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It's not that I don't know what colours to use, or the theme I want the end-product have, it was just ... I don't know, I couldn't paint...

Let me set the scene -

- It's Saturday, I'm off, well rested, and the Missus is working all day.
- I am initially quite excited to have a full day (noon to nine) of Warhammer painting and modelling.
- I have infinite movies at my disposal (infinity-minus-one actually, but still...)
- I have 3 projects to work on;
        - Adding the final accessories to my Baneblade, and then primer,
        - assembly & painting a baneblade commisar-on-foot, and heavy stubber + hatch + guy, for a guy at the local shop
        - and a unit of ~30 night goblins for my O&G army, that have all their base-colours painted and need the next steps

I finished assembly, and primed both the baneblade & the commission pieces
I painted the commission pieces - a nice job (better than my previous tournament armies, but not as nicely as my generals)
I even black washed my baneblade main-turret, and hvy bolter turret

I still had about 5 hours left a hobby-time

But then I stopped. I looked at the gobbos... and I couldn't bring myself to do anything to them.
I wasn't sore from painting hunched-over, I wasn't tired, I even had a mage in the unit I could focus on if I felt like it.


Anyone have any ideas of how to stoke my painting fire?

Have a goal.  Nothing lights a fire under your butt like having a goal to meet for painting, like a tournament or something.  A fun goal, not a meaningless "no accountability" goal. 

Getting a goal like this isn't the easiest thing to do, but I'm pretty sure you have a gaming group up there, so you may want to start an escalation league (or something along those lines).

Good luck getting motivated!

Sign yourself up for a tournament involving your night goblins!

Split up the gobbos into temporary units of 10, and hide the rest. Work on the ten until they are done.
When those are done, move onto another 10. Their sheer number when seen may be a daunting effect to you.

One little thing that helped me overcome some painting block is drybrushing a bit on the model to help me see it better. Once I saw it better i was more inspired to paint it, and the speed at which your drybrushing goes by helps to bolster the ol' painting morale.

That's what I did with my current unti of killa kanz I'm painting. I started drybrushing it, which got me more excited about seeing it come to life in color, and helped me plan out how I would attack them.

Ditto on the goal comment. I'm hosting an apocalypse game this weekend, and requiring everything involved to be painted. I finished a good 3k of chaos models in the last month so that they'd be available for this game.

I've found that to be the case with every project I've done. It can sit there for ages, but when I actually want to use it in some event that requires it to be painted, I can just grind it out in no time.

No unfortunately. Our camera is a Panasonic DVX100. It's a good camera but it's just SD. I'm hoping we can upgrade though when it comes time to do the next project, hopefully by then they'll be cheaper too

Good advice all, especially that bit about the video camera....

An escalation league is an idea... I had even challenged some of the group to weekly updates on our gaming group forum, but then with the cessation of real support from GW, I gave up. and the rest followed.

I did have a goal once... see the preface in my new blog thread dakkadakka.com/CommunityForums/tabid/56/forumid/56/postid/203629/view/topic/Default.aspx

I am hoping that the painting blog on here will drive me to update it - to at least keep it on page 1 through new updates.

Thanks guys! I already feel more like painting them.

Yeah, blogging has really helped me step out of the modeling funk I was in for a long time. It gives you a spot to show off what you're doing, and a place to get constant feedback from the community as well. And reading what others are doing in their blogs is also a big motivator.

I have days like that myself though even still. Days that I just can't bring myself to pick up my paintbrush for anything. So I mope around the house and piss and moan because I don't get anything accomplished. Vicious cycle...

I get into situations like that all the time. For me what works is to just go do something else. Sometimes after 15 minutes I'll be in the mood to paint again, sometimes it takes a couple days, a week, a month.

I took a good two months off a while ago, just didn't feel like painting. It comes and goes.

I know the feeling, man.
I get like that sometimes.

There are 3 things I do that ALWAYS help.

Step 1)
Walk away.
I have my computer in the same room as my painting/assembly area. I go over and check my email or browse the net for a bit.

Step 2)
Put on some music.
I have tons os MP3 playlists created on my computer. They are sorted by total list length. I open one that is close to the right length of time for what I have remaining in my "session" and start it up. Music always helps.

Step3)
Just sit down and do it slowly. Take it one step at a time.
If you can just get yourself to pick up the brush. Just pick up the brush, you're closer.
Once you're there, just get yourself to pour a little paint out into whatever reservoir you have to hold it. That's all. Just pour it.
Now, certainly, you don't want to WASTE that paint. Right? Just use that paint until it's gone, then you can stop.
Of course, you won't want to stop with 1/3 of the unit complete. So, you drop out more paint.
Keep going like that.
Once you get that first color done, remind yourself how good it feels to have THAT much finished. Wouldn't you like to just get the unit done and have it over with?

Hope this helps.

A group of my friends has a weekly painting challenge. They each put up a unit for their Hordes/Warmachine force (which can be a single Solo, Warbeast, or Warjack) every week, and put $5 in the kitty. Anyone who doesn't have their unit done next week forfeits his money to the guys who are finished.

If you were doing this for WH or 40k you'd probably just make it 5 or 10 models, or a single character, monster, or vehicle.

Posted By MagickalMemories on 11/07/2007 7:26 AM
I know the feeling, man.
I get like that sometimes.

There are 3 things I do that ALWAYS help.

Step 1)
Walk away.
I have my computer in the same room as my painting/assembly area. I go over and check my email or browse the net for a bit.

Step 2)
Put on some music.
I have tons os MP3 playlists created on my computer. They are sorted by total list length. I open one that is close to the right length of time for what I have remaining in my "session" and start it up. Music always helps.

Step3)
Just sit down and do it slowly. Take it one step at a time.
If you can just get yourself to pick up the brush. Just pick up the brush, you're closer.
Once you're there, just get yourself to pour a little paint out into whatever reservoir you have to hold it. That's all. Just pour it.
Now, certainly, you don't want to WASTE that paint. Right? Just use that paint until it's gone, then you can stop.
Of course, you won't want to stop with 1/3 of the unit complete. So, you drop out more paint.
Keep going like that.
Once you get that first color done, remind yourself how good it feels to have THAT much finished. Wouldn't you like to just get the unit done and have it over with?

Hope this helps.

That's exactly what I do.  Of course my 'walking away' was a lot longer period of time. 

I finished my fantasy chaos army, kind of anti-climatically (finished some wolves) and started putting together some wood elves.  I got through some of the Glade Guard, some Glade Riders, primered some of the Glade Guard then stopped.

It took me 3 weeks to come up with a theme (which is when I finished my Chaos army).

Once I figured out my theme and color scheme, it took me nearly a week to actually sit and paint my test figure.  I've been painting it for 2 days now, just nonchalantly.  Tomorrow I'll hit it harder and hopefully finish it. 

But like you and others are saying, walking away, doing something else (I play some guitar) and thinking about something else seems to help.

I never thought of drybrushing, that's a helluva an idea, especially since I'm using white primer (yuck!).

-Jmz

If I get serious block, I try and work on something besides my current project. I like a lot of the Reaper stuff, both in the Dark Heaven and the Warlord line. I bust one of those out and make it my 4 hour project. Usually I have so much fun painting that one mini, and making it look as good as I can in 4 hours (varnish dry times don't count), that I'm stoked enough to get back to the business of working on the 30 SoB that sit on my bench.

Sometimes I just need to paint something unrelated to my current project. I always have a side-job ready to go. Just something to make the painting fun and not feel like a job. It's especially nice when doing a bunch of things that are going to have the same color/theme. doing something totally different (fantasy while doing a lot of sci fi, etc.) just gets things going more.

Drugs are pretty good to get you in a painting mood.

Definitely have a goal, one that drives you nuts to get something accomplished.

I have been a maniac lately getting stuff done. Why? Because I dont want to do it and because I want to get back into Ken-Do.

I wont allow myself to pick up the rattan bokken again until I have my goals accomplished and because of that, it is a great motivator.

I am sick of modelling crap and painting, I want to play. This hobby takes up too much time as it is already without moping around being idle. Ya gotta nip that in the bud and take charge of the huge pile of crap you have on your to-do list.

There are better things in life than gaming, even though gaming is awesome. I want more of the mo' bettuh stuff than looking at a huge pile of stuff that I cannot use because I cant get off my fat lazy ass.

It puts in in perspective.