Weekly Waffle #345 – Dredsmasha Helper
17th August 2024
This week’s weekly waffle is all about the impact of having to commute into work every day has on my hobby time. It’s going to be a bit of moan but I’m also hoping there is some positivity in there. For the last few years I’ve been lucky enough to do what refer to as hybrid working. So I’m in the office a few days a week and at home for the rest of the week. Those days in the office tend not to be at my local office, which is about fifteen minutes from home. So there is quite a bit of travel involved. Usually between an hour and two hours each way. Given it’s only a couple of days a week and do like my job that’s not that big of deal. I still get my hobby time in and have time for all of those things in live we do outside of the hobby. But that has all changed this week and it’s had quite a big impact on my available hobby time.
We have really big piece of work underway at the moment and as part of that work I have to go into one of our offices every day. Now don’t get me wrong I have no problem with that and understand why it has to be like that. This bit of work isn’t something that can be done remotely. As I said above I like my job and don’t have an issue with heading into the office each day. But I do still want to keep the blog up to date and having way less hobby time is a challenge in that respect. Which is why I’m waffling on about it. But there are some positives to it which I’ll cover a bit later.
Now having said all of that it doesn’t mean that I haven’t been able to get some hobby time in this week. Knowing my time would be limited I have looked for something that I was confident I could get completed reasonably quickly. To do that I’ve stayed with the 40k Ork theme I’ve had for the last few weeks and raided my box of prepped, but not painted models. Mainly because not having to clean the mins up gives me a better chance of getting something completed. The other thing that helps with this week’s efforts is that I’m only talking about a small mini so the work involved isn’t great. Although I think the end result is well worth it and will take pride and place when I eventually get the whole unit completed.
So what can be so small it is easy to complete, yet so important I can take a dominant place on the table top. Well for those of you who know me well it will be obvious. But for everyone else it’s a grot. But not just any run of the mill grot. This one has a mighty banner to help rally his fellow, under appreciated grot’s, but he also has a grot version of the power fist. It’s one of Kromlech’s creations and as such is a little larger than the standard GW grot’s. But don’t think it really matters. Especially not this instance where he is clearly a grot of great importance. Now in game terms non of his extra standing actually matters but I do like my grot’s and this guy in a full squad of different grits will really send out.
On the painting front I’ve not treated this guy any differently to the other Ork’s I’ve been working on over the last few weeks. I’ve tried to go a bit paler on the skin tone but other than that it’s exactly the same approach. Red and blue with a little bit of yellow highlights. Granted in this case there is very little yellow but if I stand him alongside a normal boy (don’t have any picture this week) he is a lot paler but fits right in. Clearly part of the same army just not quite as tall or a bulked up as the boys.
But the proof is in the pudding as they say so what do you thin of this magnificent specimen.
You can see more Ork miniatures at my gallery here.
It’s not great deal of work in the grand scheme of things but it has been a lot of fun to paint and in a week where I didn’t expect to get any hobby completed it’s a huge bonus. The plan is to try and do something similar next week so that I’m keeping the content ticking along. But I’m also keeping the painting mojo moving along. These little projects do get in the mood to do something a little larger. The only issue is what to do when I get the time. I’ve started to get those intrusive kit bash ideas whilst I’m sat on the train. I’ll be quietly reading my book and some random conversation or kit bash idea just pops into my head. So I have to write it down before I forget, but usually means when I go back to my book I’ve forgotten where I got up to and have read the whole page again. And I’ve read the same page a few times this week. The challenge is going to be which ones do I want to actually work on and then when do I think I will be able to fit them in.
Another bit of news this week is that Puppets War have released what they are calling the Ultimate Badasses Squad. Think an oak version of the M56 Smart gun from Aliens . I think that the way Puppets War pitch their creations to be alternatives for GW miniatures these would fit squarely in the Lootas space. But I was looking at them as being a big shoota option in a normal squad of truck boys. Either way they are very nice miniatures and I will be adding them to my wish list. Although given the amount of work and other things I have on at the moment I don’t think I’m going to pull the trigger, pun intended, on them just yet. But they will find their way into my collection at some point.
That just about sums things up for this week. I’m going to play it by ear as to what I may or may not have ready for you next week. I will try to have something fresh for you but I can’t make any promises about that. If I don’t have something fresh then I will have something for you so please do pop back next week. Until then I hope you all have good week whatever you have planned and that all your hobby projects are successful.
