When the hobby becomes a chore, what is a gangsta to do? Find some inspiration from the Hobby Pros around you! Today’s post is inspired by Garfy’s work over at Tale of Painters. 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.
Because they are the lucky one, at least on that regard, they get the awesome Conquest magazine and miniatures. Garfy has been painting these models ever since they came out, sharing his progress along the way. That was until recently when progress all but stopped on the Primaris Apothecary.
And we’ve all been there with that one started mini that destroys your will to paint. When the hobby becomes a chore, what is a gangsta to do?! How do you get back on the fun side of miniature painting? This is, after all, supposed to be fun!
The best 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, here’s Garfy’s solution to the never-ending Apothecary:
The goal of this is not to finish your side project. It’s just to get you out of that hobby funk and 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 thrive on it. Much like jumping in a pool, the hardest part is getting started.
The next time you get in a hobby rut, be sure to 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:
And because I know you will ask: here’s the link to Garfy’s paint handles.
