[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.]
In which we ask the question again:
Pile of Shame or Awesome?
How’s your January Backlog Project going, Tyson? MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS GET! OFF MY BACK… err, I mean, splendid. Why wouldn’t it be. I mean, it’s not like I have three or four years worth of backlog to work on.
Anyway…
Backlog Project Progress
My month started out with a handful of models that I was trying to get done last year. I was pushing it a bit much, doubling-down on Phase Two of Project Ultramar and it was too much. I had articles to write, photos to take and a Robert to make happy. Happy Happy. Please don’t hit me. He could clearly feel the underlying stress level that I was, as usual, existing at and adding to it myself. Forgetting that my hobby is not my first, or even my second job.
One thing I learned last year, the hard way I may add, is that what I am doing here has to be first and foremost a fun stress reliving hobby. Not infrequently, I needed (and likely still need) a reminder of that fact. This is the primary reason I have been away from making videos for so long. It started out as a temporary reprieve and turned into a minor sabbatical to find my way back to the positive side of the hobby. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed myself this past year, but didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have.
So, Project Ultramar Phase Two, Squad one and two, were finished in early January. Excellent. Well, mostly. The Apothecarion Detachment took far longer than anticipated and I didn’t move onto the random rogue models glaring at me from my work table.
And instead of starting on those models, I discovered an entirely different backlog project that I had not anticipated. I have long found it helpful to have a Livingroom paint project. Here me out.
While my mainline projects require time at my paint table, with nice lighting and all of my tools within reach, I have many, shall we say, projects I just care less about. The fact that these are lesser projects in my eyes, for whatever reason, doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve paint, just, less attention to detail maybe.
Anyway, making a short story long, I discovered that at some point last year I placed a box containing an entire army under my lift-top table with plans to paint it. There it sat, since, my livingroom project flipped over to painting the zone mortalis walls that I have been using lately for Necromunda and Horus Heresy. I extracted the box from under the table, and under a disturbing amount of dust, I rediscovered my Deathwatch army.
Caked in dust and debris were 57 models, mostly primaris marines that I got on deep discount when a FLGS was closing. The rest was a few special edition models I got without any clear reason why and Kill Team Cassius from the Deathwatch board game (the genestealer cultists are not painted yet, either). Kera and I started dusting off models and painting while we relaxed and watched television. Why are they so low on the interest totem pole and relegated to a get-em-done minimum effort livingroom project? Well, I always wanted both a Sisters of Battle and a Grey Knights army, but, how could I have two of the three Chamber Militant armies and not the third? Yeah. I am that obsessive.
Well, it wasn’t as quick as I anticipated, since I spent a couple of the nights I intended to paint turned into either just watching television or finding myself too tired to even watch stupid TV. I did manage to get a limited edition Lieutenant and a 10-man Fortis Kill Team. I am happy enough with the paint job, but I ran out of time to hit them with a matte varnish through the airbrush. And the poor Venerable Dreadnought didn’t get much love and was left on the painting table.
I clearly wasn’t going to get to as much of my Shame as I may want or that I could have. But, is that a problem? Maybe we should discuss that a little further.
Planning Projects (Way) Ahead
Let’s begin with the fact, before we even talk about the models sitting in my hobby room, that I am a planner. I plot and scheme continuously within my head.
An example of how my mind works: So, I have this Horus Heresy era Ultramarines army planned. But, I am also going to plan Ally Detachments to go with them. I like the Salamanders. I like the Iron Hands. Cool, I will do an ally of each of them, which allows me to get their cool Legion specific shit without having to plan an entire army.
But, wait. If I were also to get a Raven Guard ally, I could then combine the three Ally Detachments together to make a Shattered Legion Army from the models I already planned to do anyway. See, now I have gained an extra entire army. All I have to do is build three smaller forces to go with the larger force that, at the time, I had barely event started…
And let us not forget the Ultramarines project, of which I have entitled Project Ultramar. By the time its done, I will have some 6 or 7 thousand points of Heresy Ultramarines painted, as well as at least the Iron Hands Ally detachment that will be planned as a distraction side project within the greater Ultramar plan, to stave off the feeling of burnout from painting all-together too much blue power armor.
This is how I find myself with several entire armies for 40k, Horus Heresy and Age of Sigmar waiting in various boxes, bins and cubbies. They exist in various states ranging from primed and ready to go all the way back to still residing in a sealed box. I don’t see this as a Pile of Shame. Sure, the models have not been added into my painted collection, but, the key word is “yet.” I will absolutely get to them eventually, well, ok, let’s say definitely maybe. But I plan to, and this is why I see this aspect of my unfinished collection as a Pile of Awesome. It’s gonna be awesome when these projects finally get completed and added to my painted miniatures total.
Actual Shame
A large portion of what I would actually call “Shame” has been around for literal decades. Stretching nearly as far back as my hobby goes, before I even knew it would eventually take over my free time, I bought Battletech Mechs, Necromunda Gangs, and several half-formed Warhammer Fantasy Battle armies. These were the games I played in High School along with my 40k Dark Angels that I sorta painted. Between Dwarves, Skaven, and both Dark and High Elves, I have literal hundred of models that mean next to nothing to me right now, which were all acquired back in my College Days, alongside the Tyranid army I finally painted a year or two ago. Might the Old World release and the fantasy models suddenly become usable? Sure. But, I am not holding my breath.
On top of the WFB minis, I have a starter set for Dust, a cool alternate WW2 game that died. Neat models, not ganna put the effort into finding more to make the project worth completing. And I literally hated Warmachine, so that army I got myself and the one I bought for Kera will likely rot before I paint them. At the same time, they are not occupying that much room in the grand scheme of things; removing them from my presence will not return to me enough valuable cubic footage.
Likewise, there are a few board games with miniatures that I just don’t care to paint. The 1st edition of Descent was decent, but I am not going to play it again, so I am not likely to paint the minis. I have plenty of Dark Souls expansions, and I haven’t even played the game, nor do I really care to at this point. I hope I will paint them, as they are a nice collection of cool models, but, the excitement just isn’t there.
You may ask: Hey, Tyson, why don’t you just sell that shit? Good question Captain Nosy. I am looking at collecting as many painted models as possible: if there is a chance I will get back to them, then why shed them? The few bucks I am likely to get for uncared for and abandoned games is not enough to justify the time investment in selling, packing and shipping, followed by arguing with the buyer who suddenly wants their money back. So, they will stay for now. Maybe my thought process will change by the time I write a similar article to this next year. But, yeah, I doubt it.
For the most part, I see my ungodly pile of miniatures as an exciting journey. I intend to enjoy the adventure and accumulate quite the collection along the way.
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
