Kickstart your motivation to paint! Or, what to do when your hobby becomes a chore?!
Motivation, or lack thereof, is a common problem in the hobby. Sometimes it’s the busy real life that get’s in the way, other times, you simply feel uninspired. Whatever the case may be, all hobbyists get stuck in a rut now and then.
I’ve looked into this issue a lot in the past. During my decade as a commission painter, no motivation was something that I didn’t have the luxury to let linger on. Bills needed to get paid; motivation needed to, well, motivate.
I think the most common problem is reaching a point in a miniature where you just can’t see past.
- It’s not looking how you hoped
- There’s just so much to do
- You have no idea what to do next.
This is where a lot of project join the pile of shame. And that’s where Garfy’s story, from Tale of Painters, comes into play. I’ve been following ToP for more than a decade now, and I highly recommend you check them out if you’re not already familiar with their work.
So our hobby hero has been blasting through his Conquest magazine, churning out model after model, each one prettier than the next.
That was until recently, when progress all but stopped on the Primaris Apothecary.
And just like that, Garfy seemed to not only run into our every day normal painter problem, but also explains how he worked it out.
And we’ve all been there before, that one started mini that destroys your will to paint. When the hobby becomes a chore, what are you to do?! How do you get back on the fun side of miniature painting. This is after all, supposed to be fun!
The Solution
My favorite trick is to start on something fun. Anything you feel inspired to start. When I get bored out of my mind of painting base coats on 100 of models, I just start building stuff for another project. When I’m bored removing mold lines from 50 left arms after I got done with the right arms, I start to paint a hero.
Lo and behold, Garfy’s solution to the never-ending Apothecary was just that:
The goal of this is not to finish your side project.
It’s just to get you out of the hobby funk; get your mojo back.
Once you are no longer completely jaded with painting miniatures, stop the side project and get back to finishing the main model.
In fact, it’s even better to stop at some point on the side project and get back to your bane model before finishing.
Use this extra motivation to finish the fun piece to get through the painful model!
For some reason, we humans are programmed to finish tasks we start. We strive on it. Much like jumping in a pool, the hardest part is getting started.
Next time you get in a hobby rut; switch it up a little. Start something that looks different and fun and look at you go! And, look at Garfy, the man himself, go:
