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You're right, it doesn't compare. But it's true that tourneys can light a fire under you. I doubt I'd be making the progress I've been making lately on phase 2 of my Genestealer Cult without the Colonial GT looming at the end of March.

Lots of solid advice here. I think I'd add that it helps to schedule out your painting. Right now I have a week-by-week schedule for the tanks I'm working on, with a completion date in mid-March. IMO, giving yourself detailed intermediate goals helps get you to your ultimate end goal. I'd love to paint at a leisurely pace and only when I want to, but that's just not my reality anymore, so I had to adjust.

I've posted my painting plan previously, but i've since simplified it. I have 1 GT standard 40K army, 2 GT standard WFB ( I sold and rebased my demons to 40K), and 2 WMHD high point armies. All are fully painted and based. Of which the WMDH armies were painted in the past year, along with my Orks should be finished by March 1st.

I paint 15 mins a day, that's it. With the occassional building day for an hour on weekends.

I set a plan. I also do not paint more then 1 unit at a time. So in a painting session you can really rock out a small goal, below is an example of what I've done earlier this month.

Day 1 Sunday, morning: 40k Box Lootas / Burnas. Build 4 Lootas, build 1 Mek, Build remaining 4 Burnas bitz, attach to old WFB orks. Side note: I think for an existing Ork player, that box is a godsend, because 2 boxes = 2 full units: 1 Loota, 1 Burnas. Clean flash / mold lines. Base. Prime black.
Day1 Sunday, nite: Dry brush models bolt gun. dry brush base foundation brown.

Day2 Monday, morning: Foundation yellow tunic / assorted details. Foundation brown paints. Foundation grey skins.
Day2 Monday, nite: wash yellow & brown with GW Sepia. Wash Bolt gun with Badab Black.

Day 3 First Layer yellow on yellow. First layer brown on brown. Touch up metal with boltgun / mitril. First layer hose with blood red. Dry brush base brown / bone.

Day 4. 2nd layer yellow. Highlight metal with mitril / white. 2nd layer brown / bone. Highlight base bone. Sometimes i add rocks. Ironically I found light lime stone when smashed with a hammer and washed with badab black looks awesome after highlighted white.

Day 5: Highlighting / wet brush hoses red/ orange, then orange, then yellow. Faces are codex grey the fortress grey. teeth are bone, then bone / white. eyes are red dots. flock base.

Day 6 bask in the glory of my fully painted GT quality models. Unit done. Pick out any details that need to be finished up. Pull out paint pen, black line models. Makes the colors pop. For $2 at blick I pick up the paint brush thin paint pen. 1 pen per 2 units. Saved the headache of trying to paint brush black lines... also my hands are shakey from years of college lacross and boxing.

I've got a one year old and I've actually managed to keep up a low-but-steady painting output. I'm a stay at home dad, so some of this might not work for the OP, but here's my strategies.

1) I have a painting tray/station. It's just a cafeteria tray with my most current miniatures, plus paints, water and brushes. I keep this in the kitchen closet so I can be painting in a matter of seconds when there is a chance to do so.

2) I sometimes paint while my son eats. While he's busy stuffing handfulls of food into his mouth, I'm putting another coat on a squad of minis.

3) I sometimes paint while he sleeps. He takes two naps a day, and when I'm not doing the chores (I should be doing) or spending time on the internet (I do to much of), I can get a bit of painting in.

4) I encourage my wife to engage in her hobbies. When my son goes to bed, it's time to spend time with my wife. Painting while we're watching a movie together doesn't always fly, but if she's scrapbooking, then painting miniatures in the same room becomes "time spent together".

5) I game every other week. Continuing to game with my club keeps me painting. The fact that we don't play with unpainted figures, and we have a couple different generes (fantasy, sci-fi, post apoc, etc) that we play keeps me inspired to paint a variety of things.

6) I "Brush-dip" my miniatures. I'd probably do this anyway, but when painting time is limited, it's a great way to get tabletop quality miniatures done quickly. I've actually made moderate progress painting through my unpainted lead mountain.

7) I try not to get too hung up on long-term painting goals. This is partly because I play alot of skirmish games, but I already have a few large armies finsihed and a few in progress. To keep painting fun and "fresh" I make small easy-to-reach goals that usually consist of one squad, one warband, or a couple vehicles. This does mean that my Junker (Void) army has grown more slowly, but in the mean time I've also finished multiple warbands for fantasy and post-apoc games and various vehicle and terrain projects. It's nice to know that when I finish one squad of troops, I won't have to necessarily paint another (unless I really inspired to).

RanTheCid wrote:Establish a fixed bed time. Ours came about rather by accident, but its the best thing that ever happened to our family. Bed time starts at 7 and generally ends at 8 with sleeping kids. That leaves me 2 hours before I run out of steam at 10 - 30/60 minutes of house work and 1 hour of painting.

mikhaila wrote:I've got 5 year old twins, plus two kids in college. I feel your pain. Learned with the first two that if I wanted to get painting done, I needed to properly prepare for it.
-Set up an area to paint, have my figs and paints on a tray I could put on a high shelf.
-Make sure I've got the paints and brushes I need. Nothing like having time, but dried up paints.
-Try to paint 15 minutes a night. The 15 is sometimes just 15, sometimes becomes an hour. But stuff slowly gets done.

davidjones wrote:1. Have a seperate area to paint in.
2. Send the kids to bed at a fixed time.
3. Commit yourself to painting just one colour a night.
4. Only paint a small number of minis in one batch, say 10.


You will be surprised how just 10 minutes a night builds an army in a few months.

All of these.

I have a 1 year old who eats everything so the hobby stays out of his reach in a sealed box. I try for 15-30 minutes a night, times a week and work on 1 thing-assembly or sniping/cleaning mould lines or painting 1 colour. It's slow but it's a constant process that keeps me going. Sometimes those 30 minutes turn into an hour or two.

I'm looking forward to when he's older (5+) and we can have father-son hobby time

This is awesome guys!!! I have my own office but the two things that really stand out for me are setting small goals and maybe finding time early in the morning. If anyone has suggestions please feel free to add as apparently there are alot of us facing the same obstacles!


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I can't wait for father-son hobby time!

I sympathise with you all... (well nearly )

I have 2 boys who turn 4 and 2 next month and we're expecting a 3rd son this summer.

My biggest problem is I have to be up at 5:30 to go to work. By the time I get home and do the 'evening routine' to get the kids fed, bathed and in bed, then have a late dinner with the missus its usually 8pm and I'm too tired to want to paint.

I've found the only way I can get anything done is to have a tray on top of the bookshelf (out of the way of tiny hands ) with my current project on it and force myself to grab it as soon as I can. Even if I only do 10-15 mins at least its something and over time you slowly build up.

The most important thing to do though is not to have a backlog of unfinished work. If you open a new box of stuff and its the only thing you need to do, the enthusiasm for the shiny news gets you working harder and faster .

If, like me, you have a couple hundred unpainted models stashed in the cupboard from 25 years of undisciplined gaming, its too easy to add the 'I'm never going to get this done' depression factor to your existing exhaustion and find you never pick up a brush in the first place. Repeat the mantra - paint before you buy more...

Minor other points:
Army selection~ if your goal is a fully painted army stay away from horde styled armies. Armies in 40K such as space marines, grey knights, chaos tend to require shorter time then Orks and Blob guard. A Mech Guard army, might even be easier to bang out quickly if your good a tanks.

Plan your color choices to be staged painted~ this will also speed up your army. knowing the in's & outs of what you need to do makes things fast.

Pre plan~ have things on a tray with a cover, ready to go. Keep brushes clean. Have the paints on the tray with the models. This way you get to save those minutes hunting things down. My tray always has my models to be worked on, the paints to be use, the brushes, paper towel, my coffee cup for water. That way I can plop down in the morning, work for 15 minutes, Put the cover on, put it on a shelf and go on with my day.

Don't sweat the small stuff~ keep it in mind. Miss a day? who cares, families more important anyway. Is it a nice day outside? Go outside and paint to get some fresh air. Have a night to yourself with bad weather outside? Get a favorite movie you know in / out and paint during it. My wife likes the Bachelor... i don't. But that's the pefect time to be on the couch next to her painting / modeling. I have a lap tray, where its easy to clean / build models. She doesn't care as she watches the program. We talk and joke during comercials. Every now and then she asks to build a model. I give it to her, that's one less to build myself. She's pretty good on following the box directions.

Rewards~ did you meet your goal? Buy some cool dice. Pick up that special character you might want to make down the line. Pick up that ice cream you like.

I'd largely echo what others have said, but I'm quite fortunate in that I have a fairly standard 8 to 5 office job and once the little one is asleep at 7, I can devote an hour or so to the current project. I don't do this every night though, as generally have other commitments such as running. Progress occurs slowly, but it does occur