Painting Motivation Part II

So it’s been a busy couple of weeks for me. I started a job 2 days before xmas, and now I've had the joy of a two hour commute to work 2 days in a row (bloody accidents causing delays) :(

With all this happening it’s hard to stay focussed on the painting, all I want to do when I get home is watch some TV and go to bed. Looking at my painting table and seeing the huge numbers of models on it is hardly inspiring me to get on and paint.

What I decided I needed to do was focus. At the moment I have 3 Dark Eldar vehicles in the process of being converted, space wolf vehicles, loads grey hunters, warmachine cryx models and even a warmachine crusader warjack on my painting desk. All this clutter just turns me off.

First I decided what I wanted to get done over the next few month. I can’t do everything so there’s no point having everything on my desk. My Protectorate of Menoth (Warmachine) are in a playable state, and I’m not going to any warmachnine tournaments soon so they can wait (to get painted/repainted).

Getting armies assembled so they can be played with and getting armies painted so they can be used at tournaments are normally the key milestones for modelling (apart from the joy of painting great models).

For me this focused my attention on getting my Dark Eldar tournament ready (after their new codex gave me a new list to use), and getting my Space Wolves fully assembled and starting the process of getting them painted.

I split all that I had to do into small tasks, such as “convert ravager”, “assemble a long fang pack”, “paint half a grey hunter squad” etc. The Dark Eldar tasks are small and quicker to do, so I hope to get them done by the end of the month.

I split the Space Wolf tasks into various mile stones. First was having an army I could play round my mates with, so this is to finish assembling enough models so I can play a 1500 point list. This list includes models I didn’t put into my ideal 1750 point list [link], but are already assembled and would allow me to play the army asap. The next mile stone was assembling my ideal 1750 point list I posted here. Lastly the third mile stone was getting the 1750 point list fully painted.

The Dark Eldar task list has 9 tasks, which are also quite quick to complete. The 3 mile stones of the Space Wolf army have 5, 9, and 24 tasks respectively. Getting the huge task broken down into mini tasks helps to give a better idea of what a realistic idea of when the whole task could be completed.

For example I know that I have to be able to commit 2 hours a night for at least 2 or 3 nights a week to have a chance of finishing the Space Wolf list by my birthday (July). – I know, I’m slow 

I also added a progress tracker to the blog (see the first of the two right hand panels). Feel free to comment if you don’t see much movement in the percentage bars over the weeks.

Everything apart from the Dark Eldar vehicles I’m converting and a small case of Space Wolves I’m painting will be removed and put away in cases. I hoping putting more focus on my painting this year will mean I will have three fully painted armies for 40k (Tau, Dark Eldar & Space Wolves) by the later stage of this year.

Hopefully early Feb I’ll have finished the Dark Eldar tasks, and will be able to post pictures of my fully painted 1750 army.

What's your process of getting yourself motivated, and what do you think of mine ?

Rathstar

Quick Update (13th Jan '11): I was putting grey hunters together tonight and realised I'd missed some items on my task list. So some of you my have noticed that the progress tracker went slightly backwards today. Never fear I am busy assembling :)