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Hey all, I was wondering if I was the only one who has this happen to me all the time when it comes to painting. I really enjoy painting random miniatures and I'm really motivated to paint cool looking random models, but as soon as it comes to painting up an army I want to actually play, I lose all sense of motivation. Its like....making an army to play kinda ruins the hobby part for me, which is unfortunate because I love playing, am I alone with this? How do you guys get around this?

Moartiki wrote:Hey all, I was wondering if I was the only one who has this happen to me all the time when it comes to painting. I really enjoy painting random miniatures and I'm really motivated to paint cool looking random models, but as soon as it comes to painting up an army I want to actually play, I lose all sense of motivation. Its like....making an army to play kinda ruins the hobby part for me, which is unfortunate because I love playing, am I alone with this? How do you guys get around this?

I love the painting part myself... more than the playing I think. Hell, the only reason I started playing was because I enjoyed model building, and I wanted something to do with them after I finished.

Yea I love it too, for an example, I had that random ogre standard bearer model that I painted up for fun, now Im starting an ogre army,my friend gave me back my old battleforce since he didn't end up converting them to chaos ogryns for Apoc, I also now have a thundertusk and the armybook, but now I've kinda lost my motivation to paint them all haha...

Assembly line the models to a decent standard. Then come back a paint up cool details when you feel like it. That's what I do.

Bat Manuel wrote:Assembly line the models to a decent standard. Then come back a paint up cool details when you feel like it. That's what I do.

That actually doesn't sound too bad, shouldnt be too hard since I got an airbrush recently.

When I was younger I just wanted to play and wished the models came painted but now I'm glad they dont.

I'm much more of an all rounder now I enjoy playing and painting.

Probably what i buy is mainly influanced by what I'd use in a game but the paintings still good.

Maybe you're suffering from model overload, it seems to happen to lots of people.

You buy all the stuff for your army and then when you sit down to paint you've got loads of units to get through and it's hard to build up the enthusiasm.

When you buy a model brand new model just because it looks pretty you're all excited, it's probably's unique and 1 thing rather that 10 or more identical minitures to go through

obsidianaura wrote:When I was younger I just wanted to play and wished the models came painted but now I'm glad they dont.

I'm much more of an all rounder now I enjoy playing and painting.

Probably what i buy is mainly influanced by what I'd use in a game but the paintings still good.

Maybe you're suffering from model overload, it seems to happen to lots of people.

You buy all the stuff for your army and then when you sit down to paint you've got loads of units to get through and it's hard to build up the enthusiasm.

When you buy a model brand new model just because it looks pretty you're all excited, it's probably's unique and 1 thing rather that 10 or more identical minitures to go through

It never fails lol, I wanna just get one box of models and paint it to the best of my abilities,BOOM done. but it always happens that my friends have models and give them to me haha so I always end up with too much and yea I do get overloaded, I didnt mention that the ogres were kinda wrecked (who knew what he did with them) but I kinda just wanna get rid of them and buy the new ones, also, those new VC look so amazing, I feel shiny model syndrome slowly creeping upon me

I am the same way. Really want to get my Space Wolves Army upto a decent points level but can't justify buying more models til i've painted what i've allready got.

it also doesnt help that I want them all at display quality (or as close as I could get to it) but its not that good for actually building an army this way.

I just don't try to paint whole armies to "museum" standard.

Start a P&M blog. When people expect you to do stuff, you will actually do it. And have fun at the same time!

MrMerlin wrote:Start a P&M blog. When people expect you to do stuff, you will actually do it. And have fun at the same time!

I've tried doing that a couple times with my orks and my tyranids, but never got much of a response.

I personally enjoy the painting more than the playing, but theres something to be said about seeing an army you worked hard on all painted up and standing beside each other. Around my store there arent alot of people who paint their armies up past priming them a color, which i think is sad... The units personality really shines when theyre in the thick of a battle. I will often take a week off playing to finish painting up new models before I bring them back to play with, and even if I lose with my Ultramarines, I look good doing it. Plus, everybody knows that a painted army plays better than a non painted one.

i m with you here, I think the reason my whole marine army isn't painted is because i have too many , with my guard i have sent it my goal to finish them

Best thing I ever did was set a timeline. Get half that unit painted by the end of the week. Base coat that unit by Wednesday, get that model detailed by the 21st, etc. etc.

Also, throw a movie in while you're painting. It helps immensely.

Agreed with gunslinger. I usually put a movie on and listen to it while I paint, and before you know it youre flying through minis.

i'm painting the Iron Brigade for an American civil war game I play. Although i prefer Historical to sci fi, i'm finding it hard to paint as it's pretty much Blue?different Blue and black. I have added some variations, but painting 90 figures in almost the same colour gets a bit boring.

I tend to use them as an incentive to get uni work done or something, i'll tell myself if i complete a certain amount of work i'll be able to paint a company or 2. this way i enjoy the painting more because it isnt uni work, but also get my uni work done too!

If you don't have uni work only do a little at a time, when painting my space marines I tend to pain them in 5s, this gives me a nice number where the paint dries fast enough for me to paint all of them without waiting for it to dry but also makes it manageble, its also a good ides to only get the models you are painting out.

The more you have to do the more daunting it gets.

I have decided to re-paint all my IG, 300 blokes need stripped basecoated and re-painted.

10 at a time works well for guardsmen.

Sometimes. Its just depends on how many times i have painted that type of model. 10+ space marines can get dull. Which is why i tend to break them up over periods of time.

I definitely agree with making 'squads' or other chunks and painting them. I had tons of half-painted SoB sitting around and finally sat down, made a list, and actually got several squads painted and finished. I lost interest in 40k shortly thereafter, but I don't blame the minis.

I take all my models and build them assembly line style. Legs to all torsos, all arms on a the same time, ect.

I always clip out all the pieces first, then the next day I deal with any of the excess plastic on the models, the day after that I assemble, normally not taking more than 3 days for the final part.

After that, I spray all my models with my base coat color, and consider them ready to play.

Then, paint at your leisure. Paint parts of models that did well, or whatever you want. If all you have to do is just paint the guys you are playing with, you will find the time to do it.

Bat Manuel wrote:Assembly line the models to a decent standard. Then come back a paint up cool details when you feel like it. That's what I do.

Thats what I do too. When I go to play to my flgs I usually go there a before people start to show up (1-2 hours early) and bring some of my paint and brushes with me and use the extra time to paint small detail like teef, eyes or highest highlights.

I also try optimise my assembly line as best as possible and as easy as possible because when things are easy and fast they are less daunting. For example my cms's have these gold trims which are really pain in the ass to paint because I have to basecoat them with yellow and then paint with gold while being careful not messing the armor plate next to it. To make things easier and faster I desided to paint the trims first so that I wouldn't have to worry about ceramic plating. Even this made painting the ceramic plating harder it was still fairly easy and fast as the chance of mesing the trim was smaller than messing the ceramic plating (due to trim being positioned on a higher position).

No matter which way you do it, its going to take awhile to get them done.
I paint figures in groups of 2 or 3 at a time, then the next group will be a different army or unit. Painting too many of the same figure at one time can get monotonus. I once painted a regiment of French Old Guard Napoleonics and I was overjoyed to finally finish them.

I know how you feel, OP. I wish GW would put out an expansion designed for people who paint random squads from half a dozen different armies.

That would be really cool, actually.

juraigamer wrote:I take all my models and build them assembly line style. Legs to all torsos, all arms on a the same time, ect.

I always clip out all the pieces first, then the next day I deal with any of the excess plastic on the models, the day after that I assemble, normally not taking more than 3 days for the final part.

After that, I spray all my models with my base coat color, and consider them ready to play.

Then, paint at your leisure. Paint parts of models that did well, or whatever you want. If all you have to do is just paint the guys you are playing with, you will find the time to do it.

This has been my process with my Tyranids. They're all primed red (aside from a couple of squads in my old scheme that need stripping). Then I'll play, and paint models as I see fit.

I've actually stopped assembly lining my gaunts. I get a better result from painting them individually, and it only takes a little more time. I'm in no rush to get it all painted, I just need motivation to actually keep painting, which comes from playing.

I do my best to make every model unique and interesting when I'm making them. Making them is usually the battle for me as when it comes to painting my art style doesn't really translate too well onto models. However with tanks I get rapidly bored due to the simplicity of how the paint is to be applied, and thus I try to avoid spending too much time on them. Recently I've decided to collect a smaller 40k Army, Chaos Space Marines, to give me a bit of a distraction from my Guard army. Hpefully once I've gotten a few of them complete I'll be able to get back into my original army. ^^

That might be a problem right there. If you actually want to have a painted army on the table, you can't go all the way on every model. I generally follow a teir system for my stuff.

Rank and file/squad level models get the lowest. For my Gaunts, this involved priming red, devlan mud, redoing red on raised areas. Black carapace, feathered shadow grey then hawk turqoise. Black weapons, single codex grey highlight.

Mid sized units like Warriors, Zoanthropes, etc. Same as gaunts, but an additional 50/50 black/codex grey highlight. If they have eyes, these get painted.

Large units like my Hive Tyrant get the mid sized treatment, plus a 50/50 black/shadow grey and 50/50 shadow grey/hawk turqoise stage added to the carapace for better blending.

Having a consistent method to follow helps get faster, and additional steps on the carapace detailing helps the larget creatures look better, while the squad level stuff still looks decent.

But then, I've never aimed to have an army of competition quality models, just stuff that looks good on the table.