Project Clean Sweep: How to eat an Elephant!

It has been to long, a lot of reasons, a lot of excuses.

Part of this post is the how do you keep going on a large project. For me, a big part of that is, “Don’t try to eat the elephant in one bite”. Work on the project when the spirit moves you. If the wind blows in another direction, paint something else. You will never finish if the project is that Elephant on you back. Break it up, have some fun..

One thing I do is I chat on Discord with other painters. Brush Wielders Union. Swap pictures, joke, make plans for a mini, ask advice. Great Group.   This project started because “the guys” have been playing Undercity and then I saw the Widower’s Wood (WW) Kickstarter version. My first comment was “I want to paint that!!”

7 More Heroes, Increasing the replayablity exponentially. Outdoors game boards. Tons of scenarios. New swamp creatures and undead Grunts and a bunch of Boss Villains. Some you can add to scenarios to increase difficulty.

I got my copy (Ebay) in June of 2018. Then I started Project Clean Sweep.  A month later UnderCity was fully painted. That left me a grand total of 110 models for a Widower’s Wood, I am crazy, I’m retired.
First thing for WW was to paint all of the Heroes. Seven Heroes with eight models. These got done in a couple of weeks. Heroes and boss villain are the dessert. The sweet treat, no repetition like painting units. The Grunt models are the hard part, then enjoy the 11 Boss Villains for dessert 

By June of 2019 I had made zero WW progress. In fact I went backwards. I gave a good friend mine all of the painted UnderCity Grunt and Villain Models. He had painted his own heroes. So I had to paint a 2nd set. I started working on UnderCity part 2 in July and had it fully painted in October.

For Lost Hemisphere’s Paint the Target I knocked out the Undead Crew. That was 21 models done in early October. 21+8 = 29 done. Not impressive progress.

Around 12 October, I started painting the Swamp Grunts…

November and December, Holidays, CaptainCon preparations, Painted some Marvel: Crisis Protocol.
January, getting ready for CaptainCon 2020. I did some terrain for CaptainCon.2020 after CaptainCon is a blur…. I won’t go over it, you all know most of the details.  You already know most of them. Your living it too.
By the end of April I picked up the Ten Gatormen Clubmen I started in October and finished those. Then I knocked out Ten Spear Bog Trogs, 4 Swamp Gobbers and 4 Bog Trog Mist Speakers. 29 + 28 = 57 That’s a little over half done.

So I picked up a pair of Gatormen battle engines (Sacral Vaults) that I started way over 2 years go. I had a very specific look in mind. I spent most of May finishing those two. Big road block blown to pieces. So….

I pulled out part of a Cryx project and painted a full unit of Satyxis Raiders, UA and Solo.

 I continued pulling out stuff I had started in 2019. I did some more Minion Gatormen small units and solos.

Mixed in some Marvel: Crisis Protocol (The back log of those models keeps growing and growing).

I set up an airbrush rig in the garage, nice lighting and spent time priming a couple of hundred models (future project). 

Picked up a commission, 1000 points of AoS Ghouls. Ugly buggers..

Knocked out a unit of Satyxis Blood Witches and UA. Got a Kill Team Commission, 6 models and 8-10 terrain pieces. That was fun.

Riot Quest has terrain, well models to replace cards in the game, Painted all of those and some figures too.

I jumped back into WW in early October. It wasn’t like a HUGE project, just a few models to paint. Well, 12 Swamp Shamblers, 6 Tomahawk Gatormen and 2 Gatormen Bokers. Before the end of October, I added in 10 Tatzylwurm Vipers, 2 Feralgeists and 10 Blowgun Bog Trogs. Those got finished in early November. The Gatormen are familiar, from all the Club Gatorman, pretty easy, just different weapons. The Tatzylwurm vipers I painted like a PP painting video. Ferralgeists I followed the green/yellow ghostly receipt, Shamblers, well, I painted them like Trogs with some skin ripped of covered with swamp grass. Nothing hard, Total 99 models painted. Time for dessert.All that was left was 11 Villains, the boss bad guys/gals. Gobber Pirate nothing unusual. Tatzylwurm was yellow orange to be different from the grunt. Black Hide Wrastler, feathers, turtle shell, rope an many other details. He should be a tournament legal Model 😉 …  Gatorman Boker Villain, make him brighter and his feathers are different. Ironback Spitter BFTurtle is like the card. Bog Trog spearman is hiding in this picture. Gatorman Warlock is a unique model tried to make him look old. The big snake is like the card, bright orange and shading was fun, he looks good to me. Boss Club Gatorman has colorful feathers, Swamptopus (Swamp Horror) was fun, I like the way he came out. Deathless, undead uber boss is like all of them, LIKE the card…   😉

This was the only time I have felt any pressure. It more like excitement, adrenalin at the end of a race.  When I decided to make everything “Like the cards” it made the color choices a lot easier. I guess that boils down to having a good picture in your mind of what to do.

All eleven Villains need to look different from the grunts. I wanted them to Pop, stand out so I took my time and finished them on 11/11/2020. Veteran’s Day…

Looking back on the whole thing, I broke it into five bite. If I would have had to do it all in one bite, I would have had problems. Being able to post pictures and get feed back on Brush Wielders Union is a big help to me in this age of isolation. Don’t try to eat and elephant all at once. You will choke. Mix it up. Have some fun.

Bog Trogs our sneaky little bastards. One of them decided to avoid the picture and hide under my desk. So, if your crazy enough to count the models in this photo, it’s short one Blowgun Bog Trog….

Anything Worth Doing is worth over doing!!!

The game looks so much better with painted models!

Till next time….

Just do it!

• Widower’s Woods – 43 models
• Agata
• Skarg
• Vaskis
• Olo
• 2 x Bog Trog Mist Speakers
• 10 x Spear Bog Trogs
• 2 x Swamp Gobbers
• 8 x Swamp Shamblers
• 6 x Club Gatormen
• 6 x Viper Tatzylwurms
• 2 x Gatorman Bokors
• Deathless
• Tatzylwurm
• Rashedonak, The Witch Doctor

 

 

• Dead Men Walking – 21 models
• 10 x Risen
• 6 x Thrall Warriors
• 2 x Pistol Wraiths
• 2 x Boneswarms
• Necromancer

 

 

• Kickstarter Rewards – 29 models
• Crede & Jagger
• Lanyssa Ryssyl
• Gatorman Chieftan
• Ironback Spitter
• Bog Trog Chieftan
• 2 x Feralgeist
• Swamp Gobber Captain
• Tatzylwurm Matriarch
• Blackhide Warstler
• 6 x Tomahawk Gatormen
• Gatorman Shaman
• 10 x Blowgun Bogtrogs
• Swamp Horror

 

 

• Kickstarter Stretch Goals – 17 models
• Viktor Pendrake
• 4 x Swamp Shamblers
• 2 x Swamp Gobbers
• 2 x Bog Trog Mist Speakers
• 4 x Tatzylwurms
• 4 x Club Gatormen