It gets most war gaming hobbyists from time to time, you either find a new gaming club, a new group of friends or simply a new army perks your interest but for some reason you start playing much more games than normal. Now I don’t know about you but this really makes me want to paint my stuff up more than I usually do....
I would guess a fair few and perhaps for the majority of players (or at least ones I see online through various blogs) do already paint their armies however for the slack of us out there with full time jobs and social lives, it’s often a nightmare of grey plastic and at best, undercoated models. So the question is, how with limited time to ourselves, do we split that time between actually playing the game and painting up models for the hobby side of things.
It’s safe to say there’s no right or wrong answer, what is good for you isn’t necessarily good for everyone else, with only limited time per week for either, you may say just do whichever you prefer more and that sadly leads to lots of games with unpainted stuff. What I have found though is a good balance definitely isn’t always the right way either as you end up doing the one you like less much more, causing resentment towards your poor plastic friends.
No one wants to look across the table and see this, grey and unpainted is ugly for sure
Another danger I personally find with having games is it makes me want to play different armies for more variation in my playing, this in turn ruins my painting focus completely, so do I want to paint my Nids today?, nah I played with them last week I wont again for ages so back on the shelf they go, resulting in not a single fully painted army, just a few models of each.
Honestly if there was a magic potion you could buy that gave you painting motivation and focus, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
So how do you achieve that balance between getting games in and finding time to paint? Or do you struggle with is as much as I do? If you have the secret please feel free to share it!