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Combating the Dreaded Hobby ADHD


Fulkes

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It definitely gets boring having to paint multiples of a particular unit. 

What helps me is rotating between very different models. So I'll batch paint 5 blood warriors, then 5 blood reavers, then 5 blood letters, then a khorgorath or something.

I could never just sit down and paint 30 or more bloodletters across a few sittings. That's just a chore.

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I unfortunately can't afford more than one army and thus unable to be distracted by new releases. On a model to model basis, I have found that life is a marathon. So I have 160 clanrats to paint, so what? If I'm in the mood to paint them at all, its a single layer over the course of 20 models, then I shelve them for a few weeks. However, if its a hero, its all hands on deck. I throw that puppy together immediately and paint it till completion. The trick to it is that I still dont do it all at once. The beauty of centerpeice/hero models is that if the sculpt holds your visual interest well enough, each part of the model can be treated like its own separate project and you can hop to each one every few days. You may feel like you're still meandering through your hobby but you've tricked yourself into completing a single model all in one go. 

Last bit of advice: Be like the squirrel, one acorn at a time. 

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I did have this problem, I used to rotate armies pretty every 4 months. Recently something clicked around last year and I got fed up of doing so, now I have 3 armies that are a decent size with enough to swap and change the army list. I think for myself that's key, having variation within one army. 

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8 hours ago, AaronWIlson said:

I did have this problem, I used to rotate armies pretty every 4 months. Recently something clicked around last year and I got fed up of doing so, now I have 3 armies that are a decent size with enough to swap and change the army list. I think for myself that's key, having variation within one army. 

Indeed, went really deep with Nurgle this year and just painted what I wanted to and had a blast with it. Marriage vs. ONSs I guess?

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Character models are the bane of my wallet. There is just something about them that leads to me painting them for hours if not longer. I don't quite get that carried away with most of my regular models but I do spend a lot of time on things. I'm trying to master batch painting though.

On a different note learn from my mistake and don't try and talk yourself out of an army by looking at it and seeing how hard/tedious it might be to paint. Mostly because you might stumble onto a project idea like these fancy lads gave me for a Skaven army from Shyish:

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It gets sillier when you notice that if I start this I basically waste nothing I already have since I can recycle my skeleton models too.....

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I use the "only play with painted armies" motivation technique along with having something small on hand to break up monotony. I really want to get my Stormcast on the table, so I'm finally working my way through them, but I can only do so much gold paint before I get tired of it. So I stopped part way through the army the other day to get my Blitz Bowl stuff painted and I've got The Fellowship from Middle Earth SBG on deck if I need another break. When I was painting my Nurgle army, my Wild West Exodus warband found itself painted in the middle of that. My next big project is my Middle Earth Mordor army, but I've also got some unfinished additions to my Death Guard army ready for distraction.

So while I don't like to keep whole armies backlogged(though I do now because I got a lot of stuff assembled and primed before it got to cold for rattle can), I do find it helpful to have a lot of one off models or warbands ready to go in case I want to paint but don't want to keep painting the same thing for so many days in a row. Without that, I stop painting and sometimes it gets hard to get back into it if I just have the one thing to paint. So while I like to paint and am not forcing myself to do it as a chore, I do need to keep it a bit fresh for myself and whole armies can start to feel like a chore. I also don't typically do a full 2000+ point army at once, my armies start off at around 1000-1500 point forces so I can paint them without it getting to monotonous and then a second half of the army will come along later with a much longer break than a few different models painted in between sessions like I did with my Stormcasts and Blitz Bowl teams. For instance my Stormcast army started last year, and I had painted about 1000 points or so for small games and to use in a mixed Order armies and this half I'm doing  now is mostly the new Sacrosanct stuff at a little over 1000 points(Soul wars and a couple other kits). I've got around 1000 points of Beasts of Chaos that are further down the bench(normally I wouldn't have them this far ahead, but assembled and primed to have good stock for winter) that won't see the table top unpainted, but are a small enough force that when I want to get to them, they won't be that much to bite off all at once and I've got some random units of Ogres and Fyreslayers that have no army that I can grab if the BoC get tedious in the middle of painting them.

Of course I get that not everybody has a bunch of extra models laying around and starting second armies or other games isn't much of an option financially. But if you're like me and still want to paint, but need a break from your current project, take a look at the WizKids deep cuts line of unpainted minis. They're pretty cheap, a two pack for about $5. I love 'em for when I don't have secondary project ready.  Stuck on the project I'm on and I don't have a side project or it unassembled and unprimed? Head down to the game shop, pick up a two pack of Dwarf rangers thats already primed and assembled and get painting for the evening. and I feel all refreshed and can get back to my main project in a day or two.

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14 hours ago, Fulkes said:

Character models are the bane of my wallet. There is just something about them that leads to me painting them for hours if not longer. I don't quite get that carried away with most of my regular models but I do spend a lot of time on things. I'm trying to master batch painting though.

Hours is still pretty quick!  I think my record has been a day and a half for a Sorcerer of Tzeentch, most characters will take a weekend for me for a regular sized one xD

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If you need something to be done, you need to define goals that can be completed in the timeframe that you can focus. 

If you cant handle painting one army as a single goal, I cant, then you need to make several goals.

Goals need to be motivating and what is motivating is personal for everyone. I often try to add some extra "rules" to make it more interesting beside the main goal. 

Also, structure you jumping between projects, so even If you do lots of different things make sure that they actually achieve something…. if you need that, otherwise ofc just paint for the fun of it.

Here are some goals (not all) Ive had during the fall: 

Paint tzeentch models from silver tower
How: Only using Scale 75 paints. Not use red and grey.
Why: Want to find out if I like to paint tzeentch, want to find out if I like Scale 75, use colors I normally not use.
Effect: Stopped after doing 3 acolytes and 5 different horros, goal was achived at that time. I decided to start a Tzeentch army, I found that Scale 75 was very nice and bought more paints from them and decided to use them as my main paint also for my Stormcast side project. Also decided that they looked so different from Vallejo that I will generally not use them for my mixed order.
 

Paint one unit of Tree revenants
How: As fast as possible in army colors already defined.
Why: So I have a legal 1000 Sylvaneth point army (lacked battleline) for smaller games and also so I could test gnarlroot wargrove for mixed order in tournaments (had the rest already painted).
Effect: Found that I needed one more defined army color so I updated my army color scheme (I write things down in a onenote file otherwise I will forget). Played several 1000 point games, tested gnarlroot and decided It needed a lot more playtesting to be usable for me so I went with my normal setup for my next tournament and switched back to that "build" for last test games.

Paint 20 arkanuts
How: One test model, repeat until happy, and then in batches, one batch should be at least 8 models (I have 8 paint handles)
Why: So I could use them in my next tournament, so I can test bigger batch painting (usally paint 2-3 models) to see if its more effectíve for me.
Effect: Used them in my next tournament and learned what worked for me in batch painting.

 I do not of course write down or formalize it like this, but in reality I usually form something like that in my mind. When I don’t, nothing really gets done. I try to have goals that are very clear to me.

If I just want to paint something to have something to paint I usually try to have a goal to test something new (Ive painted models only using washes for example).

I also try to set up personal rules like:

* Only use unpainted models if you have no other choice. If you can field an army with painted models instead, do that.

* Only allowed exception is for testing before tournaments, then proxies are also allowed. 

* All unpainted models should be undercoated.

* I will probably also use unpainted models for summoning (new feture for me with tzeentch).

* If use unpainted models, next game (within reason ofc) more models should be painted than last.

So when I returned to warhammer and AOS after several years playing other games I played with a lot of unpainted models, I wanted to try the game at 2000 points to make sure that I liked it. It took a couple of months to get everything painted but every game had new models painted. I also needed a tournament to get the final motivation for the last push.

Now I have almost 4000 points of mixed order so the only times I have used unpainted models after my first tournament is when I really really need to test something. After skinks disappeared as battleline I had to do some experiments and use unpainted archers as marksmen and even proxied arkanuats (with the same archers) to check what I could do with the battleline slot.

My side projects I don’t field unpainted since I can always choose to play with my painted mixed order instead. 

Those rules are really motivational, for me, to get the painting done and will also affect how I can create goals. 

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7 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Hours is still pretty quick!  I think my record has been a day and a half for a Sorcerer of Tzeentch, most characters will take a weekend for me for a regular sized one xD

Well I did spend a couple weeks working on Neferata. I guess I should amend that to be "hours every day". :P

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On 12/6/2018 at 3:11 AM, Fulkes said:

On a different note learn from my mistake and don't try and talk yourself out of an army by looking at it and seeing how hard/tedious it might be to paint. Mostly because you might stumble onto a project idea like these fancy lads gave me for a Skaven army from Shyish

😮

Awesome!

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