unmotivated

[Arkiham]

man i am so down lately about painting models.. i just sit an stare at them willing them to be finished...considering selling them just so i dont have to look at unpainted models...

the lack of " stuff" for aos, and by that i mean purely aos not shadespire, not silver tower etc has had a surprising affect upon driving me forward to finish my collection. 

i dont think its burn out, but lack of ignition...

 

 

Are many other people having this problem? had this problem? how'd you get over it ? 

[MrCharisma]

It's fair to say that we've all faced the issue once... or many times throughout our hobby career. I don't have a silver bullet for you, however; I'll share what strategies I've used;

In no particular order;

• Take a rest. Your hobby is meant to be enjoyed and the last thing you want to do is lose your passion. Put your painting away and take a break with something different from Games Workshop (Black Library novel, play games with unpainted models) or something different like a computer game
• Break down your painting into bite-sized goals: If you have a hard timeline like a tournament, it can be stressful and overwhelming to paint a large force in a short period of time. Instead of looking at a Completed vs. Uncompleted force/unit... break it down into chunks. Set a goal that tonight you will paint all of the blue, or that you'll have the base coating done... goals that are achievable in a short time frame. 
• Paint EVERY day. Even if it's 30 minutes a night, the small window of painting will mean that you'll have completed 3.5hrs of painting a week, and you'll be 100% focused during that time.
• Batch Paint. When completing large units of infantry I find it easier to work on one colour at a time. It not only standardise my colour schemes but it helps make me more efficient.
• Incentives. I have an army which has a lot of infantry. As much as I would like to paint all of my characters, I'll set myself an incentive that when I complete X unit, I'll relax and enjoy Y hero or monster.
• Multi-task. While you paint you can listen to music, your favourite AoS podcast, or even a Black Library audio book.
• Stop Chasing Perfection.  While I mostly enjoy painting I realise that I don't have the time to commit to painting at a Golden Demon level. I probably could if I REALLLLLY wanted too... but the pay off isn't there for me. I'm happy with an above average table top standard. I'm happy to put the brush down on these models and move to the next models otherwise I'll just get stuck with hobby backlog.

That's a few things that quickly come to mind. 

 

[someone2040]

So I'm going through a hobby lull at the moment also. I think part of it was caused by the fact I had a tournament 3 weeks after coming back from holiday, which in itself was fine, I didn't originally have too much to paint. But I ultimately changed my list a few days before the tournament, and frantically assembled, based and base coated about 13 models in just over a day.

Ever since I haven't done any painting apart from almost finishing off Garrek's Reavers for Shadespire. But even then, I've had Garrek on my table for about a week now with little progress.

 

Anyway! What I've found is that sometimes it's just as hard to start working on something, as it is to finish a project. Take my example above, Garreks been waiting around a week now while the rest of the crew are done. In some respects, it's not because I haven't had time (I've just used my time elsewhere), it's just hard to sit down and well... just finish him. This is because I'm doing other stuff at the moment, so to break that pattern and paint, requires effort.

Definitely something I think can help with that (and I'm going to try) is painting more regularly. If it's natural that you're painting, whether it's always at the same time, or just whenever you get around to sitting down at night, it'll feel right that you're doing it. For me with the hot weather down under, I've started waking up earlier, and of course, rather than go to work early, I've just sat around in the mornings. So instead I reckon I might try and get some painting done in that time instead.

 

Of course, if you're playing regularly that can be both a boon and a curse. It's a boon in the fact, by playing, you usually feel more involved in the hobby, and hence feel more motivated to get your army looking up to scratch or starting something you've found inspiration for. It's a curse, because playing time directly takes away from your other hobby time. I've been playing Warhammer the last 2 weekends, so that directly comes out of the time I can spend for painting also.

 

Anyway. I do totally agree that lack of new releases can also stymie hobby creativity. In a sort of catch 22, there's no buzz about 'new stuff' or how cool flashy new army is, etc. If that's just how you're feeling, take a break, and wait for the buzz to pick back up. Here's hoping to a good start to 2018.

[RuneBrush]

I've had similar over the (too many) years I've been in the hobby in one form or another.  I think as @MrCharisma says, the suggestion I would give is to give yourself a bit of a break.  If you've got unpainted plastic out on display, move it out of sight (nothing as demoralising as seeing a pile of grey).  Not sure if I'm on my own, but I find the process of packing things away during a quiet period is really cathartic.  Once you've had a week or two with a clear desk, you might fancy doing something.

I was in a similar place the other day but for completely different reasons.  I'd finally finished my Armies on Parade board (four Imperial Knights, three of which were Forge World, the culmination of two years worth of painting) so had packed the debris of that project away.  Knowing that I still had a bit of keen I tried to decide on what to paint next and failed miserably, I've so many boxes of models and ideas I wasted the whole evening daydreaming and was at risk of repeating that.

My solution was to grab a half painted model to keep me going, but this and a couple of posts on Twitter also got me to create a list of all of the hobby projects I fancy doing over the next year or so and importantly any that are half done.  Even though you don't realise it, half done projects really eat away at the enthusiasm, so prioritising those means that I feel slightly justified when picking up something brand new.

Of course the other benefit of a list is it means you can review the mountain of accumulated stuff with a view of "I'm not planning on doing this in the next year - am I ever going to do this?".  I'm starting to get rid of a number of bits and bobs now with the aim that I can free up some space for the things that I know I want to do.  My list isn't prioritised in any way so I can simply hop in and grab something that takes my fancy at the point in time when I've crossed something off - and we all love crossing things off a list!

[EMMachine]

9 hours ago, Arkiham said:

Are many other people having this problem? had this problem? how'd you get over it ? 

I have these problems sometimes.

In most cases you never finish a project and switch to something else. The point where my motivation has a real drop was when I painted 50 Stormcast Eternals in about 1,5 Months (Start February to Easter) and the point that I had painted my celestial vindicators with purple Plumes (color of the Bladestorms) when I read the celestial vindicators part of the All-gates story. I got some motivation back when I decided to make my own chamber (paintng the Plumes orange) and trying to write my own backgroundstories.

But since then I often struggle with the colors for my projects. It's far easier to take a existing colortheme, but most of the time you are other-directed about the lore and I don't want to get screwed again by official background like in the case of All-Gates.

Another point is, that it's much quicker to buy stuff than to paint it.

Some of the last weekends I spend mostly by building or prime stuff (last weekend I primed about 120 Genestealer Cult models, and after I don't like spray Primer they were all primed with Vallejo Primer and a large Basebruch or Drybrush). I really should try to paint some stuff this weekend instead of only building or priming but I think it's sort the "stop chasing perfection" part MrCharisma mentioned.

 

[Turragor]

It's swings and roundabouts really. For me anyway. I oscillate between things. I've done so a lot in life but as I mature like cheese I find the oscillations get smaller, between fewer things.

This hobby is amazing and unlike most other modern hobbys in that you produce more than you consume (in terms of time invested at least). Most hobbys that fall within the 'nerd' sphere are heavily weighted towards consume, consume, consume, buy, buy, buy.

You could probably say that about 99% of the world right now and the older I get the more I find too much consuming to be a hollow meal. Like a big plate of fast food.

I'm going off on one for reals now, but this is how the world has been built (not by any of us here tbh) today - deliberately. Ppl are, often, stuck in jobs they don't like to meet needs that are often not wholly necessary. It's stressful. The modern condition some say and it is natural to try to drown out what it all means with as much good food or booze or films or TV as possible in the evenings. You can often feel so wrecked after a day that you can't face the idea of making anything, yeesh that sounds like more work!

It is but it isn't!

Nothing much remains when you finish a modern game, film or TV show. The very best of these are like the average book - you learn and grow a bit through their consumption - and those are like pearls in an ocean. Mostly it's about killing time in as pleasant a way as possible. 

A hobby revolving around creation is a different choice (imo anyway) - at first blush ppl are drawn to these hobbys as they are different. But soon, the cacophany of other choices drowns out the harder productive hobby. Why would you knit if you could play a video game? Why write when there is a new series out?

The act of producing is like a muscle - you train it and it gets easier and it feels good to use it. Like it feels good to hop and jump and run sometimes.

I find personally I am developing more of an appetite for creating things, specifically painting and building models. I like that, it feels right. I guess it's similar to artists working on a familiar medium. I might try more traditional painting too.  I might grow to like that even more.

And that's an important consideration too - ppl change and grow and find new things. What you might be feeling (if it's a bit like what I feel) is that you want to produce things but not painted minis? That part was perhaps always forced to meet a deadline.

Is your love in the game or the creation?

I dunno, only you do. It might not even be this at all, I'm just rambling with my fingers.

Tl;dr sometimes you feel like doing hobby and sometimes you feel like killing time. Let yourself be either version of yourself.  The producer and the consumer. But be honest about what each entails.

[Chris Tomlin]

Hey @Arkiham,

I've been going through a similar thing quite a lot this year actually. Even just recently I dropped out of the last 4 events of 2017 and took a break from my podcast. To be honest that is a different sort of situation and has actually had a positive effect on allowing me to do some of my own hobby without any pressure or deadlines etc. Sometimes it's just about taking a step back an re-evaluating what you want from the hobby and if it's giving you what you need. You have to be selfish now and again. It's totally ok if you decide you don't want to paint anything for a month etc.

Here's a thread a posted earlier this year. Had some great responses that might be helpful to you as well. Definitely worth checking out;

I hope you find what you need and can regain some love for the hobby.

Chris

[Lucio]

I struggle to paint models, as I'm a hardcore convertor and builder so always look at building something new and exciting.

My main motivation to paint therefore is to pick something cool, or different and do that. Whether it's a character model, or a new sample paint scheme.

[AlphaKennyThing]

As has been rightly pointed out, it's pretty common to run out of steam. The best way I find to get back into it is to look at my big pile of unpainted models for a particular faction, say Ironjawz in this instance. Ironjawz can be pretty samey to paint, green skin, paint armour, wash skin, highlight skin, wash armour, highlight armour, extra detail, base it, done. It gets a bit repetitive - same, I should imagine, for Stormcast etc. What I do to overcome these 'stare at models, get depressed at the monotony of painting them, walk away' moments is to build little armies out of my collection.

For example, I'll sit there and build a 500pt list, or I'll work out 30-50 Renown points for a Skirmish force, and I'll set those models aside. Just building the mini-army on paper is often inspirational enough to make you want to paint it, as it'll have a purpose at the end of it. You'll have a mini army ready to play small games with. You'll set up them all up in all their greyness and want to get them ready for a little Skirmish game, even if you don't play it often, or at all. Once you've painted your little force, with its little variety of models, you'll most likely be getting the bug back, as you'll have a painted, game-ready little force in front of you, completed. 

The next step is to think about what you'd put in a 750pt list, or a 1,000pt list, and put those unpainted/half-finished models with your painted warband. Paint those models, and all of a sudden you have an army you can really use in a decent game. Take it for a spin against a couple of opponents with the Open War cards for a laugh, do a mini Path to Glory campaign, and then go back to the drawing board and think what a 1,500pt force might look like. 

Rinse and repeat until your 2,000pts is complete!

I've found this method has got me out of a rut on numerous occasions, especially if you bulk-buy an army. I bought 1,000pts worth of Cadians (40k, I know) in one go, and when I'd built it all I was looking at the 40(!) Infantry models, tanks, transports and heavy weapons teams and I was like "Uh, no." Went away, designed a little team for Shadow War: Armageddon when it came out, even though I had largely no intention of playing it, and painted up those models. That inspired me to design and paint the first 500pts of the army, which inspired me to do the second half, and now I have 1,350pts of Cadians finished. The larger the army, the easier it is to inspire yourself to paint extra units. 

[Pannben]

Very good answers, maybe try some new tecnique? 

[Uveron]

12 hours ago, Arkiham said:

man i am so down lately about painting models.. i just sit an stare at them willing them to be finished...considering selling them just so i dont have to look at unpainted models...

the lack of " stuff" for aos, and by that i mean purely aos not shadespire, not silver tower etc has had a surprising affect upon driving me forward to finish my collection. 

i dont think its burn out, but lack of ignition...

This is a very good point. Its hard to dedicate time to something when passion is low. 

So my Advice is simple, Try and get involved in some type of organised play event, I find that escalation leagues can work wonders. Pick an list you dont have painted, try and make the games fun and against players you havent seen before. This in my experience helps drive myself as playing games always makes me want to play more games. To a point I find that big weekend events overwork my hobby muscles , but a league that 'forces' a game every few weeks, could be a winner. 

[EMMachine]

Another Idea that could help (if you have the right group) is perhaps make some painting sessions together. Wouldn't work in my case because the rest of my group is more interested in gaming than painting, but perhaps you guys can motivate each other.

Or making something like 4 Generals (could be similar to AlphaKennyThings idea). Should be a little nicer than painting a tournament army because your goal is 1 or 2 Units per month instead of a 2000 Point army for a fix date. So you can see progress between you.

I made those "tournament army painting" about 7 years ago. It's quite effektiv to paint an army quick, but at the cost of the painting standard.

[Arkiham]

cheers all!

 

going to give the painting station a good clean, do a stock check an maybe pack some stuff away into storage. see how things go maybe wait until after xmas to get it out again. 

[Kugane]

Well, I can give you a dummy neurological explanation. I'm writing this on the fly, so sorry for grammatical mistakes and the likes.

Motivation is regulated by hormones. The more well-known hormone associated with inspiration and motivation is Dopamine. When stuff "has to get done", it is a hormone that gives you rewarding feedback to your body: it makes you happy for doing stuff "beneficial" to you!

The issue is however, we are humans, the main reason we get motivated to do anything is if directly beneficial for our survival or improves our quality of life. While gaming may not truly be survival, in a way, on a psychological level at least, it uses similar fight or flight pathways and rewards us for overcoming and facing obstacles. That's why playing against an opponent will be more rewarding then fielding 2 armies by yourself and playing against yourself. The more difficult the obstacle, the more rewarded we will feel overcoming it. So preparing a great army that gives you an advantage on the playfield will naturally be something your body will go for and will easily cultivate motivation for because you will feel it is going to give you an even better experience on the game table.

So, if we look at the current state of AOS - lots of armies are unfinished or have gaping holes in their warscrolls. It isn't strange that it is quite hard to feel motivated to finish painting an army that right off the bat will have a big disadvantage against better armies. Your body knows this, it is not going to give you a full-on dopamine rush to go and paint while it knows your chances of 'survival' or winning in this case, even if it is in a gaming environment, are going to be slim at best. So you have to seek your motivation elsewhere to create fun and exciting games, which is difficult with the little synergy that's going on in AOS right now.

The other thing is, Games Workshop keeps changing stuff up. Painting an army takes time. For some little, but for some A LOT of time. And the way GW is doing their business practice at the moment, once you are finally finished painting your army, there may be a new release wave of miniatures that make your currently painted army useless or new rules that make them obsolete - so there is no future-proof time investment. We just don't know if painting miniature A is going to give us long-term enjoyment. Our body knows this as well, it knows that painting is not certain to be a quality of life improvement in the long run.

So what can we do? Set different goals is one thing. You can set your goal to finish painting it for the simple enjoyment of having it done. But I think what is more beneficial is influencing the amount of Dopamine our body releases.

Because, why not? If you want to influence your inspiration/motivation to paint, you should directly influence the amount of dopamine your body produces on a daily basis. How do you do that? You can either go out and exercise, to get the rewarding rush from that, or, you can set goals for yourself, and reward yourself each time you reach a small milestone.

For example, if you set your goal that today you will base coat 5 miniatures out of your, who knows, 100? Then after you reach the 5 base coat mark, you should mentally reward yourself, praise and celebrate the achievement. This will create a small rush already. Chances are, with the small bit of hormone release at that instance, you'll have the motivation to do another 5.

Doing something beneficial to your work environment, like cleaning the place up, which was mentioned before, is also a way to set a goal and get rewarded for reaching it. Overcome the goal, improve your quality of life, and boom, inspiration to do stuff.

While exercise + small goals help. Next, there are plenty of foods you can eat, especially fruits and vegetables increase the amount of Dopamine your body can produce as well as keeping your Dopamine receptors healthy and running (not to mention the range of other hormones which are beneficial to your physical and mental wellbeing).

And lastly, if all else fails, be aware, our body builds up resistance to everything, including hormones - if you happen to play lots of games or already lead a very sportive lifestyle, chances are, you are already saturated from the reward effect your body can produce. All your receptors are blocked up, or you simply cannot reduce more of the hormone. When this happens, your body will enter a depression mode and you will not find the willpower to get anything done. This happens a lot with writers and painters - think of writer's block for example, where a writer puts all their inspiration to write for a long period of time and then enter a crippling depression for months and cannot produce anything, sometimes years, trying to restore their natural balance.

If you feel that regardless of what you do, and how healthy you eat or reward yourself, you still feel demotivated, the best thing to do is take a step back, and stop considering finishing or not finishing miniatures as a goal you HAVE to reach - you can still paint, but the way to handle it, in this case, is by simply painting without putting thought into it. Distract yourself, put on a youtube video or a movie or something and watch it while you 'mindlessly'  finish all the big base coating, washing, etc, and just keep painting while you focus on the movie you are watching. Stuff will slowly get done and will be ready for the game table :).

Just keep a good eye on your mental health, live a balanced life, don't over-do stuff, and you should find your motivation sooner than later!^^

I hope this helped.

 

Edit: I think in short - enjoy the journey, not the destination.

 

[BunkhouseBuster]

I too am in a painting funk right now.  But I can pinpoint the exact reasons why:

• Familial obligations and conflicts.  The holidays suck up free time, and the obligations of meeting with relatives and family members is one that many of us struggle with.  I can't really fix this one with massive drama and potential legal fallout.
• Holiday activities.  Probably both the best and worst thing of being a parent is taking your kids to and from activities.  It's awesome to see your kids/step-kids doing well in activities that they enjoy, but I would so much rather just stay home as a family instead.  Can't solve this for the season, and more drama from my relatives.
• Burnout.  I painted up 20 models all in identical color schemes over the past 2 months.  I'm trying a variation on the scheme now, but it's more of the same models that I just finished; while the Ironjawz models are some of my favorite, I can only handle so much of a single type of model at a time.  I can correct this a bit by painting up other models, of which I have plenty to choose, but I don't have time due to the above items.
• I am running out of paint.  I accidentally left a couple pots of paint open after my last painting session.  So a couple colors cannot be applied to my models without getting fresh pots from my FLGS.  I can fix this by paying better attention to my paint station

[Mr. White]

I had this and found myself a cure.

I simply sold off everything that wasn't already painted _and_ would be used in the next 6months. If I'm not using it, I don't need to have it taking up mental and physical space.

Anyway, this solved a lot of my problems. I no longer feel overwhelmed with heaps of unpainted grey plastic. So long as I no longer continue to buy faster than I can paint...I feel like I've got control over this hobby. More control than I've ever had.

My main game is BB. Do I need 12 teams (with 7 in the to paint queue)? I do not. I sold all but one. I will buy another in the spring time for a tourney around that time, but in the meantime...my BB collection 100% painted!

Do I need 4-5 different AoS projects that I'll get to someday? I do not. I will paint and play with a smaller selection and grow slowly. I really want to play Ironjawz, and could go buy a bunch, but the thing is...last month I wanted to do FEC so bought the SC set then. So, I need to either sell the FEC or hold on the Ironjawz. Buying Ironjawz would put me back in the hole. I'm starting to feel FEC again so think I will simply focus on what I already spent cash on.

It took a bout 30yrs in this hobby to realize it, but less really is more. I feel far more relaxed about painting than I ever have. I don't miss any of the stuff I sold off, and was also able to take the family on a nice mini vacation to boot! Double win!

Also,  @Turragor's post on consumption resonates with me, but that feels like another topic...

[Chris Tomlin]

To echo @Mr. White, selling off stuff is pretty cathartic it has to be said. I'm in the process of doing the same and though my reasons are monetary ones for the most part, it still is helping with my desire to hobby as I see piles of unassembled/painted models removed from my space.

[RuneBrush]

I'm currently thinking I need to update my signature next year with a "models sold off"

[Twitch of Izalith]

I haven't been doing AoS stuff for a few weeks - mostly cos nobody in my very small group of people to play with is playing AoS at the moment. They are all playing Shadespire and i'm not really interested in that.

40k has saved my hobby mojo though as the frantic codex release shcedule is keeping everyone enthused for 40k games so I just switched out to 40k projects for a bit - I even bought and painted up some space wolves - My oldest and (until now) all metal army that hasn't seen a new unit since the 1990's  

Unfortunately 40k is so poular right now I can't even get hold of most of the stuff I want to paint... its out of stock.

Having a short break from AoS hobby has really motivated me to get back to it now though and having finally decided what colour scheme to use on my stormcast I got all 74 models primed on saturday and all 3 metallic layers on them on sunday ( Vallejo metalcolour is AMAZING for zenithal highlights). 

I guess i'm the opposite of most people in this thread in that I like having boxes and boxes of stuff lying around - That way there is always something I feel motivated to work on.

So my advice to try is have at least 2 hobby projects on the go at any one time and always be have something new to try - a new paint, a new basing scheme, a new technique. Switching to a scenery project is another good distraction. 

[Mr. White]

One bone I do want to throw at current GW, and AoS in particular, is that they have made it easy to go small....yet feel accomplished.

Over the past two weeks, I've painted these eight models:

This is essentially: A hero for WHQ Silver Tower, a Shadespire party, and a Skrimish Warband all at one time. Three games can be gamed from so little effort.

_That's_ exciting to me.

I don't recall GW ever making it this easy. You can scale from one (WHQ) to about 5 (Shadespire) to about 10 (Skirmish) then grow. It's such a smooth, easy natural progression into a little AoS force. The work/reward ratio in the current GW fantasy climate is very favorable.

 

[elfhead]

I found that sharing my progress and Getting feedback and ‘likes’ on instagram and with my plog on this site helped to keep motivated. Allthough it can become demoralizing of you don’t get any responses... that is why I haven’t posted any updates to my plog for a while. 

 

Since I finished my goals for my slaaneshi army painting has been slower. It really was such an awesome project and I’m kind of sad it is done (for now).

it does help me to set myself a goal to improve on technigue. 

Now I just pick something that is lying around that i’m Motivated to paint and don’t worry about the rest. Hopefully I have painted enough to buy new models guilt-free when new elves finally show...

[The Stronghold]

Feeling unmotivated these past couple of months too.  I'm sure that'll change for me once the AoS model and battletome releases pick up again.

[Nubgan]

I too am having a major lul at the moment, I think my problem is that having done my Armies on Parade board I am looking for my next project to inspire me and currently I am either waiting for some Aelf release or trying to choose a 40k army to do next year. Both are equally frustrating because the stuff I want to paint/do/play with is not their at the moment. The only reason I got the Stormcast done for my board last year because they actually turned out fun to paint, I had some models and I was desperate to do something.

With vouchers already in my possession to pick up new models. I really hope something gets promised for either Aelves for AoS or Orks/Tau in 40k (to make them remotely competitive) or I will end up wasting a bunch of evenings early next year

[Sheriff]

4 minutes ago, Nubgan said:

waiting for some Aelf release

This is the issue for me too. I'm happy getting on with the current army, but as for any further armies or projects, no chance until the release schedule is known. 

[Twitch of Izalith]

6 hours ago, Nubgan said:

I really hope something gets promised for either Aelves for AoS or Orks/Tau in 40k (to make them remotely competitive) or I will end up wasting a bunch of evenings early next year

I have an entire T'au army sitting in its shrink wrap waiting for the codex to come out so I know what weapons to stick on everything! 

In AoS I'm happy enough painting and playing the current elf factions so I'm happy enough waiting for the new stuff model wise.

I play (or at least collect) lots of different armies for lots of different systems so there is always something going on for one or other of them.