Hobby: Fractional Progress February (aka James is busy this month)

Yesterday I had a short but productive painting session. I undercoated a Beast Of Nurgle and painted in the grey skin; painted those odd gill things on a unit of Hormagaunts; layered the yellow on the shoulder of a Deathwatch Kill-Marine (Marines Malevolent, as it happens); and, added some inks to the plagueswords on some Plaguebearers.

In all that was a little more than half an hour. I didn't get much done, I didn't finish anything (though the Hormagaunts are close to complete now) but I had a half hour or so spare so I slapped a podcast on and got what I could done while I could.

This is going to be the pattern for my hobby this month. I won't have much time to paint due to various real life reasons so I'm going to try and concentrate on having regular, short sessions and just seeing how much I can get done. Hence the name: Fractional Progress Month. A friend recently reminded me that even fractional progress is still progress and after a very unproductive January I'm ready to celebrate any advancement of my projects.

So, every day this month I will have some sort of hobby session. Even if all I get done is a layer of undercoating I'll do something every day and post up my fractional progress every couple of days.

And, God damn it, I am going to finish the basing on that bloody Hive Tyrant that I've had finished since before Christmas! 

The Great Unclean One and the Easy Build philosophy

Yesterday I built my Great Unclean One. Even considering I was watching a film and taking the odd break to let some assemblies dry before attaching them to the main body it still only took me about an hour. Considering my less than fond memories of building the Lord Of Change, I was agreeably surprised.

It is a stunningly simple model. According to this little infographic GW shared on its Facebook page it has a grand total of 59 components. That includes three alternate builds and six Nurglings who are just embellishments. In fact, there are a lot of significant spare parts, all sorts of horns and hands, a bell and a big knife as well as the hilarious collection of Nurglings, all of which I'm keeping aside for when I make a Death Guard Knight.

Now, part of this simplicity is that a Great Unclean One is a big, round dude. In fact, whilst building him I was reminded of a hollow Easter egg. A really, really ugly and yet somehow adorable hollow Easter egg.

Still, I think part of the philosophy here is owed to the recent Easy Build kits. Obviously there's a lot of differences between this kit and the actual Easy Builds (optional builds and the massively higher price spring to mind) but a lot of thought has seemingly gone into cutting the main body into as few pieces as possible.

I certainly can't argue with the results. I finished the building model in a little more than an hour, didn't once have any trouble finding a component and even have bits left over for a future project. If this is the direction GW are planning to go for future huge monsters I heartily look forward to them.

Especially if there's going to be a plastic Keeper Of Secrets because my Dark Elves Cult of Pleasure army would greatly appreciate a one of those.