Painting Warhammer is a lot of work. Let’s face it: you have to build the thing, then paint the thing. And that can take a lot of time and energy. Sometimes I find this overwhelming. It’s really hard. It’s easy for me to lose my Warhammer motivation and it’s difficult to find it again.
Last week I really wanted to paint something. I had a free evening after work and my wife was looking after the baby. I had the time, I had the space. But I didn’t have the motivation to get started. After much tribulation, I cleared my desk. I set my paint station in order. That alone really made me want to put brush to hand and get painting!
So what do I do when I lose my hobby mojo? In this article I’ll try to explain my method. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to implement! I call it the Paint The Boot method.
Motivation is a lie
The first thing to understand and keep in mind is that motivation is a trap. Motivation is a fickle lady. See, you can’t really rely on it when you need it, because it’s not always there.
It’s an emotion that tends to always run away the moment you have time to hobby! It happens to me all the time. Picture this.
It’s a Sunday afternoon, I’m free from chores and I can do whatever I want. Result? I just watch TV all afternoon. When evening comes around, I’m frustrated. I haven’t done anything meaningful with the time I was given. Yes, well said Gandalf. I was waiting for motivation to arrive and do some hobbying, but it never showed up.
How to keep your Warhammer motivation up?
The secret here is that you can create motivation yourself instead. No need to wait around – just go and do it. The phrase that I really like to remind myself is this one:
Activation comes before motivation.
That’s right, you have to kick yourself into gear first, then motivation will arrive!
My trick for this is to limit my expectation to only do one very small thing. I call this the “Paint The Boot” method.
The “Paint The Boot” method and how it can help your Warhammer motivation
The name of the method should already tell you all that you need to know. Just Paint The Boot!
By setting my expectations low, I can just focus on one small thing which is really easy to achieve. This way I’ll get my dopamine hit as soon as I finish painting the thing I set to paint. This kickstarts the motivation I need to carry on!
For me, this looks like painting one boot on one miniature. I sit myself to the desk, then force myself to paint this one boot. After that’s done, I want to go ahead and paint the other boot. Then I’ll finish the trousers. And so on…
And just like that my 10 minutes painting session becomes a 2-hours one!
Just Paint The Boot – bring back your Warhammer motivation
So remember, the key here is to nudge yourself to begin with. This will create a landslide motivation loop that will keep you going without even realising it! You even finish your entire army this way.
What about you? Do you agree with my Paint The Boot method? Maybe you have another way to overcome the lack of hobby motivation? Let me know in the comments! Until next time
We all love painting minis. We all love buying them as well. So with a mountain of minis slowly growing in the comfort of your home, how can you be consistent with painting on a regular basis?
In this article I’ll go through my thought process on how to be consistent and I will show you what I have found that works for me. So strap in, grab a warm beverage and enjoy. I’m about to change your life.*
* Please note this blog may not change your life.
How to be consistent – my mindset
It’s true, it is hard work sometimes. I consistently failed at being consistent with painting my minis. Year on year I would tell myself “ok, this is it, 2 hours of painting a day”. And then fail. Ok let’s try something else: “30 minutes a day then!”. Guess what. I would keep that up for a week at best and then quickly end up in a slump and not touch the brush for months. Then January would come around, and with that new resolutions and dreams.
You get the gist. What I’m saying is that I would go down too deep too early. Most importantly I was expecting too much of myself.
There are lots of videos on youtube on the matter… but not many struck a cord with me. One which did, and is one of my favourites, is Eons of Battle one where they talk about dealing with burnout.
So where do I stand now?
Motivation is not enough.
You heard that right folks. Motivation is a myth. I have lost track of all the times I said to myself “I’m not feeling it today, maybe tomorrow”.
The result being that I wouldn’t do any hobby for months. Last time I stopped, I didn’t do anything for almost six months. And don’t get me started on how hard it was to get back into it! Why is that? Because my motivation was b*llsh*t, pardon my French.
Bottom line: don’t wait for motivation to come to you. It might never do.
But passion, man
The hobby is always full of people with passion. Passion equals motivation for many, but not everybody. Sometimes passion is also thought essential in places like your workplace and your job:
“AAA looking for passionate ice cream scoopers!” “Are you passionate about photocopying books all day?” “Join our most passionate packaging peas team!” “Are passionate about making other people passionate?” Give me a break.
Ok, rant over. What I’m saying is that passion is not enough for everyone, not even in our hobby. I have spent months waiting for passion to kick in. Fair to say it didn’t work. If anything, the more I was waiting the less inclined I was about doing anything.
How to be consistent – The “Do Something” law
Nike says it all the time: “Just do it”. And I kind of hate it. It’s such a superficial way to force someone to keep it up, whatever that is. But as much as I hate the advert, it’s kind of true. After you have planned how to paint a whole army, it’s time to get cracking, but how to be consistent at it?
In his “Subtle art of not Giving a F*ck” book (I highly recommend a read!) the author Mark Manson comes up with the Do Something law.
The idea behind the Do Something Law is that when you feel stuck, or don’t know where to start, at least do something. So for instance if you don’t quite know how to paint this ork boy, perhaps start looking at some basing material for example.
Activation comes before Motivation
Therefore, if it’s something you enjoy, just start even if you are not feeling it. Paint a boot, build one mini. Just spill a bunch of argrax wash on the table if you have to!
You’ll see that even just the act of setting up your painting station will stir something up in your belly, filling you up with that fuzzy warm feeling of being back. You got this.
And so here comes the ultimate truth:
Activation comes before motivation.
How does it work? Here is a real life example:
Me: “meh, not feeling it today, it’s been a long day in work and I’m tired”
Other me: “ok cool, that’s fair enough mate”
Me: “let me sit on my ass all evening”
Other Me again: “yea sure, but we could do a little bit of painting right?” *Goes upstairs*
Me: *sits at hobby desk*
Me: “alright Other Me, well played. I’m here now, might as well grab a brush”
Other Me: “yea I know, right? Let’s paint the teeth on this Squig, why don’t we?”
Me: “sure why not, I’m here after all”
Few hours later
Me: “dude that’s awesome, the teeth are looking dope. Might try the base next!”
Other Me: “yea mate, well done”
Fin.
So essentially, as much as possible try to get the ball rolling even with the smallest of tasks, and it’ll kickstart motivation – just try it out!
Don’t skip twice
Yep, try not to skip a session twice. And with it I mean don’t let too much time pass between hobby sessions.
I don’t know about you, but if I go for a big chunk of time without hobbying, then the “idea” of it becomes a burden, and I get stressed. It’s almost like it becomes this scary thing that is impossible to do. The more time that passes, the more difficult an activity it becomes.
For this reason, I try not to let too much time pass between sessions. This way the “hobby monster” stops growing in my head and it is simpler to get started each time. Hence the don’t skip twice rule.
It is obvious that life will get in the way, so of course don’t beat yourself up if something comes up and you can’t hobby. Just remember this and come back to it whenever you get the chance – maybe paint a tooth?
So as much as possible, don’t let too much time pass between your painting sessions. But don’t be harsh on yourself if you skip for whatever reason. Next time go sit down, grab a brush and off you go.
How to be consistent in the hobby – Conclusion
And so there you have it. That’s my secret method. If you are asking yourself how to be consistent, just remember this:
Activation comes before motivation.
Just Do Something.
Don’t skip twice.
This entails to just get going even when you are not feeling it, because the drive will kick in as soon as you start 🙂 as a matter of fact I just did some painting before sitting down to write this and I really wasn’t in the mood for it.
Please let me know in the comments how you are consistent with your hobby, I’d be thrilled to read your thoughts and process!
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You’ve bought a bunch of miniatures. You were hyped to start a new army, and here you are, after the dust settles, surrounded by boxes. Now your pile of stuff (I’m not going to call it “of shame” yet) is sitting on a shelve next to you. What have you done? Here I share my tips on how to paint your Warhammer army.
How To Paint Your Warhammer Army? Enter the rabbit hole..
SO this happened to me a while back. It was the End Times on Earth, everyone was stuck at home because of Papa Nurgle, with too much time on my hands. What better thing to do then buying loads of Warhammer? You know I love me some Warhammer every now and then. What about a whole Gloomspite Gitz army? Yea, I reckon that’ll do. Let me just pop onto eBay real quick..
One. Do your homework – paint a test model
This is something that I learned recently. If you need to undertake a big project, you need a plan. And if you need a plan, you need to prep.
I have seen it and read it in a few videos and blogs about the subject, but it never stuck with me. You should take the time to do a test model first! I will save you time! I always thought: wouldn’t it be faster if I just go straight into painting without doing the homework first? See, I am usually not too bad with visualizing a color scheme, but I wanted to try this other approach this time. And thank God I did.
Having a test model helps you settle into a colour scheme (by the way, Blue and Red or Purple and Red worked much better!). The other thing to do is is obviously take notes on the steps to reach the desired colour scheme, this way you don’t have to think when it comes to batch painting the lot.
Here is my recipe after some experimenting:
And here lies the crux of the problem: you want to save time, and if you don’t have to think about which colour to choose and how to apply it, then you’ll save time over a big project.
Two. Keep it simple – every step of the way
Admittedly, not quite following this myself. But the main idea is to streamline the process of paint and minis as much as possible. I have a few things I’m leaning on for this task.
First of all, your painting recipe should not have that many steps. The logic is simple enough, less steps take less time, therefore you’ll be faster at finishing a single model. For instant, you could skip highlighting if a wash reaches a good enough result. Be mindful when batch painting: you might find ways to achieve what you want by speeding up some aspects of your colour scheme, like removing steps which are overkill to troops, or dropping the second pass of highlights.
I think this is particularly important. I discovered this myself while doing the first batch paint. I realised that I could skip an orange highlight by using contrast paints, basically achieving the same result. If you can streamline the process as you go you’ll gain momentum and velocity during the project, which will keep you motivated.
Easy Techniques
Another thing I lean on for this is using simple techniques. This makes it so it’s not too time consuming when batch painting. Techniques to have in your arsenal that might come handy are:
Washes
Contrast Paints or Speedpaints
Drybrushing
Streaking Grime
Oil washes
I personally will never finish my Warhammer army if I were to building the highlights and shadows by brush only (also, I don’t have the skill to do that!!), so this provide worthwhile shortcuts while delivering good quality product at the end.
Looooooooots to paint…!
Lastly, keep your bases simple! God know I made that mistake and now I’ll have to keep going with it to maintain a consistent look 🙁 I have far too many steps for building my bases, which eat a lot of time. Also, complicated bases require a more involved paintjob, which again will take time.
Three. Use an airbrush – no seriously, just do it plz
I know, not everyone has one, yada yada yada. Just remember that rattle cans are you friends too!
These tools are great for basing, zenithal highlights and quick basecoats. My Gloomspite Gitz army is composed mainly by squigs, so it makes sense to spray the whole thing in red to begin with!
Another cool thing that you can do with an airbrush (or rattle can ok ok) is undershading as it makes the model pop way more. Just hold the model upside down, give it a spray and BAM, professional looking mini in a second. I’m quite a fan of this technique as it is easy to do and super satisfying. I’m using it on my squigs to give me both a blue underbelly and overall shadow: they look awesome!
Quick and Easy Colour Transitions
Speaking of undershading, what an airbrush can do is giving you amazing color transitions in no time. I’m planning to use this for my squig army in order to boost the highlights of the models, and combining it with another easy technique to get some really nice results. Here’s my plan, after undershading:
Spray an off-white on the face on a 45 degree angle.
The spray goes on the face but also lightly on the knees and the top bits of the model.
Then use Contrast or the like to tint the white. In my case is orange.
Contrast paints + airbrush transitions. Love it
This gives a great highlight, quick and easy. What’s more, it focuses the attention on the front of the model, so I don’t have to spend much time on details on the back.
So yea, in conclusion: buy an airbrush plz.
Four. Don’t beat yourself up – you do you
I think this is important. After countless hours of painting minis I usually end up seeing only the faults. But it’s a hobby after all, there is no pressure coming from anywhere, just yourself.
I try to remind myself that perfection doesn’t exists. So I shouldn’t worry too much if my models aren’t. Do I like them? I do. Then it’s all good mate. Miniac has a great video that resounded with me titled “You are a good painter”. You should check it out as I found it very inspiring.
Another aspect of the hobby that I always worry about is spending too much time on one single model or unit. As I’m usually a slow painter, it happens fairly often and I get stressed about it. Thing is there’s no need for this stress. I just want everything painted and now. But where is the joy of the hobby if I focus only on the finished product.
I think this is the wrong approach. Again, it’s a hobby after all, we should all enjoy it however we like it. Which brings me to my last point.
Five. Don’t focus on the end goal – all about the journey
So I think this is absolutely crucial. The journey to a fully painted army is long and filled with ups and downs, so focusing on the end goal only will detract the joy of the act of actually painting it. I definitely tend to focus on the end goal, but I try to maintain joy in the journey. Here’s how I do it.
First, I’m breaking it down. I relatively enjoy batch painting, I enjoy getting a few models all done in one. I do struggle with it when I’m getting towards the end. My issue is that I love the beginning, but the closer I get to finish, say painting a 10 men squad, I cannot wait to be done! So many itsy bitsy details that take forever.. oof.
Break It Down, Mix It Up
So instead, I’m doing just squads of 5 at a time. I know it isn’t a big number, but I get to batch painting a bit and I’m done sooner. Being finished sooner is very powerful because seeing 5 dudes finished makes me want to start the next 5 asap! Basically I’m left myself wanting more on purpose! This way I’m driven to do the next batch and so on.
The other thing that I do is that I mix it up. Maybe 5 squig riders not, then 5 squigs and a squig herder. Then a Loonboss on giant squig. At the moment I’m even painting a Blood Bowl team instead! What I’m saying mix it up so that you don’t burn down painting the same thing 20 times.
I said about trying simple techniques. I’m trying to do different things on each little batch. Some squigs have a blue underbelly, other ones have a purple underbelly. This keeps it interesting to me and different enough to make me carry on.
So yea, enjoy the journey. Namaste.
(Bonus) Keep it consistent
Easier said then done of course. But there is something that you can do.
I know, countless hours have been spent discussing about procrastination, and how to beat it. What can you do about it, how to fight it etc. etc. But just listen to me one sec.
The thing for me is that if I don’t paint for some time, the whole painting thing becomes a big whole scary monster in my head. Oh my God it’s so much effort, I’m not feeling it today, I’m tired, I’m feeling meh, not today, maybe tomorrow, feeling lazy etcc. But tomorrow never shows up!
So here my friend, I’ll give you the ultimate secret to win at life.
Just show up.
No, seriously. I was skeptical about this too. Then I tried it. One day I wasn’t feeling it at all, but I just sit down and started building a model. Once that was done I left it, still not feeling it too much. The next day I wanted to paint it. And so, after months of not touching my brush, I managed to paint something. I basically hacked my brain into motion and my lazy a$$ followed. Isn’t that wonderful? There you go. You go conquer the world, my friend. Let me know how that works out for you.
How to paint your Warhammer army – Conclusion
So.. easy for me to keep blathering non-sense to you. Where I am right now? Is this Gloomspit Gitz army finished yet? weeelllllllllll… no. I have not finished yet, the process is obviously long and I interleave it with other painting projects in the middle. But I’m getting there. Here’s what I have:
20 Squig Hoppers
10 Boingrot Bounderz
2 Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig
2 Mangler Quigs (one is a Loonboss build)
1 Colossal Squig
10 Squigs + 2 Squig Herder
For a grand total of 47 models. That’s nothing to sniff at, it’s a sizeable chunk if you want them all looking nice and pretty. So unless you are doing hobby full time (I wish) this will take months.
Squigs, squigs everywhere!
But, but, but… So far I have painted quite a few things:
10 Squig Hoppers
5 Squigs and 1 Herder
For the grand total of 16 models. Only 31 to go. I think next I’ll move to do 5 Bounderz, then back to finish the squigs herd, then maybe a Loonboss on Giant Squig. See I mix it up?
I might do an update once the army is finished. Will it be done soon? Doubt it, but it will be done nonetheless.
