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enmitee wrote:no sexy time unless you paint that last Guard Regiment?

I likea the hand relief.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Of course. Maybe the problem is NOT ENOUGH Penitent Engines. You never know until you try!

Is there such a thing as enough Penitent Engines?




With a more practical answer:
1) Have a target. Nothing gets me painting more than a deadline. It can be something easy (must finish last year's christmas gift before christmas or won't get a new christmas model), long-term (must finish 2000 points of X for big tournament), short-term (40k radio says I should paint the new Ork Pirate model this month), or even just pride-based (I signed on to one of those oaths, better finish it) - but whatever the deadline is, it puts the pressure on, and keeps me plugging away.

2) Leave the unpainted models on my desk. My computer desk doubles as my painting desk. If there is a unit sitting unpainted on it, it is awful hard to just waste time looking at websites or playing video games when the brushes and paints are right there.

3) Tell someone else your goal. With me, this is my wife. I say, "I want to do this project by this date" and she becomes very supportive, and encourages me to keep it up. Other gaming friends may be less supportive, but they'll probably give you grief if you don't live up to a goal you tell them about, so that provides an incentive as well.

4) Reward yourself for completing the boring stuff. I have on my desk, right now, 30 flesh hounds and 50 bloodletters. When I finish them, I get to paint some characters and more fun models. Always start out with the more tedious stuff so you have something fun to look forward to, rather than doing the fun stuff first and then having to just drudge through the boring stuff.

enmitee wrote:no sexy time unless you paint that last Guard Regiment?

Lysistrata?

Damn, that'd be tough.

OTOH, those backlogs would come down in a hurry among the married guys, and guys with GFs...

Redbeard wrote:With a more practical answer:
1) Have a target.
2) Leave the unpainted models on my desk.
3) Tell someone else your goal.
4) Reward yourself for completing the boring stuff.

This is what I did:
1. I set "finishing my IG" as a 2009 Resolution (completion by 1/1/10).

2. Keep active stuff to work on tray, on the shelf, rather than boxed way. Having stuff out takes away the "hassle" of having to dig. Plus, you have their beady little eyes drilling into you as a reminder.

3. I put resolution on my Dakka User page, started a P&M blog, and entered into a "contest" with Howard Treesong. If others want the extra motiviation and feedback, I'm open to organizing a "no prize" Army Completion Challenge if someone will sticky it in P&M blogs.

4. For me, the biggest reward is the feeling actually having stuff completed, rather than hanging over my head. That, and being able to move on to other stuff, and actually play with fully-painted minis.

That's one of the reasons that I collect more than one army. I cannot stand doing the same paintjob over and over again. My best track record of painting the same troop in a row is something like three.

What I used to do to remedy this is offer to paint some of my friend's models. Sure, it doesn't get anything done for me personally, but it keeps me from quitting completely and still helps me become a better painter.

I wouldn't suggest buying more than one squad at a time (unless you're working with a battleforce or AoBR). This helps a lot. Also, find any little way you can to make one troop different from the next, without going against your color scheme. Even having them in a completely different position helps.

I force myself to paint by having a deadline, like a tournament, a blog or something...

To motivate myself I think of all the people on Dakka and Warseer that make excuses on why they can't paint their army and then I say to myself, "I'm not going to be that person."

I also keep a weekly log of my progress.

Sometimes I try to get to a point where I can ink/wash batches
of miniatures. It helps me let go of the project for a while to reason that
I "have to let it dry a bit" so that it's okay when I don't finish a project
by a self-imposed deadline.

Oh, also, this is such a habit for me that I didn't even think to mention it:

I don't build all of my models at once. I just finish one at a time, so that way I have something to break up the boredom when I have a lot to do. Having a modeling/painting/modeling/painting type thing going on helps me out a lot. It also has the added bonus of you not having to feel like you have to blow through all of those primed models, and you can probably pull off a better priming job doing one at a time as well.

DVD of TV shows in the background.

I once watched series 1 to 6 of stargate in 10 days whilst painting my Slayer cult dwarf army.

I actually just force myself to paint. If I start, I can't stop, but if I don't start, I won't work. It's really weird.

These days I don't force myself to paint, I paint what I feel like when I feel like painting it. Which results in not alot of progress, and a wildly disorganised painting desk (at last count I had models for Chaos Daemons, Dwarves, WM Mercs, Battletech, Dark Angels, LotR Elves, and lots of generic fantasy stuff for D&D on my desk..). It's a luxury afforded to me thanks to having too many fully painted armies allready.

Last time I was in "army painting with deadline" mode, which is just over a year ago, I was listening to lots of podcasts. Hooting yard was especially good. I might start doing so again and get this daemon army finished off.