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What is the illness called that afflicts me, and is there support groups for it. I can spend days converting all kinds of stuff, but when it comes to making it beautiful afterwards, I just lose all motivation.

You realise it takes an hour at least to paint a model, then realise that each army can have fifty models, then you look out the window and think, "hey, you know what else I could be doing?"

At least that's my experience.

Converting is fast and easy with instant results.

Painting takes time, is hard and looks good over time.

Converting and assembling is usually the phase many go through before starting to paint.

 Orock wrote:
What is the illness called that afflicts me, and is there support groups for it. I can spend days converting all kinds of stuff, but when it comes to making it beautiful afterwards, I just lose all motivation.

'

I feel the exact same way. Paintings too slow for me, and converting is fast and quickly becomes something cool. and the converting possibilities are endless, compared to the select number of paints and paint combinations (which granted are allot)

 Orock wrote:
What is the illness called that afflicts me.

Laziness.
You're basically just doing the easy bit, a bit like an architect drawing plans for a house, building it and never getting round to decorating/furnishing it.
Painting well does take a lot more time effort and practice, the results of your labour are nowhere near as immediate as with modeling.
Ultimately a nicely modeled AND painted creation is the goal and your level of satisfaction will increase threefold.

I've come to realize that I really don't want to paint infantry. I love painting tanks/vehicles/planes/etc because they have large surfaces and are easily detailed. Small models, though...my patience is not that great, especially 20 times over.

lustigjh wrote:
I've come to realize that I really don't want to paint infantry. I love painting tanks/vehicles/planes/etc because they have large surfaces and are easily detailed. Small models, though...my patience is not that great, especially 20 times over.

This is why I play an ABG army. My only infantry models are the vehicle crews.

I personally hate painting because I SUCK at it. The brush will:
1. Have not enough paint on it to transfer to the model 2. have too much and get on other parts/fill the details

My cure for not painting came with an Eldar army I have that's been needing painting since 5th edition.
I got into an escalation league that started in January at 250 points with a game every two weeks that added another 250 points until the 2,000 point mark was hit. It was kind of nice, also, in the fact that it got back me back into playing 40K since the days of 5th.
My painted Eldar now stand at around 3,000 points because I am now in a groove. I put a base coat with the colors of my army, then as time permits, go back and add detail, inking and shading, etc. to where I now have a good sized army I think looks decent on the table.
One of the good things is the fact that it gets easier and faster the more I practice my techniques. I am now haunting youtube to learn how to make Celtic Knots that will look good on my vehicles, and wraith portions of my army as well as my robed characters.
Before this summer is gone, I figure I will have 5,000 points of painted Eldar.

Painting isn't immediate gratification.

There's planning (hopefully), application, drying times....mixing paints.

There's a lot of slow methodical crap going on.

Converting, you look at cool things, or bits, or parts of things, carve them out, stick them on, and you suddenly have a model that feels very personalized, and immediately starts getting cooler, and there's sort of a consumerist joy about it.

You enjoy collecting things, and then you start splicing parts of things onto other things to make them cooler, and it gets your mind perked up on identifying cool tiny pieces you could see using to make another model really really cool.

Jacks into that sorta shop-aholic inside I reckon.

probably

Alot of this does make sense. You really only get the satisfaction of a job well done when you are completely done painting a model, or many to make an effect. With modeling, every time you find a cool piece that could make something, or stick one part on and look how much it has changed its instant gratification with endorphines released. Ah well, I have a tournament next month inspiring me to paint my skitarii, but my league just ended so there goes some drive sadly.

I too enjoy converting over painting, because conversions are more unique to me than my painting skills. My goal when painting is to get the model to look uniform with the rest of the army, the rest of the squad, and to have its own distinct look. My goal when converting is to make the model personal, mine, distinct from the other guys, distinct from the next model.

I can pay someone to paint well, I can't pay anyone to make the model personal.

SJ

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:

 Orock wrote:
What is the illness called that afflicts me.

Laziness.
You're basically just doing the easy bit, a bit like an architect drawing plans for a house, building it and never getting round to decorating/furnishing it.
Painting well does take a lot more time effort and practice, the results of your labour are nowhere near as immediate as with modeling.
Ultimately a nicely modeled AND painted creation is the goal and your level of satisfaction will increase threefold.

I don't think it's laziness really. I swing back and forth. When I was a kid (~7yo) collecting model planes, I really enjoyed assembling them (they were a lot more complicated than your average wargaming figures). When I started wargaming (~10yo), I got more in to painting. Around my 2nd army I started to get sick of painting but enjoyed assembly and conversion more, my 2nd and 3rd armies there's hardly a model I didn't convert in them (my teenage years). These days (late 20's) I'm back to preferring painting, I prefer simple models that don't have too many parts so I can get the assembly done with quickly and get down to painting them.

"Laziness" is a gross oversimplification.

 Orock wrote:
What is the illness called that afflicts me, and is there support groups for it. I can spend days converting all kinds of stuff, but when it comes to making it beautiful afterwards, I just lose all motivation.

I believe this is called "normal"

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:

 Orock wrote:
What is the illness called that afflicts me.

Laziness.
You're basically just doing the easy bit, a bit like an architect drawing plans for a house, building it and never getting round to decorating/furnishing it.
Painting well does take a lot more time effort and practice, the results of your labour are nowhere near as immediate as with modeling.
Ultimately a nicely modeled AND painted creation is the goal and your level of satisfaction will increase threefold.

I think building a house is probably the hard bit, as opposed to decorating it.

Having just done it I can tell you that the hard physical work is at all stages. Throwing up bricks in roughly straight lines is fairly simple if a little back breaking. The skillful/precise works comes from fitting kitchens, staircases, hanging doors, smooth plaster/paintwork, well fitted floors etc. You can live in the house without these things but the full satisfaction comes when the entire project is finished to a high standard, not just at the topping out party.

Conversions and kit bashing is my favorite part of the army building so far. A unique model is a million times more satisfying then a unique paint job.

Converting is a lot more rewarding, and give your army or characters a unique look that scales on the game table the better you get.

Painting, beyond the simple base coats and washing is far less rewarding and less noticeable on the game table.

If I can't pick out a detail while playing with them then its not worth doing

I'm the opposite: I F'ing hate to glue, clean, cut, assemble and flock my miniatures before I can get to work and actually paint the miniature. I used to hate basecoating too, as I thought that was the most tedious thing in the entire world but then I got an airbrush and I could basecoat 5 Chimeras + 2 Tauroxs in less than 45 minutes, then I could do the painting that I always liked the most: Highlighting, detail painting and adding decals to the vehicle. Seriously, if you hate painting, especially basecoating, you should get an airbrush. It almost feels like cheating.

 Zewrath wrote:
if you hate painting, especially basecoating, you should get an airbrush. It almost feels like cheating.

Heh, I actually did, but I don't have a good place to do it currently and so the hassle of getting the stuff out and set up and then hoping for a clear day to spray without wind is more annoying

 aprilmanha wrote:

 Zewrath wrote:
if you hate painting, especially basecoating, you should get an airbrush. It almost feels like cheating.

Heh, I actually did, but I don't have a good place to do it currently and so the hassle of getting the stuff out and set up and then hoping for a clear day to spray without wind is more annoying

Oh god, yes.. I remember being stuck with an army project, because it was pouring rain outside for several days and I knew that the AP spray was so sensitive to humidity.

My tip is to do approx 3 minis at the same time and that none are the same mini

 Orock wrote:
What is the illness called that afflicts me, and is there support groups for it. I can spend days converting all kinds of stuff, but when it comes to making it beautiful afterwards, I just lose all motivation.

Do you play Orks by any chance?

The most customisable army, but so much painting...

 Fezman wrote:

 Orock wrote:
What is the illness called that afflicts me, and is there support groups for it. I can spend days converting all kinds of stuff, but when it comes to making it beautiful afterwards, I just lose all motivation.

Do you play Orks by any chance?

The most customisable army, but so much painting...

AP have a solution for that! http://admin.thearmypainter.com/files/downloads/Ork-Army-48h-article.pdf

 Fezman wrote:

 Orock wrote:
What is the illness called that afflicts me, and is there support groups for it. I can spend days converting all kinds of stuff, but when it comes to making it beautiful afterwards, I just lose all motivation.

Do you play Orks by any chance?

The most customisable army, but so much painting...

yup!

Lol I get what you mean. Someone said it right. There isn't instant results when painting. There's a period where it's just messy and unappealing perhaps even demotivating up until you get to the detail work to cover up the mess and bring out the details to shine. That's when progress shows and a sense of something good coming out of it is happening, but until then the whole thing can be discouraging. Reminds me of house renovations. Messy as hell and not always clear how the end result will be all the way up until you finally get to begin the finish work, cleanup and you look at a beautiful finished product. When you expect this and mentally prepare for it, it's easier to swallow and keep moving forward for the desired result. Another mental roadblock that can be potentially faced is that most artists seem to be never satisfied with their stuff, constantly struggling against the urge to keep making it better because it's 'crap'. Everyone else sees beauty but the artists sees all his little perceived mistakes. Be ready to to steel your mind against that problem as well and move on to your next project, this was one of the hardest mental roadblocks I had to overcome.

 Orock wrote:
What is the illness called that afflicts me, and is there support groups for it. I can spend days converting all kinds of stuff, but when it comes to making it beautiful afterwards, I just lose all motivation.

Typically you get an "end result" with converting much more quickly than an "end result" with painting you're happy with. That might be one reason.

I'm with you though: i love converting and i'm fairly canny at it, but i paint slow, and i agonize over painting due to being a perfectionist, so if i have just 60 minutes to hobby, i'm usually converting rather than painting.

Greetings brother, I suffer from the same disease.
I love building miniatures but dread painting them. Painting is just so boring...

Laziness.
You're basically just doing the easy bit, a bit like an architect drawing plans for a house, building it and never getting round to decorating/furnishing it.
Painting well does take a lot more time effort and practice, the results of your labour are nowhere near as immediate as with modeling.
Ultimately a nicely modeled AND painted creation is the goal and your level of satisfaction will increase threefold.

That's nowhere near universally true. I have many models which took longer to convert and assemble than to paint. I have a custom Abaddon made from the old (large) metal obliterators, that has nearly 30 pieces. Or when I spent several hours pouring over an old plastic Epic Warlord titan, adding guitar string, replacing weapons, and doing greenstuff sculpting to make it closer to the detail of later versions of Epic.

Hell, I just spent three hours yesterday taking a 15-year old ERTL model of the Millennium Falcon, and hyper-detailing all the parts lacking detail so I can paint it up for my X-Wing squadron. Already have it painted over an hour or two today. At one point I was adding two torpedo launcher tubes in between the front mandibles made from just the front section of a pair of plasma pistols, with some piping detail to fill the dead flat space around them made by actually shaving off the tiny pipes at the back of the pistol. It was like gluing down human hairs.

My personal problem is that I have fallen out of the ability to sit down and assembly-line paint models for games like 40K, where 9 of the ten troops need to look as good as the first (for my standards), but are basically glorified wound markers. Ten years ago it was no problem, but now it has become this daunting thing that never seems to be a priority.

It was one of the causes of my two-year lapse in painting, which has only just broke, when I started painting ships for my X-wing squadron. They are small so they get done relatively quick, and I only need to paint one or two of the same thing, rather than 30 Space marines holding Bolters at slightly differing angles, when I have probably painted 200-250 Space Marines in my lifetime.

I actually enjoy painting just as much as I enjoy converting (if not more). Unfortunately, I enjoy it in a way that makes the process extremely slow. It can take me months to paint up a single ten-man unit if I'm not given a due-date.