Greetings Fraters, this is a different sort of update from me - it’s an update of, well, very little or no progress. Basically, I’ve struggled with my motivation to paint over the last month-to-six weeks. 
 

There are a few reasons for this; the biggest is that we had a bereavement in the family a couple of months ago. We lost a very close family member following a long and determined fight against cancer; so it was a loss that was expected, but nonetheless difficult. Honestly, if anyone has been through seeing a loved one taken by that illness, you’ll agree with me when I say **** cancer. 
 

This loss has affected each of my family in different ways - for me, it crept up on me really, and didn’t ’hit’ me straight away. It seemed to slowly settle on me like a fog, a miasma that brought me down and kind of robbed me of any sense of joy in the things I normally enjoy doing - like painting miniatures. 
 

While going through this, I haven’t beat myself up over not painting, or developed any anxiety over letting my painting ‘schedule’ slip away. In fact, I’ve just gone with it. I’ve not beat myself up because up until this, I’ve had pretty much 6 years of almost continuous hobbying, including painting on average an army a year (!) as well as terrain pieces and Kill Teams. If I’m not painting now, then everything I’ve got will still be there when my hobby motivation fully returns. 
 

So for the last month or so, the current batch of Marines I’ve been painting has been sat on my desk, pretty much like this:

And honestly, I’ve not worried about it much at all. However, over the last week, my motivation has slowly started coming back - but it’s not helped by the fact that I now have to block in metallics, which I really find tedious  Still, I’ll chip away, and eventually these will get done. 
 

And to help me push through one of my least favourite parts of doing these, I’ve been starting to get a hankering for a new army project - part of me wants to go straight on to it, but I’m going to do my best to stay focussed and get these Marines done. But that next project never seems far from my mind at the moment…