Keeping up with the Kislevites

My Year of the Empire continues. Having forced myself to focus on the one army all year, I have made considerable progress. At last count I can easily field 5,000 points of painted Empire, which is a whole lot more than I had at the beginning of the year. However, I am still managing to distract myself continually, even within the relatively narrow boundaries I have set myself. I have a whole range of half-constructed Ogre unit fillers, I have a Halberdier unit with no command models, a Hellstorm with no crew, half-painted White Wolf knights, partially painted Greatswords... The list goes on. So, in order to give myself even more focus, I have issued a painting challenge to Owen of Terrain for Hippos! It shall be called Duelling Paintbrushes (cue banjo music):

The rules of the challenge are simple:

• Start painting on October 10th.
• Finish painting on October 23rd (the day of the Satus Bellum tournament)
• Paint a unit of 32 figures (or equivalent with unit fillers)- I will paint the Kislevites Owen built for me, whilst he will paint a unit of Khorne Marauders he built some time ago and never got round to painting.
• Time permitting, you can model and paint any number of matching characters to go with the unit.

It's all pretty simple. Owen paints far faster than I do, so the last item was basically added to keep him interested once he completes the Marauders and wants to move onto other things. It's all in the name of motivation!

Actually, this is a particularly fiendish and cunning plan on my part, as both the Kislevites and the Marauders will be likely to figure in the Battle at the Gates of Kislev, so I'm furthering our preparation for the game whilst trying to get those Kislevites completed before they get shelved and forgotten (which can happen all too easily with my to-do list)...

We who are about to be painted salute you!

I sanded the bases last night and I will undercoat the models tonight, all in preparation for when the challenge begins in earnest. Could be this is cheating (we didn't really discuss the fine details), but then it sounds like I will need all the help I can get. I also continued work on the first of my Kislev Ogre unit fillers, who will ultimately be for these guys.

The Kislev Ogre continues

Progress from the rear

The model is starting to come together. I plan to add fur trim to his sleeves and his bib. I will also give him a belt buckle. I am still undecided about putting anything on his back. All of the humans in the unit have bows and axes, with whatever they're not holding (as well as their quivers) on their backs. I like this, however I don't really want my Ogres carrying huge bows - it just feels a bit off. I am considering loading them up with gear for use by their human companions (like spare quivers). We'll see what I decide. Obviously he needs his axe too. Nevertheless, he is getting close. I did pause mid-sculpting in order to tear his arms off and mould both the body and arms, so I can do another couple of them without having to go through all of this again. The bib and sleeves mean there will still be puttying to do on each of them, but it beats starting from scratch.

As I say, I suffer some sort of modelling attention deficit disorder (being easily distracted by all that is new and shiny), and I got my paws on the new Ogre book soon after its release. I am resisting the temptation to branch out and fiddle with the new list ('tis the Year of the Empire - I am determined), however this has not prevented me plotting at all...

Who are these puppies? Whatever could I want them for?

I have plans for the wolves in the pictures above, however I am slightly undecided. They're very large (bigger than my rough measurements using a key led me to believe), so I'm uncertain whether they will serve my purposes with modifications, or whether I need a new plan. We shall see...

Oh, and in other news, my little blog reached 10,000 hits yesterday. Yay! This feels like a reasonable achievement, given it's less than 6 months old. Thanks to everyone who has visited. Keep coming back!