red Contrast
Heavy Glaze	Khorne Red
Heavy Glaze over less area	Mephiston Red
Highlight	Wazzdakka Red
Edge Highlight	Wild Rider Red

I think both versions have their merits, but I am going to stick to this new darker version for the rest of the unit, and for the inevitable Great Taurus I do when Fabelzel releases it!

SOCIAL MEDIA

It has been a very good week on social media this week. The Chaos Dwarfs are very popular on instagram, easily the most popular thing I’ve painted since the Bretonnains in quarter 1 of year 1. Many of the photos are getting upwards of 800 likes and this will probably only increase as they become a recognisable army. Instagram growth is also on the up again, with probably 3300 follows by the end of this week.

Meanwhile, over on Youtube, my 5th edition boxed set video has well over 6,000 views and growing! Will this be the most popular video I ever put on Youtube? At this stage it is safe to say: probably!

Thanks for reading this far, see you next week for 2 more brand new bull centaurs!

Goodest of eggs!

[Hammer-the-Backlog]

Quarter 2 Week 7 Update: I’m Bullin’

Thank you for joining me again at the midway point of quarter 2 of year 2 of Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer miniature painting, accountability and productivity blog. You join me this week for, very much, a project in flow. Models are getting painted, to-dos are getting ticked off and everything seems to be, for the moment, on track! Every week at Hammer the Backlog, we take a look at the weekly scorecard, then we move on to the painted models, and finally look at any other areas of the project that have seen movement (or not!).

SCORECARD

So as a reminder for old readers, or as an introduction for the influx of new readers being attracted by the Chaos Dwarfs, each week I use this scorecard to gauge the overall health of the Hammer the Backlog project. The way I look at it is, if I am getting 5 Hammer the Backlog points worth of models painted,6/7 social media posts, no hold ups and the blog done, then the project is going well. If one or two things go red for a single week, it’s usually no big deal. But if something stays in the red, I need to look at the process and figure out why to get back on track. Again, as a reminder, this is how I break down Hammer the Backlog points:

Infantry figure i.e a man, a goblin, a lady	1
Cavalry i.e knight on a horse	3
Monstrous Infantry i.e Orges	3
Character i.e a general, wizard	5
Character on Mount	7
Character on Monster	15
Warmachine (crew count as infantry)	2

Having said all that, here is this week’s scorecard.

As you can see, all good! I am counting each of the bull centaurs as either cavalry or monstrous infantry. The distinction doesn’t matter, as they are worth 3 HtB points each. That means 6 points of models painted this week! Nice.

THIS WEEK’S MODELS

Two angry boys!

This week’s models were two of Fabelzel’s brand new Bull Centaurs. While the first Bull Centaur that he did is definitely the model that made me fall in love with this range, these new ones were also super exciting to start working on.

First, the bad side. And this was entirely my own fault. My 3D printing set up had sat idle for nearly 8 months, as there was no 3D printing to be done until the start of this quarter. When this quarter was coming up I had to relearn 3d printing again. And I relearned with the 3 new Bull Centaurs from this batch. 3D printing is far from the most difficult thing to do in this hobby, but there was a bit of a relearning curve, and these models suffered for it.

Is this my good side?

When I sliced the models, I made the supports too big and too few. At least, I think that’s what the problem was. They meant that some parts of these models are a bit rougher than they should be to do the glorious sculpts justice. They have a couple of large poc marks where the too large supports are pulled away, and a bit of rough detail. Thankfully, almost all of these issues are located on the back or underside of the models.

Bumpy butts

The biggest victim was the back of the champion model’s hat and scale mail. Luckily, there was nothing that a little bit of sanding and filling, as well as careful paint application, couldn’t fix or hide. In many ways it reminded me of the very rough finecast Green Knight I painted last year, but to a much lesser extent.

I painted these guys in exactly the same way as the first centaur last week. If you’d like some info on the colours used in the process, click back to last week’s post by clicking the link below!

If I had one complaint about Fabelzel’s models, it would be that they are a bit of a nightmare to rank up on small 1994 style bases! Now, this is also true of many of the actual figures from that time period, so it is quite fitting! I had to mess around with these guys for 15 minutes to find a way to line them up that made sense, looked good and actually fit. I took this photo so I won’t forget!

Y.M.C.A

WEBSITE UPDATES

Just a note here to say that I haven’t forgotten about the website update part of this quarter’s meta target! I have something underway which should be very cool, but I can’t spoil it here just yet!

Anyway, thanks for reading this far. I will see you again in 7 days time for the last two Bull Centaurs.

Good eggs!

[Hammer-the-Backlog]

Quarter 2 Week 8 Update: I’m a Matador

Hello and welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer miniature painting, accountability and productivity blog in which I hope to paint all of my 25 years of accumulated unpainted tabletop wargaming miniatures before environmental destruction renders the earth uninhabitable. This week was an interesting week, with two very fun models to paint, but very busy work and personal scheduling making it a very tight run thing. In fact, I have started writing this on Tuesday evening, safe in the knowledge that it’s going to be a tight one on Thursday night! You might be seeing this at midnight!

SCORECARD

Look gang, listen. This might be a lie! As always on super busy weeks, I’m actually writing this before I have 100% finished the models. However, I do know for a fact that they are currently painted just about enough that I could call them done if you pointed a gun at my head and made me decide. What I mean by that is that there is no undercoat left showing! Just the bases and faces left to finish to call them actually done. Should be plenty of time.

Everything else looks nicely on track again this week! It’s good to have a nice solid run of green weeks!

THIS WEEK’S MODELS

This week’s models are my last two Bull Centaurs cough for the time being cough. One of them was another repeat of my current favourite model, Fabelzel’s first Bull Centaur, and the other is one of his newer efforts, the model I call Angry Evil Bull Santa. All of these models go through a brief Santa Claus phase when I am painting them in this scheme, and I love it every time.

The big question on my mind this week was uniformity vs chaos. In the classic Chaos Dwarf army book there was a much bigger variety of application of colours in this army. My army is these colours:

Bright Red

Dark Red

Blue Black

Blue

Gold

Silver

Dwarf Flesh

That’s it. That’s the whole list. The classic Chaos Dwarfs had a few more colours, in particular a smattering of yellows, greens, neutral blacks and warm creams.

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to stick completely to my scheme, or if I wanted to add in some of these other colours, so I asked the hive mind (aka Instagram).

Sticking with blue absolutely smashed the other colours out of the park. Poor old yellow only got a handful of votes. And one absolute madlad wrote in Purple! What a world! So, far be it from me to go against the hive mind, blue it shall remain.

Look, I’m going to say something here. These models make me look like a much better painter than I am. The process for painting them is so simple. Undercoat a light colour. Lash a shitload of contrast paint on. Two or three layers of highlights where the contrast shows you to paint. It’s like colouring by numbers. If the resin itself was just a bit more sturdy and pliable, these would be the most beginner friendly models in existence. Kudos to Fabelzel for his sculpting, which is deep and distinct and characterful, without going over the line into caricature. Great stuff all together.

With these two done, the unit of 5 cavalry for my imaginary start box is done! Very few models left to go in this quarter now, despite the fact that there are 5 weeks left. I think I’m going to spend next week focussing entirely on the leader of this force, my Chaos Dwarf Lord on foot, then the last few weeks giving the Lamassu and Sorcerer the attention they deserve.

Well look, that’s pretty much it for this week. I have to shoot off now and actually get these buggers finished so that any of the above actually makes sense! Thanks for reading this far, see you next week for our first Chaos Dwarf Character model.

Best eggs!

[Hashoooot]

Don’t Fabelzel’s models just have the nicest old school vibe about them? Your painting really brings out the gloriously nostalgic 5th ed. feelings!

[Hammer-the-Backlog]

Quarter 2 Week 9 Update: Who’s in Charge Around Here?

Hello fellow Warhammer mini painting, accountability and productivity nerds! Welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer mini painting, accountability and productivity blog in which I, Mick, try to paint all of my 25 years of accumulated tabletop wargaming minis before robots from the future come back in time to assassinate me. As we come to the crescendo of another six months of fantasy model painting, I only had one model to paint this week, but he was an incredible character model who was deserving of quite a bit of attention.

SCORECARD

Another green week this week. I’m like a bloomin’ Swamp Thing up in here! With only one (admittedly quite detailed) model to paint, there was really rather little risk of going off track. This made it a nice respite from the last few weeks of down to the wire painting!

It wasn’t a week entirely without hiccups. I left the printing and pre of the banners rather later than I should have and there was some missed prep work on the Lord model that will never not bother me, but all in all, a pretty successful and stress free week!

THIS WEEK’S MODEL

Another fabulous Fabelzel model this week, this time a lord! This model has a bit of a backstory. The sculptor, Fabelzel, has a contest on his discord for his patreons to design the next character model. The winner was a user by the name of Herzuull, who designed a cool looking lord whose body was slowly turning into rock, or magma.

A little while later the sculptor did a ‘young’ version of him, without the magma hand and with a cool sword and shield. This is the version I decided to paint for my army, although I did 3D print both versions before I made the decision.

He is such a cool, characterful model who fits in beautifully with the rest, while clearly being the leader.

I used the standard Chaos Dwarf lord back banners from the army book, which I printed out, gave two coats of ‘ardcoat and one of stormshield, then soaked them in PVA and applied them. Since I left it so last minute to do this, they are still a little wet in the photos!

There were lessons learned this week. Since this model was entirely new to me, I managed to miss two of the supports from the 3D print when I was cleaning him up and curing him. I didn’t actually notice them until well into the painting process. I think I’ve managed to hide them well enough as a pouch and as part of the decorative elements of his armour, but I will always know they are there! I suppose this is the 3d printing equivalent of painting a mould tag or missing mould lines!

All together they are looking pretty spiffy! A bunch of angry little boys dragged out into the sun where they don’t want to be! Just like me!

Thanks for reading this far.

See you next week for either a half painted or full painted Lamassu!

[harvestmouse]

@Hammer-the-Backlog

I used the standard Chaos Dwarf lord back banners from the army book, which I printed out,

I was very interested in what you did here. It’s hard to tell from the photo. They look so good in the picture. I thought they were a black and white version that you printed and painted in a grainy retro way.

One of my ‘wonderings’ is how painters now handle this sort of thing. Back in the day it was eithr use the painted version as is, or paint the black and white version. So, I wonder if there’s a sneaky way to get the most out of this very WFB 4th/5th edition thing. Your’s look great.

[Hammer-the-Backlog]

Quarter 2 Week 10 Update: This Website is Currently Under Construction

Hello there fellow accountability, productivity and warhammer mini painting enjoyers. Welcome back to week 10 of Quarter 2(2024/2024) of Hammer the Backlog. No new finished models to show you this week, but that’s not as bad a thing as it seems. Join me for a look at this week’s scorecard, a look at the work in progress and some behind the scenes looks at how I’m taking my retro photographs.

SCORECARD

Well, the obvious thing this week is that we have a big, red zero in the models finished column. That is not to say that I slacked off this week, I very much didnt, but the lamassu is definitely a 10 pointer, and I got about half of him done this week. So I did 5 points worth of painting, but just got nothing finished.

If I finish the lamassu next week (week 11), that gives me one week for the sorcerer (week 12) and one week for bits and bobs. It also means I will have a week without painting commitments to get the quarterly review written up and filmed for the Youtube channel.

So all things considered, the big red zero isn’t as bad as it seems!

THIS WEEK’S WORK IN PROGRESS

This week’s work in progress is the absolutely stunning Lamassu model from Fabelzel. The print turned out very nice indeed, very crisp and detailed and with minimal issues. He wasn’t the easiest model in the world to glue together, with the tolerances between the printed parts being very, very tight. Unavoidable with the nature of the technology I think.

I am going for the classic lamassu scheme of dark black skin with bright, comical red beard and hair. The face and body are painted in my usual black scheme, with a simple extra step near the beginning for smoother transitions on the larger surfaces.

Base	Wraithbone Spray
Basecoat	Black Templar Contrast
First very broad highlight	Dark Reaper
Blended highlight	Thunderhawk Blue
Edge Highlight	Fenrisian Grey
Spot Highlight	Fenrisian Grey / White

For the wing membranes I’m going with the same dark red as I used on my Bull Centaur bodies, to tie the whole thing together. And the beard and hair is going to be the colour I have used on the scale mail for the warriors. Maybe they paint their armour this colour in honour of the Lamassu?

Realistically, he’s actually closer to 70% finished this week than 50%, but let’s not haggle!

TAKING PHOTOS

I’ve had a few questions over the last few weeks about my photography set up. What better week that a week without finished models than to take a look.

My “photography studio” is a very well lit garage with daylight panel lights and clean white walls that make it have very few shadows.

I also have two photography lamps on tripods with 5500k daylight bulbs, which I set up in front of the models and slightly off to each side.

Finally, I have a standing lamp with another 5500k daylight bulb that I use for a top/backlight. This may be a fire hazard.

I have two set ups that I use. For my real “oldschool” 4th edition style photos I have a piece of plasticard that has been pva glued, sanded and painted warboss green, with a drybrush of averland sunset. This is great for reproducing early 90’s box art.

For bigger shots I have a large sheet of flocked paper and some simple scenery. This looks great for army shoots, and for the more “realistic” photographs of the late 90s boxes. It looks like a lovely gaming table, but in reality it is far too small to actually play on.

For both I have a large, matt blue gradient background that appears in most of the photos.

Well, thanks for reading this far!

See you next week for a completed Lamassu!

Good eggs!

[Hammer-the-Backlog]

Quarter 2 Week 11 Update: Did he Say Lamb as You?

Hi there! Thanks for coming back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer mini painting, productivity and accountability blog. The big winner this week was the productivity and accountability side of things, as painting motivation took a real slump! Read on to find out how I managed to stop a slump in wanting to paint from ending my current unbroken run!

SCORECARD

So, another week in the green. And well in truly in the green, with the fully painted Lamassu, as a large monster, counting as ten whole points. Everything else is on track too! Great stuff. The story that the scorecard doesn’t tell this week is that it was a bit of a slog.

Without getting into it too much, it was a highly stressful week this week in my real life job, and the latest season of World of Warcraft Classic was released. When real life is stressful, it is very, very tempting to slip off into a simple, nostalgic, fantasy world. So to be honest, that is where most of my free time went this week.

At the same time, because I am holding myself to deadlines and publishing this blog every Thursday evening, come hell or high water, painting didn’t feel like a break from the stress.

On top of those two factors, I am also dealing with the normal “Week 11 on the same project” slump in motivation and interest that practical all human beings deal with. If it wasn;t for the scorecard commitment, and the accountability of having a public blog to update (that some people actually read!) I definitely would have procrastinated into not getting the Lamassu done this week.

If this had been week 3 or four, not only would I have got the Lamassu done on time, I probably would have got a start on the Sorcerer Lord and built some scenery. But, job done, and let’s be thankful for small wins.

THIS WEEK’S MODEL

So for this week’s model I finished off the Lamassu from last week. I went for deep red wings, medium red mane and bright red beard.

The muscular, cow-like body I painted with the exact same steps and techniques as my Bull Centaurs from previous weeks, just swapping out red recipes for a very dark blue black recipe. You can read the recipe in last week’s post.

Arguably, I could have given myself 9 points this week and not counted him as 100% painted. I didn’t go through the full shade and highlight process on the parts of the blue throne that the Sorcerer Lord is going to cover when he’s painted up next week.

This was a fun model to paint, ever bearing my motivation slump in mind. The horns in particular, with their recurving shape and ridges going in two directions, were fun and challenging to paint. And a nightmare to show off in photos. They don’t seem to have a good angle that shows everything.

I’m looking forward to getting the Lord painted next week and calling this model, and the current Chaos Dwarf project, complete.

SOCIAL MEDIA UPDATES

I guessed that the Chaos Dwarfs would be popular in my little retro warhammer niche on Instagram, and it turns out that I was mostly right. Follower count is going up again rapidly at a rate that hasn’t been seen since I was painting Bretonnians.

In the pre-Chaos Dwarf times it was big news for me when a post got over a thousand likes. My most liked photo ever on Instagram is my 5th edition boxed set photo, with about 1600 likes. At this rate, most of the Chaos Dwarf photos are going to overtake it in the next couple of weeks, and Hammer the Backlog might just crack 4,000 followers by the end of the year. A little bit of extrinsic motivation never hurt anyone!

Well, thanks for reading this far. See you next week for the end of this project!

You are the best of eggs.

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

How have I missed this thread? It is excellent, as are your models. I was very tempted by Fabelzel’s range when I started my Chorf journey, but I really wanted Bull Centaurs and there weren’t enough when I started. If I had my time again, maybe I’d go down your path.

I love the only-slightly-tongue-in-cheek productivity approach. I do something similar.

I look forward to seeing more!

[Hammer-the-Backlog]

Quarter 3 Week 12 Update: Expect the Unexpected

Hello, hello! Welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer miniature painting, accountability and productivity blog. It’s been another heck of a week around Backlog Central, with bad planning, forgetfulness and distractions nearly combining to make me miss a deadline for the first time!

But let’s assume I managed to pull it off, and take a look at the final model in the Chaos Dwarf quarter and the starter army as a whole.

SCORECARD

Well look. Another week in the green, hiding the absolute shambles that the week was! So, assuming that everything actually did go right and I have the models do, what exactly were the issues?

First of all, because I set aside 5 points worth of work for this guy, that actually gave me quite a lot of time to play with. And if I have learned anything from the last couple of weeks, giving myself plenty of time to get something done is the equivalent of giving myself rope to hang myself with. Having plenty of time to get things done is the same to my brain as having plenty of time to do something else. So in the end, I got it done, but did I really put the full 5 points of effort into it? Probably not! Probably 3 points, if we’re being honest.

The second issue was the distractions. I have been working on something else this week that I can’t share yet. Don’t worry, it’s not a sponsored thing, it’s just full of spoilers. So I actually did paint quite a bit this week, but it was not Hammer the Backlog targets. I’m letting myself off the hook since it is 1. Very late in the quarter and 2. I managed to get the rock done anyway, but it was a very good example of how losing track of your goals can easily take you off track and down the wrong path!

The second Issue of the week was, in all of this secretive painting, I took my eye off the ball on the website update. In this week’s check in, therefore, I marked the website rock as off track, and have until next week to get it fixed.

But, look, enough negativity for one week. He’s the current breakdown, showing how far along everything is!

THIS WEEK’S MODEL

Would you look at this fella? A nice little sorcerer to wrap up the quarter. I said it above and I’ll repeat it here, I didn’t really put five points worth of effort into this guy, in reality he only got a tiny bit more care and attention than any of the regular troopers. BUT!! It’s not really my fault, is it? It’s Fabelzel’s fault. When the normal rank and file troopers are just as detailed and exciting as the leaders, how can I be blamed if they end up being painted in the same way?

Anyway, it’s great to have this whole 15 HtB point centrepiece model complete, and therefore the targets for the quarter done!

The whole army looks great together, really working as a “what if?” Chaos Dwarf starter set that never was.

Well, that’s it for Chaos Dwarfs for the time being. I know that there are other models in this range that I haven’t done, including the whole Hobgoblin side of this army and an upcoming Lord on Great Taurus, but they will have to wait a few years until a gap opens up in the backlog.

BITS AND BOBS

In the meantime, I have one week left in this quarter. This time is going to be used to get the website rock completed, record the quarterly video for Youtube, and hopefully get some bits and bobs painted.

See you all next week, I hope, for the last update of Quarter 2 of Year 2.

You are the best eggs!