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Most of mine are fully painted. Have a few here or there that need to be finished off but its a very small %.
My painting is very stop start stop start.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
You don’t paint because you don’t think you’d like it and never tried it...you know, my mom once told me to never try brussel sprouts because I’d hate them. They’re now my favorite vegetable and I could eat them every night.

You know how it relates? You never know if you’ll enjoy something unless you try it. Art class in school FORCES you to finish something for a grade. Painting these models are at YOUR pace, and you’re your own teacher.

Paint with friends at another place if you don’t have space, paint at your store, talk, hang out and chill while you paint. Some of the best painting sessions I ever had involved South Park, paint, and Pepsi with friends.

I don't have any friends, so that is out of the window. But again, that is why I am saying I think I would not like it, not that am 100% sure I wouldn't. The rest of the stuff just makes sure that the chance of me trying to paint has more or less zero chance to happen. I mean, the army I have right now isn't very fun to play with in the first place. I don't have the money to buy a new one. I am not going to buy models for an army that is not fun to play with, only to spend more money to check if maybe I like to paint, if I find a space to do it. There is like 4 ifs on the way, and two or three money spendings, and on each level I may get the result of don't like it. Again am saying this is my own personal view on this. I see no reason why someone else couldn't like painting more then anything else in w40k.

Two main reasons:

1) I have a lot of different draws on my free time. Between theatre, TTRPGs, volunteering, and work, I have about one evening and one weekend day for my housework, shopping etc, let alone painting, TV, gaming, reading...

2) When I'm in the mood, I really enjoy painting, but when I'm not it's a chore. As a result, I tend to only paint when I'm in the right mood, which might only be one evening in a month, but then another month it may be my main focus at home for a couple of weeks.

I do enjoy painting a lot, and I do like seeing my army build over time - as long as it's at my pace and I'm not being unduly pressured, which sucks the fun right out of it.

When I got back to this hobby after another 10+ years of inactivity, I find I'm getting more and more critical of my painting and modelling work. So I take much much more time working my minis now. I dont want to rush anything unless its a monopose starter mini or "easy to build" one or whtever. I "ruined" so many miniatures when I was younger by piss-poor techniques that I swore to myself a long time ago I wouldn't do it anymore, especially considering how expensive minis have become..

So this means that even the modelling part of making a mini takes a long time for me. Still not resulting in 100% perfect results with regards to things like mold line removal, or using greenstuff to fill out the glued joints / perfecting the pose, perfectly drilled gun barrels and that sort of thing. To me its very much an excercise in "back to basics", as the older I get, the more I realize that the key to a perfect looking miniature is in mastering all the humble small things, such as prep work and pulling off superthin paint coats all the time with every colour. Still learning how to perfect the basics!

Then the whole matter of painting! Working out the best paints to use and the best techniques to use for achieving the look I am after. Still figuring out important basics like effective masking techniques for airbrush basecoating (Even though I am new to airbrushing, I already know I would prefer never to paint difficult colours by hand ever again if possible!) and am in the middle of the process of swapping out all of my paints into dropper bottles..

TLDR - I do paint but dunno if I'll ever finish LOL

I don’t need to pain them to play the game and every time I do paint a model I am jus miserable the whole time, so no reason to do something that you hate that has no benefi.

I m an addict an I buy more stuff than I can possibly paint.

Because I have big ideas and am picky about the execution of said ideas.

I do. But thats because I've almost stopped buying new stuff completely and have to find some other way to keep the hobby active when not playing

I have many unpainted models for two reasons: first is, I have so many thinks i enjoy doing, that the painting often simply doesn't fit: it is time consuming and I often proiritise other stuff.
Second is: when i look at what gorgeous pieces poeple around my place or around the web showcase, i simply feel like it"s worht little to devote time to it, knowing that my shoody ability at it will be... hum... made clear.

I don’t enjoy the act of painting.

I like having minis that I’ve painted myself. My skills are what I consider decent. I take pride in what I accomplish.

But I don’t enjoy the *act* of painting. I devote effort to learning the fastest and easiest ways to accomplish decent looking, competent paint jobs.

It’s a labour, to produce a desired end. If I don’t have the drive to produce that labour, or that labour doesn’t feel like I’m getting my effort’s worth then I will wait until that drive arrives, rather than force it. (I love Orks, but will never paint another after I finish my Kill Team. )

pm713 wrote:
Free time is limited and sometimes I'd rather do something that takes less effort.

Pretty much me. Painting requires setup: unpacking models, unpacking paints I need, unpacking brushes, putting plastic on table, unpacking and prepping wet pallet, prepping water cup, and setting up lamp. This assumes that no one bugs me while I'm doing it, too. And good heavens what happens if I don't have the paint or if it had dried out since I last painted.

I have pretty spazzy hands so on the rare occasion that i don’t have someone else demanding my time, nothing else to do and decent light conditions I give it a shot but it is a slow and frustrating process.

After decades of practice I’m at the level where I can get groups of models done in a reasonable amount of time. I'm not even jealous of the top end display piece painters. They’re pretty inspiring.

People who can quickly and neatly block in base colour schemes and get armies done to a nice basic standard are the source of my envy.

It takes too long and I'm bad at it.

Protip:

One way I've found to paint up an army is to find someone doing the same thing.

So, you say: "Hey, dude- let's do all of these. I'll do the black on all my guys and your guys, while you do all the silver" or something. Basically, that.

One thing that gets most people, and I used to be one of them- when I'd paint I'd always try to be super-neat. Now, when I go through I just get coverage on all the parts and touch up the overlap later. As long as you've gone with thin coats, it's easy to do.

After that, all you need to worry about is the shading and highlighting.

That seems to be a very good advice.

 UncleJetMints wrote:
I don’t need to pain them to play the game and every time I do paint a model I am jus miserable the whole time, so no reason to do something that you hate that has no benefi.

My feelings exactly

I always want to paint my forces but I find the biggest impediment is GWs rules. Half the time the units I'd like to be painting are on the shitheap of GW favour.

Sometimes entire factions I play are. Word Bearers, Orks, Nids, Deathwatch.

Taking a step away from the games and just enjoying the hobby side again has been really good for me.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I don’t enjoy the act of painting.

I like having minis that I’ve painted myself. My skills are what I consider decent. I take pride in what I accomplish.

But I don’t enjoy the *act* of painting. I devote effort to learning the fastest and easiest ways to accomplish decent looking, competent paint jobs.

It’s a labour, to produce a desired end. If I don’t have the drive to produce that labour, or that labour doesn’t feel like I’m getting my effort’s worth then I will wait until that drive arrives, rather than force it.

This summarizes my precise feelings exactly!

I don't enjoy it. As a hobby, it's meant to be fun, and that's not fun for me.

Also, I'm bad at it.

Time and somewhat work space limitation certainly has prevented me painting more regularly.

Modelling and build is my zen space. Painting is second to that and seeing incremental improvement and trying out new stuff is really rewarding despite being garbage compared to some of the artwork out there. However I also know the artwork is countless hours of work on a single piece.

Lack of interest, no effective workspace and a want to not mess up models while my ideal scheme for an army is not there yet.

didn't help my first models were metals i REALLY didn't want to mess up. im over that now, but so is most of my interest to even field anything for the time being.

For any unpainted mini in my collection - because the stars have not aligned properly yet concerning that one.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don't enjoy it. As a hobby, it's meant to be fun, and that's not fun for me.

Yeah, pretty much this. I do a bit, because I do think the time spent doing it is worth it in order to have painted models on the table, But there are lots of stuff that are worth spending the time doing for the results, that don't make it enjoyable though

Contrasts have helped a lot with some blood bowl stuff. one coat only on each area is nice. but i've now got 3 weeks to get 500pts of primaris done and i'm not looking forward to it

Shooter wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don't enjoy it. As a hobby, it's meant to be fun, and that's not fun for me.

Yeah, pretty much this. I do a bit, because I do think the time spent doing it is worth it in order to have painted models on the table, But there are lots of stuff that are worth spending the time doing for the results, that don't make it enjoyable though

Contrasts have helped a lot with some blood bowl stuff. one coat only on each area is nice. but i've now got 3 weeks to get 500pts of primaris done and i'm not looking forward to it

And Primaris are a touch too big for contrast :(

BrianDavion wrote:

Shooter wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don't enjoy it. As a hobby, it's meant to be fun, and that's not fun for me.

Yeah, pretty much this. I do a bit, because I do think the time spent doing it is worth it in order to have painted models on the table, But there are lots of stuff that are worth spending the time doing for the results, that don't make it enjoyable though

Contrasts have helped a lot with some blood bowl stuff. one coat only on each area is nice. but i've now got 3 weeks to get 500pts of primaris done and i'm not looking forward to it

And Primaris are a touch too big for contrast :(

Was for the longest time the same way.

I also attempted the both suggested ways of stopping the pile of grey:

the project and the happy go lucky attitude.
I also recomend of severly simplyifying schemes, that allows for faster results which then turn into better motivation. (atleast for my R&H army that was the way to go forward. which ended in a 50 model / weekend challange i gave myself, and have done it )
Summa sumarum, do it in a way that is bound to give you joy.

I love playing this game. I love building models and setting up armies. I absolutely LOATHE painting them. It takes forever, I'm not good, and I have other things I like to do. However, when it comes times for a tournament or I want to finish a squadron or something, I'll make time to paint. I've been playing for over 20 years, and have never had a completely painted army.

3) The times where I could spend an entire weekend painting have gone, I have a wife and a daughter now.
2) Painting has an overhead, where I need to get the paints, the models, some cover for the table, water, light and so on. By the time I'm ready to paint, my spare time might already be over and I need to pack up everything. I don't start painting unless I'm reasonably sure to have at least one hour available.
1) I hate painting in general. I'm told I'm not too bad at it, I can get models to look the way I want and I have gotten quite fast, but it's simply no fun. In addition, painting the same models over and over again is boring. I'd rather build 60 ork boyz than paint 5.

In general, I prefer any part of the hobby over painting, including posting on dakka. Sadly, the only way to get painted models is to paint them, so I do it. It's on a similar level of motivation as taking out the trash so we don't choke on it eventually.

I paint some, when I can, but usually I don't like how the end result comes out. That makes me loathe to paint again, so my skills start to atrophy. It's a while before I try again, and because I waited so long, I usually don't like the end result again. Rinse and repeat.

Karol wrote:
1 Paints cost too much.
2 I have no place to paint.
3 I don't think painting would be fun for me.

No place to paint? So you don't own a table and a chair? Geez man, you have more serious problems than unpainted stuff.

I enjoy painting most of the time, though there are some times I have a lack of inspiration making painting a chore.
Most importantly, painting is a huge part of this hobby, so I feel like doing so gets the most value out of my dollar.

And hopefully as of this weekend, I'll be completely caught up on painting (i.e. not a single model in my collection will be unfinished) for the first time in YEARS. I only have a Wraithlord left to paint and all his magnetized bitz-n-bobs are already done.

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