What to do when you're losing motivation?

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

Okay, so. I've got a small-but-somewhat-important backlog of minis to paint, including 20 Cultists, a few Tactical Marines and a ton I still need to strip first. I'm just not feeling the motivation lately to paint. Build, sure; building models is my absolute favorite next to the actual gaming. What do you all do when you're starting to lose motivation to do part of the hobby? (Note that painting is less important. People run Grey Legion; it isn't entirely unacceptable.)

[Slips]

I just do other things for a while and look at a bunch of painting blogs to get inspired and only ever start painting if I want to; not if I have to.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Discipline comes first, motivation comes after.
Just do it.


Grey Legion is unacceptable.

 

EDIT: To clarify and be a bit more constructive;

I too find painting boring much of the time, but I do it anyway as it passes time, I mentally don't categorize it as a chore either, more like meditation and time filling (like scrolling through BnC stuff ;) ).

Then once my minis get close to completion they begin to motivate me to make them really nice, that's when the creative juice starts flowing and the enjoyment begins. 

But I have to start first, otherwise motivation does not happen.

[Rik Lightstar]

The only thing to do is to take a break from the aspect that's not fulfilling you.

 

It's a hobby, you should be doing it for pleasure. The only way to "do the hobby wrong" is to get stressed about some self created obligation to it.

 

When I do take a break though, I try to keep notes of any cool ideas I come up with, so I can refer back to them later. You won't do every idea, but you'll do some, and you'll be all the more excited for having planned them out.

 

Rik

[MARK0SIAN]

I try to have a few different projects on the go, so when I get bored or lose motivation painting Ad mech I’ll switch to modelling a Blood Angels model or creating bases for my Catachans or working on a backlog of character models I have.

[Magos Takatus]

I try to have a few different projects on the go, so when I get bored or lose motivation painting Ad mech I’ll switch to modelling a Blood Angels model or creating bases for my Catachans or working on a backlog of character models I have.

I often keep ammo runts or other assorted gretchin handy to paint when I'm bored of my main project. Currently I'm painting mostly for my Ork army since I can paint models individually without worrying if a unit looks consistent or not. I currently find batch painting takes longer for me sometimes because it takes a lot longer to bear fruit. If I get a model in a squad almost finished I feel it's rewarding. If I have to paint an entire squad first that motivation can be harder to come by. You have to find a way to paint that works for you rather than whatever people say is the "best" way.

[Slave to Darkness]

I bounce from army to army so I dont get fed up, when that fails I ignore the hobby and write/record music or waste a few weeks playing xbox. I kinda go through phases of what interests me and hyper focus on one hobby and ignore the others. 

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I bounce from army to army so I dont get fed up, when that fails I ignore the hobby and write/record music or waste a few weeks playing xbox. I kinda go through phases of what interests me and hyper focus on one hobby and ignore the others. 

Look at you, having more than one consistent hobby.

[Slave to Darkness]

 

I bounce from army to army so I dont get fed up, when that fails I ignore the hobby and write/record music or waste a few weeks playing xbox. I kinda go through phases of what interests me and hyper focus on one hobby and ignore the others. 

Look at you, having more than one consistent hobby.

 

Its both a blessing and a curse. The amount of times I missed band practice because I was rolling dice in GW. :lol:

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

Well, now I'm curious about your work, but I feel it'd be off-topic.

[MegaVolt87]

Ditch the model you are currently painting for your army and start another in your army. I started doing some havocs, instead finished my Hellwright end to end. This picked up my enthusiasm to work on the Havocs again. Obviously this strategy has diminishing returns as your painting stack diminishes, then the new motivation is you only have X to do and you are done. 

[Slasher956]

lets see... I hate painting....A lot!

 

How ever I like having a painted army :\.... but then I have several armies* with different colour schemes and paletes so when I get board/fed up /annoyed at painting one I go to another one.. as they say a change is as good as rest.

 

*Sisters of Battle, Red cloth, black armour (currently... going to re-do it blue I think),

Craftworld, all with black under uniform but different colours armour plates for the aspects

WW2 Soviets, both 28mm ground and aircraft

etc etc

[Panzer]

Well I'm not losing motivation to paint ... that's the default state for me. What motivates me to paint though, is thinking about having a properly painted army/unit or wanting to see how a colour scheme I thought of looks like when applied (aka thinking about the goal, not the process).

 

What you should never do though, is having models only half finished before working on the next (unless you do batch painting, then don't leave a batch unfinished before working on the next). From my own experience, you aren't going to touch those half finished models anytime soon and eventually end up with a mess of an army with models being all in different states of being half finished, and that really sucks all the potential motivation you might have had out of you.

[Stoic Raptor]

If it's any help, I was faced with the same matter about a year ago and wrote a blog article on it:

http://the-sage-brush.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-do-i-get-over-hobby-burnout.html

[Baron Sebas]

What helped me when i had a huge backlog of admech (10 electro priests, 3 dragoons, 20 skitarii, 5 infiltrators and a termite drill) was to paint 2 models from a different faction (one that i don't play and don't intend to collect) to the best of my ability just to paint something entirely different. and then switch back to admech (in this case it was a GSC abominant and an acolyte iconward).

 

And last week i finally finished (after 4 months) my entire backlog (and to celebrate i ordered 2x imperial knight to be used in this ETL)

Oh and what also helps is if you got some spare bases so you can practise some basing (like some greenstuff bases) just to do something entirely different from your normal routine.

[Halandaar]

Most of the time I really can't find the motivation to paint at all, because I don't really enjoy doing it and am not particularly great at it. Barring my Genestealer Cults army earlier this year (which I just sort of hit a rhythm with and flew through painting in a couple of weeks), it usually takes me ages to get around to painting things and there are only two things that reliably motivate me to finish painting stuff:

• Upcoming Game - If I know I want to field X unit or Y army, it has to be painted, because I don't play with unfinished models. That said, I only play about once every month or so, so there is a bit more time to build up to stuff like that.
• ETL - Over the last 2 years I've gotten a combined total of about 10,000 points painted just in the windows where the ETL is running. I'm not sure what it is, whether it's the competition or the camaraderie, but I always feel super motivated to get as many things done as possible for my faction. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a forum-wide contest where the various faction sub-forums compete against each other to produce the most completed models (based on points). It's good fun (and assuming it's running again this year, should be coming up in the next few weeks! #hype)

[Ahzek451]

In my 10+ years in this hobby, I have never been able to quit. No lulls (except the time I had chemo and physically couldn't do anything). My issue is I have project low attention span issues. I work on something, get it partway done, and bounce to something else. I will eventually get back to some of my projects, but most of them take awhile. Usually caused by a new release or simply because my mood changed and I started to read the lore from another codex or novel. "oooo shiny" syndrome. It really is weird what causes my to stick to something and complete it from start to finish....like my saraptek walker. 

[Slave to Darkness]

Well, now I'm curious about your work, but I feel it'd be off-topic.

Black Metal. Could send you a couple of youtube links via pm if your interested. 

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I'd appreciate that. :D

[Malios]

Take a break for a few weeks. Put the tools down, read some hobby books and do other things. Come back with a fresh breath of air.

 

If taking a break doesn't work, you need to ask why it didn't work:

 

- Are you burnt out of your specific project / army? Try starting a new one. A kill team or a similar sized hobby is a good distraction. For more extreme burn out, put the army away for a while: everything comes back full circle eventually.

 

- Are you burnt out of just one element of 40k like painting? If thats your issue and it frustrates you, look at other brands of paints and kits that make your life easier. Dropping your expectations and being happy with tabletop standard is also something to consider to. If you really find that the thought of painting utterly detracts from your enjoyment but otherwise love the hobby, consider a painting commission. Even if you only pay for tabletop standard, you're still bypassing that particular issue thats detracting from your enjoyment, allowing more time focusing on what you do enjoy.

 

- Or is the issue deeper then that? Are you actually burnt out of 40k? If so, thats when you need to start making some hard decisions based on why you're burnt out. Is it the game 40k or tabletop wargaming itself? Is it something else? This is where boxing vs selling your minis or investing in a different gaming system comes into things.

[BrotherEndcat]

When I lose motivation to paint, I love building and playing but painting is ugh to me, I start a little contest with one of my mates with real stakes in it. Usually it means the loser buys beers in a night at the pub or something like that.

 

Remember this though, if you don't have a competition (painting or playing) coming up... this is a hobby, not your life. Life comes first and slowly but surely the motivation to continue your projects will come back. 

[FelipeFlops]

I have found that if you are struggling with batch painting then just painting one model through to completion gives me the necessary motivation to get the others done.

[Subtleknife]

Pay someone else to paint it for you. Job done.

[Ishagu]

Always best to take a break. We all need some time away from our interests from time to time.

 

Play some video games, go travelling for a bit, etc

[Bryan Blaire]

I have found that if you are struggling with batch painting then just painting one model through to completion gives me the necessary motivation to get the others done.

This is also what I do - I really don’t like “well enough” painting, but batch painting leaves my brain numb. So as long as I am not wasting a ton of paint, I tend to only paint a couple of models at a time, no more, and I work on them in completely different stages, so one may be being highlighted while I am shading another, etc. I do some painting mixing, so having a wet palette helps keep the mixing consistent over time (and I track each step of my painting with a paint journal, which also helps me take a break when I need it and lets me put down ideas for later projects).

 

I usually take full breaks from painting for three - four weeks at a time as well, and just do other things.