Painting and Miniatures Part 3: Motivation

In which I reflect on the last few month's painting progress.

It has been awhile since the last time I wrote a post about the painting hobby. I've not been inactive, but it has taken me some time to work up my motivations, and come to terms with who I am now versus who I was 10 years ago. 

There was a long period of time in late high school, through college, and into the weirdly fluctuating period of finding a job, going to Library school, finding another job, finding another job, finding more jobs, moving out of my parent's house and in with my cousin... basically from 1998 through about 2010, when I used to do a lot of painting. I painted whole armies for Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer fantasy. I painted Dark Angels space marines and Blood Angels space marines and my own made up chapter the Archangels space marines. Dozens of individual space marines for each army. I painted my cousin's collection of Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum as they are called now I believe, though I've been out of the news cycle for the hobby scene for awhile). I painted fantasy Empire, Bretonnians, High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen and Wood Elves. (I like elves.) I painted dwarves even. I tried other games, painting about a dozen crews for Malifaux, several warjacks and their attendant warcasters for Warmachine. I tried a naval engagement game whose name I forget at this point, though I think my favorite ship from that is still my avatar on Livejournal (I should probably delete my livejournal, I'm never going back there am I?). I did individual miniatures for D&D. I did a lot of painting. I think I was average in quality, not spectacularly good, but I got progressively better over the years. 

But after I got married, and even a bit before, I was starting to lose momentum. I wasn't painting whole regiments and squads at a time. I was having trouble motivating myself to put on a Mythbusters marathon or an old VHS of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and just paint for hours on end. Work was a large part of the trouble. Being out doing stuff all day, traveling from one side of the city to the other sometimes, it drained me. So I had less energy. For awhile I thought that's all it was. 

Moving in with Aproustian, and then moving to Iowa shortly thereafter, further impacted my painting. I did a few units of Wood Elves and some Tau battlesuits before we bought the house. I did a great wedding present diorama for my cousin and his wife when they got married after we moved in to the house. But slowly, video game time with Aproustian supplanted painting time alone. And work became full time and very stressful, eating more of my time. We stopped watching as much TV and started doing more video games like Final Fantasy XIV and Destiny. And those were fun games, and great to keep in touch with friends we no longer saw very often! I like getting on the playstation chat with friends from college and after who are on the other side of the country and slaying monsters or shooting aliens together. But that became all I had time for. I wasn't painting anymore. The paints slowly migrated upstairs, out of the way. Every once in awhile I would feel the urge to paint, and I would stare at the miniatures I had, and maybe do a few. I repainted some X-Wing miniatures ships, I tried painting the Star Wars people in Imperial Assault (from Fantasy Flight Games). I tried doing 3D printed miniatures from Shapeways and later Heroforge. But it wasn't like before. 

Maybe the problem was inspiration. I tried painting Runewars miniatures from Fantasy Flight Games. The Runewars Miniatures game is a sort of mix of X-Wing miniatures, with its movement templates and maneuver dials, and Warhammer fantasy, with its ranked units of spear-holding humans, undead hordes or elven archers. And Aproustian and I enjoyed playing Runewars miniatures, as much and maybe even more than we liked X-Wing miniatures. Maybe if I was painting miniatures I would use (I never really PLAYED Warhammer after all, just painted armies I later sold on eBay) then I would be motivated to paint them. But I struggled with the Runewars miniatures. Trying to figure out a color scheme. And then trying to paint them. They didn't inspire me like Games Workshop miniatures used to. 

Then we moved to California, where I have been the hosuespouse, not working (so far we don't need me to earn an income) but instead taking care of the house, the six cats, and doing home improvement projects. Now I had time! Now I wasn't tired from work every day! Maybe now I would paint things!

I didn't. I tried a bit, but it's hard to do fun creative painting in a house under construction. But we slowly got the floors put in, and I still didn't break out the paints. I went to therapy for depression, and worked on motivation there. I would like to paint, rather than I should be doing painting. I bought a rolltop desk like I had at my parent's house (it was my mom's old desk, and it is still a great desk, but I didn't take it with me when I moved out). I bought Games Workshop miniatures that looked like fun to paint.

Crypt-banshees? Is that what they're called? Whatever it is, they are amazing models. Maybe I'll paint them someday...

I didn't paint them. I assembled several, I still enjoy that, but I haven't painted them.

I brought out all the Runewars miniatures and tried to paint the elves. I figured out a color scheme that I thought might work well. I haven't gone past that.

Something has changed. And it's me. I just don't have the same interest I used to have in painting miniatures! I'm just not motivated to paint regiments or elves or hordes of orcs. Or even squads. 

Wraith-stalkers I think? Also from Age of Sigmar. I admit, GW does amazing model work.

But I have found recently that I do have motivation to paint something. And that is figures for Dungeons and Dragons. I have painted several figures, one for almost each of our players at the monthly AD group (sorry Eld, I should look for one specifically for you sometime, even if we're mostly using Roll20 for the combats now). I painted Sadun. I'm painting vampires and dire wolves for the Wednesday GC group, to add to my collection of miniatures we can use every week when we need to fight things. And I'm enjoying it! I'm not doing it every day like I'd hoped to, but when I do get to it, it's actually fun, and not a chore.

I though Age of Sigmar figures might be good. Here are my assembled Castigators and Gryph-hound, though I've not gone further than this.

This is why I have never tried to paint professionally. I would never meet a deadline.

I have changed. The things I like to paint have changed. The times I paint has changed. The other big factor in getting me back into painting has been weekly sessions of Stellaris I play with my cousin. I set up the computer at my painting desk, and play this 4X game of galactic politics and discovery and conquest (mostly the discovery for me, more the conquest for my cousin, we work pretty well together), and I pick up a paintbrush and paint in between issuing orders to my Sleestak colonies around my empire. 

And I'm having fun doing it. And that's what matters for a hobby.

Here are what I've been really getting into in the past few months.

This is Rek, from the AD group.

My first real successes were figures for the AD group. 

Colin Walker, cleric.

I did those in December/January, I believe. I was motivated to do them specifically, but was unable to turn that into the general motivation I had wished for.

Sagira, the fire sorceress.

More recently I have been really able to do stuff for the Wednesday group. Usually after we've needed them but I've enjoyed it just the same.

My first attempt at fur in years, these timber wolves will come in handy if we ever have to fight wolves again. 

My current works are more work in progress.

I've mostly got the base colors figured out, but I've been distracted by hero figures so I haven't really started doing highlights and shading yet.

Two of five dire wolves (using Fenrisian Wolves models from GW, I've always wanted to paint them). Still working on colors, but I like where they're heading.

I'm doing these two because they looked like fun, but also I used the purple one (before it had any color) to be Lady Wachter in our last big fight at GC D&D.

Finally, here are some completed works I'm particularly proud of.

Ismarck and Irena. They accompany us so much I just had to paint them up. I used Nolzur's miniatures, human male rogue and human female fighter as the basis, and looked up pictures online for color inspirations.

The dragonborn fighter, I just did for fun. Nolzur's minis all come in two packs, and I usually need only one, but they're a lot of fun to paint. The one on the right is a 3D printed mini from some years ago I got to represent one of my favorite Final Fantasy characters, Celes. She's been sitting half-painted for about 3 years? I finally finished her over the weekend, and I like how it turned out (I combined her in-game sprite and official artwork to get one figure here.)

And that is where my hobby is right now. I'm finally feeling better about it. Maybe I'll be better at keeping you updated about it too!