[The Backlog Project was a January 2023 Otherverse Games and Hobbies community project. As such, you may happen across references to Otherverse and see its logos. The goal of the project was to dig into our respective piles of “shame”, select some yet-to-be started/unfinished projects, and see how much we could knock out in one months time.]
I painted a big ole’ pile of models but still added to my Pile of Awesome (Shame!)
This time last year I proclaimed that 2021 was a Year of Meh for me and my hobby. I can say without doubt or hesitation that 2022 was a much better year in the hobby for me. With some help from my darling wife Kera, I painted 611 models in 2022. Yup, I doubled my 2021 output. And then some.
Yet, once again I spent a large chunk of the year feeling like I was failing. I found a change of perspective that helped my mindset, and at the same time led to an entirely different failure of sorts. Let’s see how It all panned out and the results I hope to see in 2023 for my hobby and the Otherverse Project in general.

I painted how much in 2022?
Yup. Six-hundred and eleven models. In one year. I am thrilled with that number. I mean, shit, that’s more than 50 models a month according to my rudimentary math skills. That was kind of my goal going into 2022, but, only kind of. Let’s look at the success part of that and we will get to the part where I didn’t do so well later.
At the start of the year I set out with a simple plan: I will remove 50 models from my pile of Shame/Awesome a month. But if I were to reasonably buy twenty models, I would have to paint a total of seventy models. Seems reasonable, right? How else would I ever get through my backlog?
January started off well, I painted a bunch of quick and dirty ghouls for my nearly but never fully complete Flesh-Eater Court army. In addition, I was one of the lucky ones that got a Warhammer Quest: Cursed City box on launch, and started to feel like a jerk for hording it instead of painting it, so, I painted over 30 models from the box. While I had already painted the adversaries from the Another Glorious Day in the Corp board game, I finally got a chance to paint all the characters. Lastly, I bought the smallest box of Storm-troopers I could find: Somehow I justified in my head that I should see if I even liked the models. Turns out I did. I ended the month with a total of seventy models removed from my shame.
With a little help from Kera, we got almost a hundred Necrons finished: many of them were partly done, but it still took an intense month of work to get them all done. Somehow, amidst a month of furiously painting un-dead Egyptian space robots I managed another 10 Cursed City models, but I wouldn’t get back to them, because Robert and I made plans for a vacation of gaming in March.
Instead of painting the Warhammer Quest box, I would start on Marvel: Crisis Protocol. Somehow I managed to get all the minis I had purchased at that point and the terrain ready to go for vacation. I say somehow because I quite randomly decided to attempt painting my entire Grey Knights collection in the first half of my vacation before Robert arrived: I didn’t quite make it, and the last seven models are still sitting in a box waiting impatiently.
In February I almost made my goal, but I couldn’t contain my excitement at getting into Star Wars: Legion and buying the Rebels vs Empire box caused me to fail. I was still ahead for the year and finished March exactly on target by painting a Tau Kill team and some Star Wars models.
While Robert was up, we decided that instead of celebrating May the 4th for Star Wars, we would dedicate the month to it. I started painting Legion minis like it was my job. Honestly, it was starting to feel that way. Along with the minis I wanted to paint, I also started painting models that, while I wanted to eventually, was not interested in painting at that time. And I was rushing, recklessly throwing contrast with abandon across Fallout Wasteland Warfare models just to get models done and out of my shame. I was on the verge of failing to meet my quota all month due to a little reckless buying. The cracks were starting to appear.
I spent the summer painting Word Bearers; I needed to finish a big project this year, like I did with the Dark Angels in 2021. I buckled down and painted about 50 Word Bearers, many of which had to be built, every one of which was a resin model from Forgeworld. It was a lot of work and some of those models were tough, but, I got them done. And I got Best Painted Army from my first NE30K event I attended. That was awesome.
September was mostly about the A Song of Ice and Fire game, and the Free Folk army I bought and painted. I would move onto a few Sons of Horus models from the Heresy box, but, quickly decided to abandon that project. I would shift gears and take up painting the Ultramarines for 30k. Some of which had been quickly painted to super-basic tabletop standards to supply models for a crazy-large game with Robert many years ago, and then forgotten in some dark hole in my pile of shame.
This all culminated with launching Project Ultramar, a multi-phase project to get several thousand points of Heresy era Ultramarines painted, with side projects planned for when I get tired of painting blue, and even pallet cleansing distractions when I inevitably decide that i would rather die than paint another marine model.
As the year wound to an end, I would finish over 60 Heresy era Ultramarines. My painted model collection had grown greatly during the preceding 12 months. I was now sitting on 1771 painted miniatures.
Wait. Wait. I bought how many models in 2022?
So, yeah, we bought 958 models in 2022. Nine-hundred and fifty-fuckin-eight models. And I say “we” but it was mostly “I”, of course. How did that come about? I mean, damn, I was trying to reduce my shame, wasn’t I?
I had been keeping up with my buying and painting plan for the first quarter of the year. Within that time I picked up a starter set Star Wars: Legion and a few expansions. I got another Kill Team box that I didn’t touch. And I grabbed some Fallout models for the game that we have only played twice.
For the most part I was feeling good but I had also found myself picking models to paint just to get models painted. Seemed weird. And the cumulative goal per month had started to feel stressful, to the point of being mentally taxing instead of relaxing.
April is where shit fell apart.
And then Wolfenstein arrived. I kickstarted that game some two years ago. Long enough ago that I fucking forgot about it. I was devastated. Fuckin annihilated. I should have been thrilled, literally ecstatic at the arrival of a board game based on a reborn video game franchise I have played for literal decades.
Instead, I was freaking how about how a board game that I had been excited about arrived with 95 models across the base game and two expansions. Fucked. With a capital Ouch! That’s it, that’s the point of no return. I lost sleep that night, but luckily I didn’t delete my website and Youtube channel like I stormed into my hobby room to do. I decided to give it a day, and luckily for me, Robert is there once again to walk me back from the cliff.
You’re project is about painting models he says. Your intro video says nothing of clearing out your shame, he reminds me. The thing that got me the most was when he stated, with no hesitation, that it was entirely unlikely, even impossible, for me to stop buying models.
The sense of relief was palpable.
So, I succeeded in not quitting, but, damn did I fail at reducing my shame.
After that I didn’t let my building shame bother me, I was after all collecting models. I got another Kill Team box, again, and then a small pile of Elder Scrolls models to hang out with the Fallout models we were not using. Most importantly, the release of Horus Heresy 2.0 landed and I bought the box set immediately, and a few other kits. I was proud of myself, as bad as this sounds, that I didn’t buy two boxes on day one. I had intended to, but, while I wasn’t shaming myself for adding to my shame, I also realized I didn’t need to go nuts.
Then I went on eBay and ordered 50 minis for a dead Terminator game, all from watching one damn YouTube video.
And then my local FLGS decided to hold a moving sale. Fuck me sideways. Kera and I bought a pile of board games, every single one of which came with models. Kera wanted a game we could play together that wasn’t Warhammer based, and shit was on sale, so we settled on Zombicide. The 2nd edition box and the expansion was over 10% of our year’s total in a single purchase. She wanted Mansions of Madness so that was over 50 with the expansions we got on sale. I got a pile of Star Wars: Legion models for both of our armies (I made the rebels for her) and I got an expansion for Hellboy that I had been eyeballing for a while.
November rolled around and Robert came back for another visit, and he had the intention of buying models. We hit up a game store every day he was here. I let him spend money and mostly managed to avoid buying minis. Well, almost, but he bought a Bolt Action set, Cliff had two starter armies waiting, and I had been watching batreps. So, yeah, I almost made it through his visit without buying a model and then rammed 70 models up my shame pile with a starter Soviet army. At least I managed to not also buy the Konflict 47 starter for them, too. I really want those bear soldiers, dammit.
Christmas was blissfully light on extra models: I got some needed support for my Ultramarines through gifts and collected monies. I added 958 models to my collection this year, some of which got painted, some did not. I am sitting on about 3200 models, about 40% of which are painted. Crazy, I know, but we will talk about my Pile of Shame/Awesome in my next article.
We are going to start the year with the January Backlog Project So, what’s the deal?…
How in the fuck will I top all that in 2023?
Once again we find ourselves in a new year and similarly I find myself setting some semi-unrealistic goals for 2023. I have to set up some epic hobby plans. But, let’s take a moment to stop and look at January. A few of us at Otherverse are working on a month-long Backlog Project. The idea is to get some models painted that have just been languishing in our pile of unloved models for too long.
As fortune would have it, I was hip-deep in Ultramarines. I have been sitting on this pile of Heresy Era Ultramarines for years. I literally still have Mk4 marines waiting to be build from the three Betrayal at Calth boxes I bought in 2018, and that’s after building an entire Word Bearers army using the same armor mark. Some effort was put into a small group of the models to get them table ready for a big game Robert and I played back in 2019, but, even those were abandoned, relegated to the Pile of Shame with no more than base coats upon their primed bodies.
I had managed to finish Phase One of Project Ultramar, my multi-phase project that will see me paint about 5k points of heresy smurfs. Phase Two consists of a pile of Terminators, legionaries with Shields and some tanks to prepare for a Narrative event in late February. But, there are a few other small projects that I would like to try and give some attention to in January.
In addition, Project Ultramar has plans for possible pain-points built in. Should I need a break from painting blue, after painting blue, and before I paint more blue (gross) I have half of an Ally Detachment of Iron Hands ready and waiting in the wing. They are primed and ready to be shifted into the prime project space should my cerulean efforts cause me mental anguish.
As I stated above, I got most of the army complete in March, but I never returned to the 7 Grey Knight models. That should be easy. Right? Hopefully, I can get these guys checked off the list in January. It would be wonderful to mark them as complete finally.
The box is a mess of sub-assemblies, large chunks of vehicles and a few completed bases along with the primed, and airbrushed models.
I can’t even remember why I thought it was a good idea to do the bases before I was done with the model proper. Kinda stupid.
On top of the sad little pile of Grey Knights, Gaunt and his Ghosts have been attached to pill bottles since a few days after release, primed and ready to go. One of my friends was fairly judgy about the fact that I purchase, built and subsequently left Gaunt and his companions to immediately be relegated to shame. Whatever, I’m totally over it. It’s six dudes. That should be easy as well..
Should be.
Speaking of six dudes; I have six random characters that have been sitting on my desk for a while. When I say “sitting” what I mean is that they have been tossed in a pile next to my desk lamp and nearly forgotten about. What I mean by “a while” is that some of the models have been on and off of my painting desk for literal years (I am lookin at you, Eisenhorn!). Maybe, just maybe, I will think about working on them as well.
Will I be able to put aside my grand Ultramarine experiment and shift some long-standing shame into the active projects for the month? Or will my headlong rush into Guillimans’s waiting embrace (and my obsessive pig-headedness) win out?


Tyson
Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man