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Hey Dakka,

When the Chaos book was released I was in the middle of my worst hobby burn-out yet. I just didn't want anything to do with it anymore. Now I find myself spending weekends spraying guardsmen and planning a Vampire Counts army as well as a World Eaters army. Oh, and a growing Angels Encarmine force. Part of the reason is certainly the fact that I was on the dole but now have regular income and no real bills to pay (still live with parents) but I can't help but imagine that it's somehow insane.

Of course it likely isn't, because people tend to all be remarkably similar when it comes down to this sort of thing but still I thought I'd ask and see if it takes my mind off of work tomorrow. Do you hobby cyclically?

Relax dude my brain is currently cycling through three different projects at once.My Sons Of Horus,Mantic Corporation and my jungle fighters.(i still have 30 grey knight termies to paint too).

It's almost maddening isn't it though?! I always say to myself "I'll build this army a box a week then it'll be painted" but just can't resist shiny new toys. If I could get my friends into warmachine or MtG I'd have yet more irons in the fire!

I'm always juggling about 5-6 different projects! I'd say it's pretty much the norm for most hobbyists.

I come up with new ideas all the time but I usually like to plan things out before I start throwing money about and consequently the ideas which I lose interest in don't leave me with a ton of unpainted models, just twenty or so pages of drawings and notes.

I only have one project at a time, but only after many years of madness. I realised I never got anything done if I had too much to do, so will only do one thing. It's difficult and not normal I know.

Pretty normal. I'm about 10 projects behind, with the normal bills to pay . Lol.

I'm the same. 5 armies on the go, and I only got back into the hobby a few months ago. I actually think its healthy though - there is no way I could paint 100+ purple space marines and stay sane, but if I can paint a squad or two, then bounce to a squad of elves with a completely different palette, then maybe a wyvern or dragon, then back to the purple power armour for another squad or tank or whatever, the painting is a lot more enjoyable, and I'm more likely to finish what I started...

 Eggs wrote:
I'm the same. 5 armies on the go, and I only got back into the hobby a few months ago. I actually think its healthy though - there is no way I could paint 100+ purple space marines and stay sane, but if I can paint a squad or two, then bounce to a squad of elves with a completely different palette, then maybe a wyvern or dragon, then back to the purple power armour for another squad or tank or whatever, the painting is a lot more enjoyable, and I'm more likely to finish what I started...

You make a good point that rings true as I finish the armour plates on Guardsman #7 - 33 to go...

I do look forward now to painting the Zhufor that's in the post or trying out a watercolour technique on some black knights but I NEED to finish these guardsmen first! Will I? History says no!

I find that having more than one project at once helps prevent burnout.

I used to get really tired of even thinking about my Orks, but now that I've started my IG force to ally in, I'm finding it much easier to work on both of them.

It gets quite nuts quite fast, I usually have a few personal small hobby plans each year to find that I'm totally flooded with sculpting commissions to a point that if I don't take serious measures its a second full-time job.

I'm part magpie and always latch onto new shinies with stunning (and bank-breaking) regularity.

Must. Develop. Self. Control.

I have multiple projects going simply to keep painting interest up. Right now, I'm burned out on painting red, so my Tyranids are on hold. I'm trying to get 200pts of Haqqislam done, when I'll probably shift gears and start on my Vampire Counts again. I've got a 1000pt army list worked out to get done (when you've got 3500pts unpainted, you need to set milestones).

Whenever I burn out on something, I move onto another project until that burns me out, then I either go back to what I was working on or go to another project.

I bounce around because you get tired of painting the same guardsman over and over and over again.

I feel ya man, I have so many projects to do, I feel like crying. Luckily i got all I need done. I dread painting still and will likely for a bit.

Like those before me, multiple projects helps to keep the frustration down. I can only paint so much of one thing before I want to quit or drink too much to paint. Either way.

It's normal. I must have 300 assembled figures for various games stacked up in the 'pending' pile of my painting bench

The nature of the beast encourages having multiple products.

Because of the amount of time which is needed for primer to properly cure, things like varnishes and various adhesives as well as just waiting for orders to show up to complete a project - I normally have a half dozen or so different projects on the workbench at any given time.

Some of them are related to each other - others are complete opposite ends of the spectrum in order to provide a pallet cleanser of sorts when it becomes monotonous to do a few dozen of the same thing over and over again.

I have dozens of projects... Some relatively small (Finish one last dude for a Ratskins gang) increasing in size through up to: Build a table full of Necromunda terrain using plasticard.... And everything in between! Including 2 40k armies; and dozens more ideas...

I guess the question depends on if you get anything done?

I think all hobbyists with any regular income have far more projects than they will ever complete. I'm currently actively working on my Cygnar and my Adepticon TT army (4000pts of painting, but no assembly). That's not counting the giant eldar army that's waiting for a new book, the nearly complete Ork Battlewagon army that I haven't looked at since 6th edition dropped, the epic eldar that's in ziplocs, a huge force of Catachan metals that I'm waiting to sell, reinforcements for my Praetorian IG, a Guild gang for Malifaux, Dark Vengence DAs, and a few PH Emperors children I just got from FW.

Do yourself a favor: get something complete, so you can play or display or whatever you want. Jumping projects is fine, but you need to either finish them or sell them off at some point, or you'll spend more time figuring out what you should do next than actually painting.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Some of them are related to each other - others are complete opposite ends of the spectrum in order to provide a pallet cleanser of sorts when it becomes monotonous to do a few dozen of the same thing over and over again.

That's some fine wordplay there, sir.

just don't do what i do and bin them when you do it wrong lol

Multiple armies is perfectly normal. Between true armies and RPG "armies" I have 3 that are PIP, 3 activeley growing, 3 in planing, and 1 finished army, meanwhile my friend has about 5 armies.

I am embarking on my first project EVER... I get my boxs of Space wolves and paints next week and im overwhelmed thinking about how much work i have to do.

I currently have 2 in progress armies (A British armoured Sqn for FoW and repainting my 2000 points worth of metal catachans), 2 touch up armies (my Death Guard and FoW Finns need some updates) and 2 planned armies which I will buy ordering this week (Bolt Action British Rifle platoon and Soviet Strelkovy for FoW).

I don't usually have as many as 6 but I always have more than 1.

If you only play 1 system then you could quite easily have a single army on the go but if you play multiple systems you are much more likely to have a very eclectic selection on your painting table.

Sounds pretty normal to me.
Currently on my painting desk;
SoB, Space wolves, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, DA, Dark Elves, and soon some IG.

Then again I paint for some of the other players in the area, so maybe I'm doing things differently.

Completely normal.

You are definitely not a normal wargamer if you do not have a bunch of projects and a couple of rulesets unfinished on your "work bench".

i dont like doing that. I used to have hummingbird syndrome and too many armies back when i was young and foolish. its an easy way to get burnt out and you will also have too much unpainted stuff everywhere.

i now realize it's better to have just one really good army.

I juggle 2 armies at most for an extended period. Thats all you need at once... If my friend gets into it though, which it sounds like he will, I'm going to have to make a Twitter sparker master of the forge and a Dragon ball Z captain, or something similiar for whatever army he wants to do.

 -Loki- wrote:
I have multiple projects going simply to keep painting interest up. Right now, I'm burned out on painting red, so my Tyranids are on hold. I'm trying to get 200pts of Haqqislam done, when I'll probably shift gears and start on my Vampire Counts again. I've got a 1000pt army list worked out to get done (when you've got 3500pts unpainted, you need to set milestones).

Whenever I burn out on something, I move onto another project until that burns me out, then I either go back to what I was working on or go to another project.

I'm the same, think there is definitely something to that 'a change is as good as a rest' expression.

Otherwise I end up sitting down, sighing wearily when I think I have to paint something. I just end up doing nothing, so its much better to do something different if possible (speaking as someone with very little self-discipline).

Same here! I find it useful to have a few projects running here and there, that way I don't get myself stuck on one project and start getting bored or burned out. I can jump from one to another, keep things fresh and refresh myself from another. Only downside is it does lengthen the time of projects getting finished, which I think reflects on part of my habit of not wanting to acknowledge I'm "finished" with a project. Therein lies the biggest problem, I believe with having multiple projects is that you get yourself into a rut where you keep starting and working and jumping around projects but never finish something to completion. Still, I realize my issue there and really try to finish things up to really put a project to rest.

Right now I've got two custom dreadnoughts, a unit of Space Wolves, 100 DeepWars figures and an upcoming Strain commission. This also doesn't count the current website I'm buildling, another website I'm finishing up, a personal project site I'm writing out, and getting ready to start on an interface design for another project