T-minus six days

Get it?  Six days left.

Didn't get quite as much done yesterday as I wanted to, but progress is good in any quantity with less than a week to finish.  I got the whites done on the Sanguinary Guard, though I may have missed the odd skull or scroll end.  I'm considering how to do the purity seals, whether I should stick with the green like the assault squad or go with the more traditional red.  Green would keep everything tied together, but I originally started the green because red seals on red armor didn't work out so well.  Red on gold will be just fine though, and if the Guard's seals are a different color it will be another little detail to distinguish them from the rank and file marines.  I'm also pondering pauldrons, specifically what color they'll be.  White and red are under consideration, though I'm leaning towards red.  It will help tie the Guard in with the other troops, plus it will make the little sculpted white circles on the pads stand out more.  Much of the remaining hand-wringing is about these little details, and since the Guard have plenty of little details there's more than enough wringing to be done. 

You can almost see the pauldron circle here.

From the great timing department, I got an email this morning saying my Warstore order has shipped.  While I'll be glad to have some dropper bottle metallics in hand, especially with Grey Knights on the horizon, it is still a bit of an kick in the pants to see them shipped the day after I finish the task I ordered them for.  It does mean I'll have the transfer liquids sooner rather than later though, so perhaps I'll have time to finish both squads completely instead of doing the best I can with what I have in the time remaining.  When I really take a step back and thinking about it, I don't have that much left to do.  A list, for visual reference.  First for the Sanguinary Guard:

• Glaives
• Banner
• Reds
• Purity Seals
• Blacks
• Silvers
• Basing
• Writing
• Any details I missed
• Wings
• Varnishing

The ol' switcheroo: group shot is last this time.

And then for the assault squad:

• Jump Packs
• Decals
• Touch up the base edges
• Varnish

The lists together are lengthy, but each entry is fairly minor.  The wings and jump packs are the biggest elements, and both can easily be finished in a day (once I clip out the wings, prep, and prime them of course.)  The banner will take a while, and the glaives might as well, but both of those should be finishable in another day.  That leaves decals and the other minor details, which again should be a day's work at most.  Varnishing is a non-factor, and I can get both groups at once.  This is all a worse-case scenario as well, figured up to give me wiggle room and extra time to compensate for lack of motivation, life-intrusions, and other unforeseen complications.  I'm looking at three days worth of work to finish the lot off, and I should have three or four days to work with between now and Thursday.  I think the deadline in 11:59 pm on Thursday, but I'll have to check.  If it's actually Wednesday night then things might be a little hairier than they appear now, but still very doable.  I hope to get in a good chunk of painting on Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which will leave Thursday for varnishing and finishing up any little things that I've overlooked.  One nice thing about having all those metallics in pots is that I can return to my roots and paint straight out of them if I miss something like a grail charm on a knee pad.  I'm fairly full of confidence at this point, and if I can stay on target I should complete my vow sometime before the deadline.