Back-to-Work Challenge Day 1

This has not gotten off to a good start.  Excepting of course the one-day delay yesterday, I managed to put in a whopping 2 and a half hours before my neck began hurting so much it's making me nauseous.  I never realized until today just how many breaks I take while I'm painting.

More after the break:




I also realized that I REALLY REALLY hate the GW Zombie models.  They are just ugly models.  And yes, I realize that zombies aren't supposed to be pretty, but I mean ugly in a different way.  Ugly as in the pose options are terrible, the models lack any sense of dynamism, and the detail on them is very lacking.  I understand that the zombies are an old kit, but c'mon.  For a kit where you need a hundred of them to do anything with them, you'd think there'd be more to them.  Product of a different time, I guess.

So I started with the zombies, and in an hour, I managed to get Rotting Flesh painted on 9 of the 10 models I brought down.  It was like torture.  But, I guess it was close to my goal, in that it was simulating work I didn't want to do.

But I caved.  After that first hour, I shoved the zombies to the back of my painting station, and picked my Dwarfs back up.  And in just over an hour, I finished the flesh in the last 8 models, washed the flesh on 20, then washed the red on all 40 (39 warriors and my Thane who is getting a re-paint from green to red).  I then took a 15 minute break, as it was a good time since I was waiting for washes.  Upon getting up though, the pain just kicked my ass.  So I'm done, at least for a couple of hours.

Clearly I need to build up to this.  Jumping straight in was a bad idea.  But tomorrow I'll try to get a little more done, then more the day after and so on.  Ideally, I'd like to build up to 8 hours days, with breaks and a lunch.  But we'll see how much I can take.  Better to do it now while I still have the option of resting then to do it on someone else's time and lose the job because of it.

Also this goes to show how much more productive you can be when you are excited about the work.  It's also a little re-assuring to make progress like that, so I think I'll stick to my Dwarfs for a bit until I can handle more.

If you look at the 6 models in the back of the picture, you'll see I got started on adding the first layer of blood red.  If I get back to painting tonight, I'll be doing more of that.  If not, then it becomes tomorrow's job.  We'll see how things go.  This is going to be a difficult one...

And now I'm going to lay down.