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Hello Dakka.

Stugglin painter here. Not so much skill wise, but motivation wise.

I have lost the will to paint .

Below in my sig youll see I have a few armys. All but the Tau (90%) and LaTD ( What I have is painted, awaiting on kreg models to finish) are 100% painted. I took my time and put alot of love in each one.

Problem is, I recently bought some new Necron models, but when I pick up a brush, I wanna..scream.

So what do I do? How do I get back into the mood?

I play games (LOVE each one I get to play). I build the models with excitement, but just can get myself past the base coating.

I have tried watching painting on you tube, reading painting and modeling section here at Dakka, read 40k books for inspiratrion. Nothing is working.

Have any of you face this dilema? What did you do to break the spell?

are you running a P&M Blog, sometimes all you need is some positive feedback and a false sense of requirement to update it haha.

+1 to what skohm said. Having people encourage/criticise your work can be a great motivator.

I also find painting with my friends helps - organising a full day dedicated to painting with your friends can be
good fun and it sometimes distracts you from the monotony of some of the painting if you have people to
talk to.

The only other suggestion I have is movies - I find if I watch a few movies it inspires me to try and paint or
convert my armies to look a certain way.

Or you could just take a break for awhile...I dont paint unless
I want to that way I don't get burnt out(I have 3000pt of orks painted right now, plus about 1500pt of CSM).

I get in that funk too. Usually after I play a game against someone with a complete, well painted army, I get inspired again.

Take a break for a while. You can get burnt out on anything and everything.

That's funny... I'm supposed to be painting Necrons right now, but instead I am here, and my necrons are looking at me from my painting table with a sad face like
and saying ''Please paint us''... Ok maybe I exaggurated a bit but still...

I'm sort of in the same boat. However, I have a lot of commissions to do, so that keeps me from metaphorically dying

I have very little initiative to paint my actual armies though. I've got like 1500 points of unpainted CSM, 500 points of DE and some random tyranid stuff. It has something to do with being distracted by commissions, but once I finish all of them I should be able to get back to my own stuff.

Post some models and send me a message to comment on them. I will give you a bunch of good comments and a few improvements you can do. Feedback always makes me want to paint.

EDIT: Actually that is exactly what you need to do. I just checked through your profile and all 69 posts and I didn't see any models to comment on. You need to post some stuff and let people comment on them.

Is it something about the necrons that's discouraging you? Maybe you shouldn't jump right into them. Pick out something different to paint for fun, you know, to try and get your drive to paint back up there before you start on the necrons.

Try painting with someone else. You can turn something boring and isolating into a reason to get together.

i have moments like that too especially if there are a bunch of them i need to paint. i agree take a break for awhile and come back to it.

It'll come back eventually.

I find I go through highs and lows with painting and scratch building stuff. I will get hot and go crazy for a couple of months or so then burn out and need to back off for a couple.

I am in one of the lows atm.

I just keep looking here at Dakka and seeing the great work here and eventually I get inspired by someones work and get fired up again.

Just take it easy for awhile is what I say.

It happens, but something will inspire you to continue, looking at the Dakka gallery will help, but you'll get back into it in your own time

I think it happens to alot of us tbh, maybe just have a few weeks off and read a book or watch tv for a bit and see how you feel after that.

whatisntart wrote:I get in that funk too. Usually after I play a game against someone with a complete, well painted army, I get inspired again.

same

Im going to paint using the ironing board and sit in the front room with my missus, this way we get to chat, she can watch tv and I get brownie points and I can mention 'quality time' next time shes on a bender

It could just be the models I find the necrons a bit tedious after a few models as they are identical

I have to agree with the "take a break" camp,after I finished painting my Ork army I didn't have the desire to even look at my painting desk let alone sit at it.
After taking a few weeks away the urge to paint slowly returned.

Take a break, then start a P&M blog when you're ready... it's great for keeping you disciplined and on schedule... and positive feedback is a wonderful thing.

On the spur of the moment I decided to buy Mantic undead and was fired up: until I realised how many figures it entailed. 230. The way I work is that I tidy all the figures up then paint them. So after tidying up 120(yes) zombies and assembling them I was all ready to paint. Problem was that by this point I'd lost all motivation. However I forced myself to start but had no idea how to paint zombies. I spent a week trying to decide on colours, in the end I went with what took my eye in my paintbox. I felt all colurs were bad choices and nearly gave up. However, I persevered and was glad I did. I ended up using techniques alien to me and I was pleased with all 120 finished models.
The point I'm making is that you shouldn't give up no matter what. I find that I usually paint better at times when under (in my case depression) a slump. I'd recommend that you pick up your paint brush and go for it.

Slipstream wrote:On the spur of the moment I decided to buy Mantic undead and was fired up: until I realised how many figures it entailed. 230. The way I work is that I tidy all the figures up then paint them. So after tidying up 120(yes) zombies and assembling them I was all ready to paint. Problem was that by this point I'd lost all motivation. However I forced myself to start but had no idea how to paint zombies. I spent a week trying to decide on colours, in the end I went with what took my eye in my paintbox. I felt all colurs were bad choices and nearly gave up. However, I persevered and was glad I did. I ended up using techniques alien to me and I was pleased with all 120 finished models.
The point I'm making is that you shouldn't give up no matter what. I find that I usually paint better at times when under (in my case depression) a slump. I'd recommend that you pick up your paint brush and go for it.

+1. Don't walk away. Don't let it beat you. Take a break by all means, but come back stronger. Understand why. Sometimes good can be made from bad.

Great stuff in this thread so far. I've got one more to add.

Definitely start a P&M blog. People there are so encouraging and positive, it'll really lift you up. Plus, people will say things like "I can't wait to see the next batch", and you'll likely feel motivated to not let them down, or at least not let your blog fall below page 1.

Definitely organize a paint day at your home or at a hobby shop. I save the most grueling, boring basecoat steps for my groups weekly paint night. Sitting and talking with a bunch of friends for 3-4 hours and you'll look down and realize that you had been painting the whole time.

And this one I haven't seen mentioned and its my #1 way to get projects done. I'm a tourney player, so I always sign up for tourneys and many times the exact army composition I want isn't fully painted. Well, I have already made my travel arrangements and paid for the tourney so I have no option but to paint, and also it gives you a finite goal to work towards. I looked at your sig and noticed that you have 3000+ points of armies, I am kinda guessing that means you don't buy and paint to a list, but rather acquire units you like, and then paint them. That way is really hard to stay motivated... because you can't really answer the question of "Why am I painting my 16th necron destroyer?" If you are painting towards an army, you can always say "This unit is going to kick so much butt! And look good doing it"

If you don't like playing in tourneys, even the composition based hobby tourneys, then you could challenge a friend to a game, making it clear to him that you are going to be taking many detailed pictures to do a documented battle report for dakka. Then you know that many pictures are going to be taken of your army, and you'll want to make sure that they all look good for the camera

The above is a great post... very inspirational and more importantly true...painting towards a finite deadline motivates easier than not doing so.

I recently bought like 3 IoB Skaven components and i just barely got one group of clanrats done but just using this website and friends and prospective competition makes the process much more enjoyable.

The time you spent trying to get inspired to paint could have been spent painting. LULZ

Real advice though: Try finishing your Tau army. Give it a shot. It can be really hard to start on something new when something else is incomplete. It may be breathing down your neck without you even knowing it. Every time I make this mistake painting is about as enjoyable as sex with the lights on.

That would depend on WHAT you're having sex with.. I like the lights on :p

Necrons give me no trouble, at least the warriors.. Tomb spyders OTOH.. :(

I have a sizeable ork waaagh, incorporating several other folks waaghs, and i'm painting the unpainted and repainting the inducted. It's work, not fun, by and large, and i wear down fast. I've been painting the same unit of snakebite sluggaboyz for a year now (6 left, and half a trukk) ..

Step back.

One thing i do that helps is to pick up a single mini that calls to me, not always even citadel (reaper makes some nice ones) and paint it for fun, just to refresh my mind.

What can help as well is not to let your workload suffocate you.

I have a massive backlog. I have 6 armies, and only a tiny fraction of the models painted.

Two things, however, help me to slowly catch up.

1.) I have a glass showcase in my living room where I only place FINSIHED models and units in. Unfinished stuff gets stored out of sight. That means I don´t feel the crushing pressure of countless unpainted models to do, but only the sense of accomplishment of a finished model/unit when I look at the showcase.

2.) I paint when I have the time, even when it´s only 15 or so minutes a day. I work from 7 till 4, have training 3 times a week and work with the local scouts the remaining days, so that means I rarely have much time to paint. This time, however, I use as good as I can. It means I might need multiple weeks for a single unit of dwarves (for example), but well, stuff gets done

The worst thing you can do is force-paint when you hit one of these slumps, I had to force paint most of my orks when I took part in a tourney, and now every time I bust them out all I can think of doing is re-painting them, which demotivates me further...

A good tip is to buy a single model from a range that is no-where near related to your current forces, atm I am painting up Yarrick for a friend, and it's an absolute joy to paint something so different from green-black-red and pink-purple-khaki and has really re-kindled my love for painting!

I suffer from the same problem so I usually have multiple armies on the go. When I force myself to do it I just pick colors that I'm not sick of/want to do. Then, I will do as many models as I can bear with, using the one color. Doing it one color at a time its easier, because doing it by batch you focus on the same details. It takes less effort as the focus is concerned. It will take a couple days but once you are milling out 10-20 28mms a day things are going well.

Then the paintbrush you use also factors into it. Good brushes/brushes that you like using make the painting much easier.

Another helpful thing could be to set point limits of what you need to paint per month. You are still force painting but you get a sense of achievment that motivates you because you hit a goal.