Figure Painting Moods

[kkoene]

I am definately a mood painter. I think I went 4 months without even going into my studio in the basement! I am now over that and currently working on some Rackham figs for a client of mine.

 

I also have another hobby that breaks up the painting routine. Vehicular Portraiture!!

 

So after these Rackham figs I am starting a project for a friend of mine who just bought a full dresser Harley.

[Firebird]

I paint in moods. Sometimes every day. Then I'll go for weeks with out picking up a paintbrush. I just get in a mood where I have no desire to paint.

[Gus Landt]

Anyone have any tips/tricks for breaking the mood funk? I don't think I go more than a week without painting, but I always feel guilty when I go more than a day without painting.

My painting table is in my living room, and takes up an entire wall. Since I don't have a TV, that table is pretty much the focus of the room. Makes it hard to ignore!

 

One thing I find that can break the funk is to work on something related but not actually painting. For me that means basing. I'll grab some minis I painted decades ago and add a base ond some sand/flock. It gets me moving but doesn't require painting!

 

It's kind of like writers block I guess. They say the only way to beat that is to just sit down and write about SOMETHING, even if all you write about is the fact that you don't know what to write about.

[spiritual_exorcist]

I'm trying to get my Crusaders base-coated before I go to Canada, but I havn't been feeling very ambitious myself.

 

I always find eliminating all distractions except good tunes usually gets me going, even if it only for an hour or so.

[Digital [email protected]]

Yeah, same here. I haven't painted in close to a year I think. But I got an idea for a diorama so.. here I go again

I look forward to it. I miss seeing your dioramas.

[Digital [email protected]]

I pretty much only paint in the fall & winter. Nikmal & I run a painting seminar for a local game day and that is the only time I paint in the summer. When I get burned out though, I try to find a mini that really inspires me. I don't try to finish up a mini I was working on or work on one that was dipped in Pinesol, but a new fresh inspiring piece.

[deep_sashelas]

Tips for getting into the fig painting mood, hmm. I struggle with this all the time, but some things that have been working for me now and then:

 

Figure out (vaguely) why you've stopped painting. And figure out a new reason to paint.

 

I'm often overwhelmed by the hordes of minis figmentia landed me up with. And then I wonder what the heck I'm going to do with 'em. Would like to get a game going. That means terrain, which I don't have much of = new project: make terrain. Friends busy? Find solo game rules time. And that pinpoints some minis that you want to paint up in preparation for the game.

 

Another trick that is working for me now is prepping minis: A lot of my stuff is still in boxes and blisters stuffed on the shelves. Makes me depressed, I'm not even seeing the big picture of what I own. I bought some nice stackable drawers for the minis, just need to prep and put them in it.

 

I've procrastinated a ton about this, but I've found a new place to do it besides my boring hobby room and paint desk. Coffee table right in front of TV/dvds. Favorite shows you've seen before are good. So you aren't distracted too much by the show, and can actually look at and glue minis without mutilating your fingers, while there's still something else to concentrate on. Music sometimes works for me, but often not. Dvds better.

 

And sometimes painting procrastination is because I haven't quite figured out or envisioned the end result of what I want to paint. I need to put in some thought into making a paint scheme, surfing the net for fantasy pics/reference helps, using a color wheel, etc. Get myself excited about doing something I've not tried before.

 

Then from that plan, I ask myself what's the absolute next thing to paint to get it one step closer to the mini I want. The belt/leggings/face/sword? What color? And that's what I'll do the next time I find time to sit down at the paint desk. Repeat until done.

[dargrin]

I have had a problem in the past with not painting for a while. Mainly because of the lack of quality of the minis I was painting. I actually went a few years. I started back up again only a couple years back. I was getting chest pain because of stress and I needed a stress reliever. I found Reaper and here I am.

[Flowfinder]

Since I started painting again a few months ago after about 15 years of nothing, that's about all I do between sleep, work, and other "maintenance" activities. There are times when I'll go a few days without painting. Then there are periods where all I can do is apply partial basecoats and then move onto something else.

 

For a while I had a bunch of half-starts and near-completes that were sitting around but something external kept getting in the way. When that something getting in the way was a mini that I thought was "cooler" or whatever and I was painting it almost non-stop, I wasn't concerned. At some point I just made the decision to purge the "rest stop" before taking on anything brand new (whether or not I had already purchased it and it was just sitting around waiting, as there always seem to be some that do ).

 

For the past couple of days I've been doing what deep_sashelas does: basing. That's requiring some paint, but not the fine kind of attention to minute detail involved in painting the minis themselves. There are 8 minis currently in my rest stop. Once I complete the bases I'm working on, I'll likely empty out at least half of those before moving on to anything fresh (though the Reaper Cyclops -- don't know the number and "cyclops" is not a race option on the Fig Finder -- that my roommate picked up as a surprise for me the other day is tempting). It probably helps in my case that I am a teacher and have more time to myself during the summer than I do during the fall and winter. Of course, I haven't painted during a fall or winter since I got back into the swing, so we'll see.

 

Anyway, I think liking the mini for its own sake is a big help in sustaining the motivation to paint it fully. If I decide I like it and I have a practical reason to paint it (for a game, as a gift, just to practice some recently discovered technique), then it all goes well. Nothing, however, is quite as tiring as having plenty of minis to paint but no desire to paint them. Sometimes they look better in the store.

 

That's my six and a half cents,

 

Flow

[lionmane]

My pinting goes in spurts.....I'll go a couple of months painting fairly regularly, then go a few without painting . This also depends on my gaming activity, which has been nonexistant lately, with the exception of last night...my friend and I got another friend hooked on Mordheim, so maybe play frequency will increase, as will painting.

[WEMIC9]

My biggest problem with 'keeping in the mood' is when I have minis that have to be painted to complete an army or a warband like my Necropolis warband right now. As cool as the ones that I have finished look I'm having a hell of a time forcing myself to paint the rest.

[Flowfinder]

So you're doing those more or less one at a time, then? It may help to do them all (or most of them) together, that way you not only increase the chances of them looking like a uniform "team" (unless you never mix colours, in which case that's not really a problem), you also don't get stuck comparing one "cool" finished individual to the unfinished ones who, because they're unfinished, aren't so cool. And since you're talking about work that needs to be done because they're with a specific purpose in mind, the motivation to finish should increase with the general lack of overall completion.

 

Think about it. It's worked for me.

 

-- Flow