Within 6 weeks of picking up Dark Vengeance I received a wonderful donation of maybe 30-40 models from Bob. This created a rather large 'to do' list straight away; compounded by my relatively slow painting speed this led to a feelings that I was never going to make inroads into the models which now sat on my shelf. This situation continued as I purchased more models throughout 2013 until I made some small changes which helped kick start my hobby progress...
First thing was to store my army away and only have my current project out on my painting desk. Until that point I was constantly reminded about my extremely slow progress. Simply having 1 model/unit on desk and therefore in my mind allowed for the focus on that unit and not the preoccupation with all the unpainted models.
I also changed the lightbulb in my room... a small, random change but this had a dramatic effect on my environment and allowed me to achieve much tidier results when painting in the evenings. As you can see from my posts on this blog- my painting standard is not the best, however I do try my best and I have a very firm stance on what I feel happy about, and what I do not. Having a poor lighting situation prevented those standards being met and thus I didn't want to paint any models.
Next up was momentum! I am still a slow painter and tend to get through a unit in 1-2 weeks. Managing to get some units under my belt spurred me on and provided proof that I could achieve my goal of fielding a fully painted army. Seeing an ever increasing set of fully painted units warms the heart.
At Christmas I received a Space Marine Hunter/Stalker kit from my other half and decided to use this as a further motivating factor. I chose to not let myself build and paint this model until all my assembled and half painted units had been finished off. This particular factor will be enhanced with the purchase of an Imperial Knight! The desire to paint these models is probably the greatest motivating factor.
Finally, well I started this blog. My friend Bob cited it as a great motivator and I can certainly agree with this. I don't really have any desire to attract lots of hits or be profound but using such a medium to chart my progress has really helped me keep things ticking over.
So, it's interesting how the pressure of having a ton of un painted toy soldiers can effect the psyche of a hobbyist... I have made a few changes to help kick start my progress, it took a while but I'm now cooking in gas and very interested to see where it takes me.