Heresy & Heroes

Oh, so much to do and so little time. What’s more, as covered at length in previous articles here, so many distractions. Life as a hobbyist would be so much easier if we all had several pairs of eyes, a few extra limbs, a time machine, limitless bank accounts and a never ending supply of fine sable brushes sprouting from various orifices. If only…

I’m also growing more and more accustomed to doing big shiny pieces and this doesn’t leave a lot of room for the du jour units of the game. The Knights and Contemptors of this world are far too alluring. This makes the idea of sitting down to paint ten basic, run of the mill space marines a little dull. And that’s unfair. I need another Tactical Squad to avoid a Highlander army, and it’s been in my plans for ages to have further tactical squads and rhinos. More than that, an unopened box of these fellows has been sat on my desk for months now. Furthermore, and also previously stated, the new Tactical squad box is a fantastic kit to work with. Lots of options and some faultless sculpting – I should be well up for it.

However, I’m not. I have a dreadnought on the way and tanks and aircraft and walkers and characters to work on. They’re the exciting ones. So, this leads me neatly and with great rambling to the crux of this particular dilemma – how to paint what you need to paint but that you don’t want to paint.

The question, that I’d be delighted if you chimed in on, goes thusly: can you work on projects piecemeal? So, the idea is, that I build the legs and torsos and then base them. The i undercoat those and all the other bits on the sprue, and then, I just leave them until I fancy working on them. Paint a little bit at a time. No rushing, no pressure. Can that work?

During the days of building the Contemptor, I maybe get all the basing done. On a busy weekend, maybe I have time to do a few helmets. A couple of pairs of legs in the evenings after work. And when the next big project is underway, I quickly paint all the bolters…

Can this sort of approach work? I’m sure I can get it all done, but will I be able to keep the look tied together, and will it keep my attention and love for the unit going. Time will tell (and this is bound to take a long time), but it’ll be an interesting experiment. I’ll try and get some WIPs posted up here throughout the process. You never know though, I might find myself with a quiet weekend in which case I’ll steamroller through the lot of them. Anyway, at least you know what I’ll be doing with my spare time.

I guess this counts as a WIP, albeit a rather pathetic one.

Let me know your thoughts. Onwards!