Hi Vince, no question but just a thank you. As lots of us I watch a bunch of videos about how to start or how to increase your technic etc. But I think you are the most positive, the most benevolent (hope it's the right word cause google help me) and it feel like you actually lived (which I don't doubt) all the difficulties of being a beginner and trying to improve yourself. So thank you, your videos are always helpful.
The first step for me is to start priming models/units. This prompts me to begin painting them because they are on the “assembly” line again and need to be finished.
I have a much simpler way of looking at dealing with a backlog: There is only one reason a backlog exists: You are acquiring models faster than you can paint them. There are only two solutions: Increase your painting output (spend more time painting, use quicker techniques, lower your standards, etc..) Decrease your model input (stop buying models, get rid of models you no longer want to paint like Vince said) You can do one or both of these methods until you are now painting faster than your backlog is growing. But unless you do this you will NEVER finish your backlog because it will be mathematically impossible to do so.
The one thing I've started doing now is assembling new models en masse and then once I have a decent force assembled, priming it all in one or two goes. That way when I feel like painting something I've got a whole selection of assembled and primed models to choose from.
The thing that really kills me is cleaning up mold lines and filling in gaps. I obsess over every miniature, trying to get them spotless (probably over compensating because I'm not great at painting) so by time it comes round to painting I'm mentally exhausted. Really wish I knew where to draw the line
you have to think too, what is someone gonna see on the battlefield? If you have a lot of troops, mold lines don't really matter as much. Get the most visible ones off, move on. Spend more time on heroes and characters, and on areas that are t he easiest to see. Still see a mold line? Hey maybe that mini needs a little weathering right there :D
I do this same thing, I currently have like 2000 13.5mm napoleonics I want to do, but they have minimal mold lines you can barely see... so obviously i have to spend hundreds of hours cleaning that up right??? please help me stop, its agony and it wont even be visible when playing with them
Wow, this video really speaks to me. Over the last six months or so I have been taking all of these steps myself as ways to combat cutting down my pile of "potential" and get things I want finished, actually finished and move on my projects that have been just sat in boxes for years collecting dust and I have to say it's made me fall in love with the hobby space all over again now I'm in a much better place and my hobby has been so much more productive and once taking those first few steps it just snow balls into more productivity and it's been great! :) Awesome tips here Vince and if anyone has been thinking about any of these steps. Give it a go and jump on into trying them. It feels like alot but once you get going you'll feel all the better for having these down and practiced through doing them once you find the ones that work for you. :)
I think one of the most enjoyable parts of painting an army is coming up with a painting plan. I usually draft a plan, paint one figure in the unit, revise the plan, and then batch paint them all. Right now I'm painting Lumineth in preparation for Adepticon, and my Sentinels have 23 distinct painting steps. My wife just looks at me like in amazement, and I said "I'm not even that great a painter." Hopefully one day I'll be Vince level.
I break my army projects down into unit sized blocks and add a single character, or monster or whatever to each block. I paint each block, with its associated’cool piece thing’, then do a piece of terrain, or build something before moving on to the next block. By the end of the process I’ve got another army built and a load of cool new terrain. Works for me. 👍
I definitely feel that first "tip." I've been through that twice now where I havd sold my death guard army, and now I'm trying to sell my custodes army. I am working on a heresy army and I'm much happier. I always wanted a heresy army and now I have the money for it. Definitely a lot of unfun assembly and painting ahead of me tho... sooooo many infantry. But I get to paint my favorite primarch model and I have a plan for a sick command squad conversion for my awesome custom praetor. Tho it does help that I have an airbrush now because going through the infantry will be a lot easier.
I shall try the double project ordered work plan. It seems like up my alley. I would like to add the single thing that helped my motivation the most, probably, was having a glood place to paint at. When I can sit down and get ready to paint in moments instead of having to shuffle things around before I get started. This is of course very obvious, but that's the only kind of tips I have. ;)
Really good advice, and I've used each method to varying degrees over the years. I'd say I'm more of a vegetables-before-dessert person than a sorbet person, but I've found both can work. I definitely alternate between painting and building. Current painting a Slaves to Darkness army and building a Necrons army. For what it's worth, here's what I've found works for me: - Batch paint. It's far more efficient to paint all the black or gold on 10 dudes, then shade it, then highlight it, than to paint each dude fully one at a time. - Try to do some painting every day, even if it's only 30 mins. Firstly, you will obviously make progress, no matter how slow. You'll get there eventually. But the big thing is that it establishes a habit and most importantly, it builds momentum. I find that as I see the unit come together, I can't wait to get home from work and do the next stage. - Have the next thing in the queue ready to go before you finish the thing you're painting. If I have to build and prime a unit of models before I can start painting again, I find that weeks sometimes go by before I get round to it. But if I have a unit ready to go, I can pretty much start on them straight away. This is why I build in parallel to painting. - Finish the unit/model completely before moving on. Maybe it's just me, but unless I do all the final highlights, add the decals, do the base and apply the varnish before playing with it, it's never getting done. I know I'll never go back to it.
I completely agree with the first point.. ive just stripped down and primed about 600 points of unfinished primaris to sell. Cleared half a shelf. Now I can focus on my thousand sons more. 👌
If you want a small Inbetween project, blitzbowl teams are a single blood bowl sprue and have about 6 guys on it. Such a good variety of teams to paint too
That 'sorbet' method is what I do. I've called them relief models. Random characters or cool models from other factions. The big thing for me is repetition of tasks. Knights are great. I can paint trim one day, do panels another day, work on the steel, misc elements, the lava bases.. Always something wildly different within the same army. I plan on getting some old minis and trying new techniques just for the hell of it while painting tau in the future - NMM, more skin, different bases.. just different.
Your first point is such an epiphany. After I bought Dominion to start playing AoS as stormchads, I sold the army because I didn't feel motivated to paint them. At this point I thought I wasn't going to ever try AoS. But then I realized that I could start a Vyrkos Soulblight army from Cursed City, now I am stoked.
I had the exact same introduction. I went halfs on Dominion with my brother and took the Kruleboyz as my intro to warhammer, but after having a few games and really seeing what was out there I fell in love with the disciples of Tzeentch. Now I have a small force while the Kruleboyz remain primedand partially painted, but gathering dust.
2 weeks ago, i stopped an almost full year of hobby procrastination by doing two things 1- i stopped forcing myself to paint an army I had no interest in. I had this Tau army when I got back in the hobby 3 years ago after a 10 year hobby break. Since then, my interests shifted and I discovered 30k, Necromunda and Adeptus Titanicus. I decided Id put them up on sale, with my whole backlog. Why would I force myself to do something I want to enjoy ? Since then, Ive hobbied on my 30k project every other day at least and I think its my biggest streak ever. All I needed was to switch to something I truly had interest in. 2- i love building, converting, but hate cleaning models. I prioritized my work to separate boring units with a fun piece (vehicle, characters), and will paint then according to have a playable force first, then expand by 500 points increases. I wont paint stuffs I kmow I wont use almost right away. So your tips work, I put them in place almost one month ago hahaha. Happy Holidays Vince !
I do a version of these rules for myself. What you call the "Sorbet Method" is what I refer to as "Pitting my procrastination against itself" - If I'm too tired or burned out for high detail work on some minis, I'll avoid doing it by instead working on some terrain that I've been stalling on finishing, or vice versa. It's often much easier to choose between two options than it is to be confronted by a single daunting task. Another good method for me was to just set aside consistent time for hobby-ing so it became a habit. Even if you're doing your absolute favorite thing, it will not be fun 100% of the time, and if that keeps you from finishing a project, it can become a vicious cycle of avoiding the work and then dreading coming back to it the longer you've been away. Pushing through the slumps actually ensures that you'll have more fun overall, because sometimes all it takes is sitting down and starting to work to get you motivated again. It always helps to have some stuff that you can do 'mindlessly' like building/cleaning or base coating or something like that, so that even if you're not up for more complex painting, you can still make incremental progress on something and use that sense of accomplishment to motivate you to come back and pick up the brush again.
Have been espousing tip #1 for a while now to a lot of my friends. The mental relief you get from moving stuff on really helps to steel your focus and truly prioritise what's fun and interesting to you. Great video as always Vince.
I'm currently somewhere between tips 2-4 I discovered early on i did not enjoy doing massive amounts of troop units all at once (your finding motivation video was nice validation for this mindset as well) so i started breaking them into batch's of units (one batch = one unit on the table) and when that batch was done i would swap to another basic troop unit to keep the variety going. I currently have 4 -5 batches on my desk. all of them sort of painted with varying levels of work remaining. I'm currently focusing on one of the first models I ever bought (Chaos Warshrine) that i have drug my feet on because i just didn't feel comfortable working on a centerpiece unit and wanted to have more confidence in the project and my painting before I started. Your recent video on using oils for painting flesh was a huge inspiration for the project as one of the areas i had the least confidence in was painting the skin for the unit that rides on the top. i still have a long ways to go before I'll be happy to call it done, but I've spent a good part of this holiday weekend playing with oils and working on other areas of the project that i know i can get done to a standard I'm proud of. The point of this incoherent rambling being, the biggest obstacle for me has always been my confidence in my own work and wanting to see what i imagine on the miniature. it rarely works out that way but over time I've seen improvement in my self. and I know sitting down and just doing it is the best way to get better. and more importantly finish my damn army :P Currently goal is to get the current batches down to 2 i guess XD
I am currently working on my Tau army, I built my entire army, base painted it all, then speed painted it all and now I’m going through and finishing it all up, I did all my HQs/ hero’s first, then did up 30 breachers, took a mini break and built a 1:24 scale GTR34, just fished Crisis suits and now I’m slugging away on my broadsuits… while doing all of this I also scratch build terrain … so I’m pretty much doing all the stuff ur suggesting without even meaning too.. :) One tip that can really help is to clean up your work space… letting it get cluttered or messy is not helpful to a creative mind… it’s ok to be messy during… but don’t leave it like that… it’s like a sink full of dishes, u may just want to cook and u can do so around those dishes but it’s much more enjoyable and easier if those dishes are not in your way ;)
I paint terrain the way you mentioned. I paint it "while the paint drys" on my big army project. And currently I inserted a kill team instead of terrain. Like I read your mind before you published the video :)
I'm so glad you made this video. Every time I look at my pile of 40 rubrics and think about all the gold trim I have left to paint, I die a little inside.
A bad proportion of grey to painted models on my shelf deals me psychic damage whenever I look at it. So I ebayd stuff except a couple of things I was actually excited to paint. Now my cabinet is 95% painted, and it delights me when I look at it.
do you have any tips for selling loose figures online? The ones i never even took out of the box to build will be easy. But some I built,and even primed, and i just don't care for them at all
I created a kanban board on trello to keep track of my currently painting and what to paint next. So far its helped me get through painting over 2000pts of 40k minis in the past 8 months. I also sold stuff and put that money into things that got my juices flowing and that helped a ton.
I think I struggle with having too much going on at one time, I should probably put some things away and just focus on what Im doing until I get it done. I appreciate you giving some advice, this is just what I needed to hear. I've got some old stuff that I could get rid of that I'll never get around to using, might as well just sell it off.
Thanks for this - I'm one of those long timers who has rarely been able to put down a fully painted army (in my case this was at least partly down to previously undiagnosed ADHD, but that doesn't make it less annoying for me!), so I really appreciate the non judgmental tone you'e taken here. I'd love to overcome this hurdle, it upsets me that it's a problem for me, and I really don't need anyone else telling me how much it sucks! I've found that 3/4 or a mix of the two are the best approaches for me personally - 1 and 2 often just feel like I'm "punishing" myself and that makes me get all defiant, which simply isn't productive. We need to work with ourselves, not against.
Absolutely, I never want to make anyone feel judged. We all have our struggles and it’s a real bad move to look down on anyone for their method of hobby, my goal is always to help where I can and provide some items that people can try that may work. All the best! :)
Good tips! 👍 I hope i eventually will finish paintig the starter set a good friend gifted me 9 years ago😅 We haven't even played yet because we didn't want to play with grey or primed but unpainted models...😰 My issue is every time i encounter a problem, or a challenge which feels too big for me, or something i just can't do in a way so that i will be good enough that i can feel ok with the result. Then i start a new project, painting another mini, building some terrain, rocks, rubble, buildings or my battlemat etc. But with every new project i eventually encountered a new problem and got stuck at some point, which left me with a mountain of unfinished things all in a state where it is quite unfun and very challenging to make any more progress. And no more fun projects left to do and i haven't even finished then ones which were fun at first! It got way too frustrating at one point and i gave up, then i didn't do any hobby stuff for years. A few weeks ago i decided to come back to the hobby, strongly determined and enthusiastic to paint some minis, finish some terrain etc. but i feel already the frustration building up again as i encounter new and old challenging problems again and already getting stuck again😢I have no problem with the more boring and easy stuff, it can be quite cathartic to do these, but everything becomes so overwhelming after the easy stuff is done. At least now there are way more and better tutorials on youtube than back in the day!👍
Excellent adviice as always Vince! I've made a rule for myself, if I don't even start a project within two years, I move it on (exception for special one of a kind minis of course), but it works well for armies. My main hangup seems to be the further away things are, the less I feel like getting up and doing them. If I move them closer to the main painting area, voila, suddenly I'm working on them. I love the idea re: terrain as a palette cleanser. I tend to alternate working on my terrain and my minis, it definiitely helps keep the fire going!
There is something vindicating and wonderful to see someone with your experience, Vince, affirm techniques that I’ve discovered through trial and error…in addition to picking up new ones. Thank you for all you do for us and the hobby! It’s deeply appreciated!
What works for me is to having your armies assembled, primed (zenetial), and even tacked on to your handle of choice (pill bottles, dowels, etc.). The motivation to paint can remain high with less barriers. This also helps with army consistency as you are more likely to tackle more squads at a time.
💯% reducing barriers is key. If you can make dedicated spaces for the projects you intend to work on, and get them set up so that there is basically nothing stopping you from getting colors on plastc, you will be surprisingly successful.
I weirdly do come back to abandoned projects, everything has a season. Beastmen might strike my fancy for a few months and then live in my storage locker for a few months before I get the itch to paint beastmen again. The biggest game changer for me has been playing with scale. I alternate between 32mm gw stuff and 15mm stuff, or scale of the project. Trying to do back to back warhammer fantasy armies is a slog. Painting different scale is almost like a different medium, it makes you rethink volumes and highlight intensity. Variety is what keeps me painting. Sometimes I want to paint cowboy, sometimes I want to paint tiny iguna men with bazookas. Another great motivator is gifting painted minis. I'll often paint up a killteam or bloodbowl team as a commission or a gift. The pressure of getting it done for somebody else always makes it happen in record time and to better quality than I would do for myself. 3rd tip for big forces is to be realistic, you won't finish an army if it takes 40+ mins a fig, pick colors that don't need a bunch of coats and utilize a quick all over wash with a few highlights and aim for about 12 mins a fig max (horde army). Using this I have been able to get a massive kings of war army built and painted in a month and had a ton of compliments at tournaments.
As someone who has actually finished 3 armies over the years but who also has 5 armies in various phases of completion for a while now this was some great advice.
I'm good at not buying more than I can paint and can focus on one army. The most difficult part for me is going back to other mini's in the army, tweaking them, and generally not being able to call them done. Without having a real deadline (like a tournament, not a self imposed deadline) its hard to call a mini finished. Great tips from a legendary army painter himself.
As a Sisters of battle player & I started Skaven for AoS I can wholeheartedly recommend doing no more than 10-20 models in a unit at one time. I get bored painting basic troops so try to keep colour schemes simple & just go to tabletop standard & spend extra time on Hq & centerpiece models. I also tend to paint models between different game systems/individual minis that I’ve bought. I just went from 10 battle sisters to a Malifaux crew to a space marine Phobos Librarian & next is 20 stormvermin. I also agree with you on No1. When I moved from the UK to the US I ended up getting rid of a ton of stuff from my collections of different gaming systems that I should of sold much sooner.
I do the Sorbet Method a lot myself, Ive ended up with 200 Marines, 100 Eldar, like 100 Chaos, 160 Wehrmacht and 100 USF (Bolt Action). Chaos and Wehrmacht are finished and the USF and Eldar are on the road. I have one main army I focus on painting but I start on my second army too when painting. Chaos and Wehrmacht where painted together, when Chaos was done Wehrmacht was the main army to paint and Eldar became secondary, now its Eldar and USF. My personal rule is no new units (excluding characters) until I paint a certain amount of models, I want to get some more Marines and Cultists for my Black Legion but until the Eldar and USF are done they gotta make do with what they got 😂😂
Great tips, thanks Vince! So many of your videos are (incredibly helpful) technical guides, it's always nice to hear a bit of your philosophy to stay motivated. Thanks!
Non-named heroes are the perfect pallet cleanser. They don't have the investment of a big named hero where not only is it usually bigger and more detailed but you also want to go the extra mile. Quick, fun and points on the table without the big mental investment of a named hero.
I have a bunch of unpainted mini's but don't feel guilty. At least not any longer. What helped is focusing on what I have painted (proudly displayed), instead of focusing how much I have yet to paint. Glass half full kind of thing.
The only thing that works for me is literally batch painting every single mini in the army. It may be 120 minis but Ill just do one color/step (or sometimes even just half a color if i have no time) per night. After a week or two, its all done at once and it feels great. For me, i enjoy painting the basic troops. Painting up heroes and characters is draining so i usually just do half a step above tabletop
Hi Vince, absolutely a fantastic and necessary video. Many thanks. I do alternate unit type and system, and that keeps me going. Other than that I prepare couple of display models for Salute and GD. I do not sell stuff simply because I keep it in a different room, it is also in an inventory. Cheers, thanks again for the video
I would love to see your recommendations for storing and displaying armies. Your arrangements and lighting look so appealing. I have seen your hobby room tour video. But I think there is a video on specifically how you design, build/light, and scale those displays. The "final" step of painting an army (and finishing) so to speak. I would love to display my models around my hobby room in a similar way to yours, but ideally in a wall mounted solution due to limited floor space.
I'm having that problem right now: I'm about to start a new army, and while it is exciting, it feels overwhelming when I think about the time I'll spend doing the same minis over and over again. I love thinking of painting individual groups of the army, as specific goals, but considering that rushing only one may take a month, or more, just to see that I need to paint 3 or 4 groups… it can be demoralising, at least for me. So thank you! The tips really came at a good moment! 😊 I'll try to be more realistic about the times, giving me more margins, avoid rushing, and give myself breaks from one project to another, maybe a different army, scenography or minis for display (I feel really rewarded with these ones, as I can spend as long as I want in them and I'm free of improvising and experimenting, without thinking about the coherence of the army).
Funny enough I do all of these except 1. I painted 10 Ork Boyz. Then a Hero for my friends gloomhaven Game. Then I painted a Ork character. Then some more Boyz. And if I don't feel like painting today I build stuff. Most of the time this happens when I'm exhausted and don't want to do something "hard". Assembling is easy. Don't need to think about it too much.
Great video as always. I don't play any army scale games but have a number of boardgames with chaff enemies, and the 2 project style works well for me; balance between a group of fodder and a boss/hero mini.
I use do-delay-delegate at work. Apply the same method to painting (sadly don’t have any painters reporting to me at home so delegate becomes outsource) - it has genuinely helped with reducing the anxiety around having cupboards full of grey plastic. Really enjoyed this one, Vince :)
I prefer the first tip as "stop buying models for the army". Buying a 2K list sets a reasonable target for getting done in general. (Some lists are of course a lot more models than others) The good thing is even if there is a lot more models, getting a unit done is always great progress (be it 1 or 40 models). You get that kick of endorphines from having the unit done and seeing the army progress. I just wish I followed that rule with my Lumineth... I'm also ok with having a lot of projects on the go, all of which have different priorities for completion and goals for completion. This way when I'm staring at the next 10 Wardens and I'm feeling "screw this" I can pick something different to make progress on. Just having 2 projects isn't enough choice to get the "cleanse" from changing sometimes.
I'll give you a tip, that I discovered painting a Vampirella model kit. After you've painted your mixed fleshtones; you can re-highlight, and highlight the high points, in Pearl white. It makes the skin glisten. I gave it a shot, just here and there, and it's an amazing effect.
I really leveled up taking a break from armies and painted a few larger model like Kingdom Death Monster pinups and 54mm display models. Lessons learned with blending, fleshtones, lighting in a different scale made me excited to go back to the army and apply on smaller scale models.
I’ve been much better about parting with stuff I no longer want/need. My biggest issue is knowing when to stop collecting for an army. As I build and paint stuff and think I have all I need, I play some games and realize I want something else so the army is never really done. Keeps me from starting another army 😊
I tend to use a combination of tips 2 and 3. I work in various combinations of items. I have a space marine army underwa. I will work in Marvel:Crisis Protocol sets, where I may do 2-3 sets of a particular affiliation, then throw in a terrain piece. Then I may try an experiment with a new technique (for example, I am working on "slap chopping" my way through a Zombicide: Darkside box). I find "palette cleanses" help me keep motivated.
Great video and very helpful tips, in my case as I don't play the game I just paint the figures , I currently have boxes of Battle Sisters, Cadian infantry, Ork Boyz and Stormcast Eternals to finish ( boxes have 11 figures and I've only built and painted a few out of each box) and bought some other Warhammer figures just on the sprue. I find I like or tend to have a couple figures on the go along with a model kit to break up the norm and fight the depression monsters when they come calling. Love all your videos, they help when I can't do a model or miniature.
I've been painting for years and the first point is one I only lately learned myself. I've been into Kill Team lately and converting a lot of models, but I just did not enjoy painting my most recent batch. At some point I just cut my losses and realized it didn't make me retroactively not enjoy the time I spent modeling. I'll probably come back to them another time even, but for now they just aren't doing it for me. Picked up something altogether different, been painting it, and now I'm motivated to paint everything.
I practice the “100 brown boots method” of each night I’m going to sit down and paint. Even if I paint 1 set of brown boots on 1 model of a unit, that’s 1 fewer brown boots I need to paint.
Reason 3/4 is why I started Ynnari. Between the 3 factions that can be used I can hop around between different styles and units and still feel like I’m making progress towards an army.
The biggest brick I got rid of was me thinking I wanted to paint a whole army, while in fact I like painting single pieces, maybe a warband, way more. After burning myself out on painting a army, I even quite the hobby for about 9 month and after picking it back up, I changed directions. Right now I am just painting what I like to paint.
I like to do mixed batches. E.g 1 stormfiend, 3 plague monks and 3 clanrats. They all use the same colours, and it's more interesting than 10 clanrats.
I use the 3rd and 4th tip interchangeably.. Ill paint some necrons and then paint some random model from my backlog or venture off to a book or video game or different type of model kit altogether. But also maintaining the Sith rule of 2. I am starting to get interested in other games like AoS, Warcry, Necromunda, and Killteam. Should I continue to stick with my necrons or could I find a nice stopping point at 1k to venture out to AoS and skirmish games? I also got rid of about 2k points of Tau because it was just sitting and I felt real good about it so tip 1 is definitely sound advice for anyone.
Uf … that was a gut check Vince. I’m not selling the nighthaunt as I finish sbgl- they’re cousins for Chrissakes. It’s practically the same army. At least faction…. The lies we tell ourselves.
on top of the wisdom vince shares here, i'd like to share my tactics: leave your projects somewhere where you HAVE to see it multiple times a day. whenever you got 10-20 minutes left in your day, just sit down, do one thing, then carry on doing what you actually need to do. that way i have painted 4000 points of classical warhammer fantasy minis over the coarse of weeks. dont overachieve. yes, having an army look like a gw studio army is nice, but it also crushes your soul. go easy on yourself. find ways to do an effect quicker than by highlighting a gazillion times. take time for preparation. having a well prepared, well primed zenithaled mini is half the job done. be realistic. are you ever going to play those 13000 points of skaven, or is 4000 maybe enough? having to paint 3 core units vs. 15 core units can really make a project go from fun to exhausting work. i barely find the time to play more than 3000 points. so i paint up 3000 points worth of minis plus some substitute options.
I’m a sorbet.. I always have a piece of terrain to reach for and just slop paint on and play with weathering enamels. Then I’m like man that was fun, back to chaos trim 😂😂
My biggest issue with any army has always been vehicles. I admire ny results with them and I love how they look but oh boy they are such a pain for me. I can become tired through 2 hours painting a rhino more then as well after finishing a sister of battle squad in one go of 12-14 hours straight painting. This alone pulls me back watching unfinished exorcists of mine, and unfortunately I have to make myself set a timer for 2 hours and work almost every day on a single tank for whole 1-2 weeks alone.
Hi! Thank you a lot for your useful advices! Can you please tell what is the best way of painting miniatures: fully assembled or sub-assembled? And can you give an advice: what kind of techniques, paints and instruments should i use while painting flat surfaces of vehicles to make soft gradient of armor panels? Best regards!
It very much depends on the model, but in general, you want to assemble as much as possible and only use sub-assemblies when absolutely necessary. So vehicles are a whole separate world, I have many videos in the playlist about it. - This is the most recent video I did on vehicles - th-cam.com/video/jGidaioV5Y8/w-d-xo.html
Vince, I finish my armies but then I buy a new one lol?! I find painting a list for a event motivates me (NOVA, or our own narrative events). We planned a Chaos apocalypse game and it was fun to finish up my less “competitive” models for the game and it’s one of my favorite armies.
I tend to get excited about a monthly STL release or 3 and I want to paint them all but I get bogged down by wanting to paint them at display quality. I need to cool it and just paint the most interesting figure and not worry about the army because there will be another cool model the next month. Or I should just paint TTS and not worry about quality but I have a bit of OCD which makes it tough not to go a bit higher in quality.
Tabletop Minions aaid something recently on TikTok and that was have multiple things on the table so if you get bored of something then go onto another e.g. you painting an ork trukk, then go to paint some ork infantry like nobz and go back and forth between them
I do actually have a question I've been meaning to ask for some time, I know you have travelled wide and far and seen most things that are even in the slightest way related to painting miniatures. Is there anything to put on a brush to make the grip bigger? At this time in my life, gripping something as thin as a brush for longer periods of time is quite paintful. I know there are for pencils, but they don't fit a miniature brush.
Hey Vince!! What color or color mix did you use for the blue cloth of the demon? You are an inspiration and an honestly awesome teacher! Keep being real and tell the truth not what people might want to hear! Thanks for sharing your wisdom!!
What a great video!!! Oldcheesewiz says thank you!! Just what I needed. I always have 3 yes 3 projects on my desk!! It’s time to go down to two!!! Yep I will fallow the master ! No Mercy. But I have question. Where does Larry fit into all this? I know he hangs out somewhere???
I've been preparing now for going on 4 years I still haven't played a single game But I do have 4 painted armies of 2000pts and a Faction for every kill team but only half are painted. 😆 I've enjoyed hobbie side so much I really don't wanna use any spare time doing anything but painting an building lol
The only way I finish an army is with a deadline: I register for a tournament that requires painted miniatures and now I have no choice (that usually involves finishing at the last minute but that's how I went from 0 to 2000pts painted in 2 weeks after procrastinating for months)
Cannot stress how hard I agree w/ the getting rid of what you don't paint/plan to paint. It legitimately motivates you to paint like NOTHING else.
Very happy to see that "sell/gift it" got top billing.
Hi Vince, no question but just a thank you. As lots of us I watch a bunch of videos about how to start or how to increase your technic etc. But I think you are the most positive, the most benevolent (hope it's the right word cause google help me) and it feel like you actually lived (which I don't doubt) all the difficulties of being a beginner and trying to improve yourself. So thank you, your videos are always helpful.
The first step for me is to start priming models/units. This prompts me to begin painting them because they are on the “assembly” line again and need to be finished.
I have a much simpler way of looking at dealing with a backlog:
There is only one reason a backlog exists:
You are acquiring models faster than you can paint them.
There are only two solutions:
Increase your painting output (spend more time painting, use quicker techniques, lower your standards, etc..)
Decrease your model input (stop buying models, get rid of models you no longer want to paint like Vince said)
You can do one or both of these methods until you are now painting faster than your backlog is growing. But unless you do this you will NEVER finish your backlog because it will be mathematically impossible to do so.
The one thing I've started doing now is assembling new models en masse and then once I have a decent force assembled, priming it all in one or two goes. That way when I feel like painting something I've got a whole selection of assembled and primed models to choose from.
The thing that really kills me is cleaning up mold lines and filling in gaps. I obsess over every miniature, trying to get them spotless (probably over compensating because I'm not great at painting) so by time it comes round to painting I'm mentally exhausted. Really wish I knew where to draw the line
I hear you, seems like that's all I ever do with my miniatures.
you have to think too, what is someone gonna see on the battlefield? If you have a lot of troops, mold lines don't really matter as much. Get the most visible ones off, move on. Spend more time on heroes and characters, and on areas that are t he easiest to see. Still see a mold line? Hey maybe that mini needs a little weathering right there :D
Ditto! I'll spend hours just cleaning up mold lines on 5 minis 🤪
I do this same thing, I currently have like 2000 13.5mm napoleonics I want to do, but they have minimal mold lines you can barely see... so obviously i have to spend hundreds of hours cleaning that up right??? please help me stop, its agony and it wont even be visible when playing with them
We have 5th tip: Set a quality bar on each unit (unless you are learning something new painting that unit).
Great tips… especially the one where you should get projects off your table that are sitting grey.
Thanks for the video. I chuckled a little at the "that's rough" cos your inflection made it sound like "cant relate"
Wow, this video really speaks to me. Over the last six months or so I have been taking all of these steps myself as ways to combat cutting down my pile of "potential" and get things I want finished, actually finished and move on my projects that have been just sat in boxes for years collecting dust and I have to say it's made me fall in love with the hobby space all over again now I'm in a much better place and my hobby has been so much more productive and once taking those first few steps it just snow balls into more productivity and it's been great! :)
Awesome tips here Vince and if anyone has been thinking about any of these steps. Give it a go and jump on into trying them. It feels like alot but once you get going you'll feel all the better for having these down and practiced through doing them once you find the ones that work for you. :)
I think one of the most enjoyable parts of painting an army is coming up with a painting plan. I usually draft a plan, paint one figure in the unit, revise the plan, and then batch paint them all. Right now I'm painting Lumineth in preparation for Adepticon, and my Sentinels have 23 distinct painting steps. My wife just looks at me like in amazement, and I said "I'm not even that great a painter." Hopefully one day I'll be Vince level.
I break my army projects down into unit sized blocks and add a single character, or monster or whatever to each block. I paint each block, with its associated’cool piece thing’, then do a piece of terrain, or build something before moving on to the next block. By the end of the process I’ve got another army built and a load of cool new terrain. Works for me. 👍
I definitely feel that first "tip." I've been through that twice now where I havd sold my death guard army, and now I'm trying to sell my custodes army. I am working on a heresy army and I'm much happier. I always wanted a heresy army and now I have the money for it.
Definitely a lot of unfun assembly and painting ahead of me tho... sooooo many infantry. But I get to paint my favorite primarch model and I have a plan for a sick command squad conversion for my awesome custom praetor. Tho it does help that I have an airbrush now because going through the infantry will be a lot easier.
I shall try the double project ordered work plan. It seems like up my alley.
I would like to add the single thing that helped my motivation the most, probably, was having a glood place to paint at. When I can sit down and get ready to paint in moments instead of having to shuffle things around before I get started. This is of course very obvious, but that's the only kind of tips I have. ;)
Thanks for sharing!
Really good advice, and I've used each method to varying degrees over the years. I'd say I'm more of a vegetables-before-dessert person than a sorbet person, but I've found both can work. I definitely alternate between painting and building. Current painting a Slaves to Darkness army and building a Necrons army. For what it's worth, here's what I've found works for me:
- Batch paint. It's far more efficient to paint all the black or gold on 10 dudes, then shade it, then highlight it, than to paint each dude fully one at a time.
- Try to do some painting every day, even if it's only 30 mins. Firstly, you will obviously make progress, no matter how slow. You'll get there eventually. But the big thing is that it establishes a habit and most importantly, it builds momentum. I find that as I see the unit come together, I can't wait to get home from work and do the next stage.
- Have the next thing in the queue ready to go before you finish the thing you're painting. If I have to build and prime a unit of models before I can start painting again, I find that weeks sometimes go by before I get round to it. But if I have a unit ready to go, I can pretty much start on them straight away. This is why I build in parallel to painting.
- Finish the unit/model completely before moving on. Maybe it's just me, but unless I do all the final highlights, add the decals, do the base and apply the varnish before playing with it, it's never getting done. I know I'll never go back to it.
When I was a kid you only heard this Sunday at the comic shop the magic shop now it's 3am on that same Sunday and your in your bathroom. No problem
I completely agree with the first point.. ive just stripped down and primed about 600 points of unfinished primaris to sell. Cleared half a shelf. Now I can focus on my thousand sons more. 👌
That's so true. I was painting Grey knights..then I switched to my cryx just for a change.
If you want a small Inbetween project, blitzbowl teams are a single blood bowl sprue and have about 6 guys on it. Such a good variety of teams to paint too
That 'sorbet' method is what I do. I've called them relief models. Random characters or cool models from other factions. The big thing for me is repetition of tasks.
Knights are great. I can paint trim one day, do panels another day, work on the steel, misc elements, the lava bases.. Always something wildly different within the same army.
I plan on getting some old minis and trying new techniques just for the hell of it while painting tau in the future - NMM, more skin, different bases.. just different.
Your first point is such an epiphany.
After I bought Dominion to start playing AoS as stormchads, I sold the army because I didn't feel motivated to paint them.
At this point I thought I wasn't going to ever try AoS. But then I realized that I could start a Vyrkos Soulblight army from Cursed City, now I am stoked.
I had the exact same introduction. I went halfs on Dominion with my brother and took the Kruleboyz as my intro to warhammer, but after having a few games and really seeing what was out there I fell in love with the disciples of Tzeentch. Now I have a small force while the Kruleboyz remain primedand partially painted, but gathering dust.
2 weeks ago, i stopped an almost full year of hobby procrastination by doing two things
1- i stopped forcing myself to paint an army I had no interest in. I had this Tau army when I got back in the hobby 3 years ago after a 10 year hobby break. Since then, my interests shifted and I discovered 30k, Necromunda and Adeptus Titanicus. I decided Id put them up on sale, with my whole backlog. Why would I force myself to do something I want to enjoy ? Since then, Ive hobbied on my 30k project every other day at least and I think its my biggest streak ever. All I needed was to switch to something I truly had interest in.
2- i love building, converting, but hate cleaning models. I prioritized my work to separate boring units with a fun piece (vehicle, characters), and will paint then according to have a playable force first, then expand by 500 points increases. I wont paint stuffs I kmow I wont use almost right away. So your tips work, I put them in place almost one month ago hahaha. Happy Holidays Vince !
I do a version of these rules for myself. What you call the "Sorbet Method" is what I refer to as "Pitting my procrastination against itself" - If I'm too tired or burned out for high detail work on some minis, I'll avoid doing it by instead working on some terrain that I've been stalling on finishing, or vice versa. It's often much easier to choose between two options than it is to be confronted by a single daunting task. Another good method for me was to just set aside consistent time for hobby-ing so it became a habit. Even if you're doing your absolute favorite thing, it will not be fun 100% of the time, and if that keeps you from finishing a project, it can become a vicious cycle of avoiding the work and then dreading coming back to it the longer you've been away. Pushing through the slumps actually ensures that you'll have more fun overall, because sometimes all it takes is sitting down and starting to work to get you motivated again. It always helps to have some stuff that you can do 'mindlessly' like building/cleaning or base coating or something like that, so that even if you're not up for more complex painting, you can still make incremental progress on something and use that sense of accomplishment to motivate you to come back and pick up the brush again.
Have been espousing tip #1 for a while now to a lot of my friends. The mental relief you get from moving stuff on really helps to steel your focus and truly prioritise what's fun and interesting to you. Great video as always Vince.
I'm currently somewhere between tips 2-4 I discovered early on i did not enjoy doing massive amounts of troop units all at once (your finding motivation video was nice validation for this mindset as well) so i started breaking them into batch's of units (one batch = one unit on the table) and when that batch was done i would swap to another basic troop unit to keep the variety going. I currently have 4 -5 batches on my desk. all of them sort of painted with varying levels of work remaining.
I'm currently focusing on one of the first models I ever bought (Chaos Warshrine) that i have drug my feet on because i just didn't feel comfortable working on a centerpiece unit and wanted to have more confidence in the project and my painting before I started.
Your recent video on using oils for painting flesh was a huge inspiration for the project as one of the areas i had the least confidence in was painting the skin for the unit that rides on the top. i still have a long ways to go before I'll be happy to call it done, but I've spent a good part of this holiday weekend playing with oils and working on other areas of the project that i know i can get done to a standard I'm proud of. The point of this incoherent rambling being, the biggest obstacle for me has always been my confidence in my own work and wanting to see what i imagine on the miniature. it rarely works out that way but over time I've seen improvement in my self. and I know sitting down and just doing it is the best way to get better. and more importantly finish my damn army :P Currently goal is to get the current batches down to 2 i guess XD
The palette cleanser works wonders for me, and has ended up being some of my best work.
I am currently working on my Tau army, I built my entire army, base painted it all, then speed painted it all and now I’m going through and finishing it all up, I did all my HQs/ hero’s first, then did up 30 breachers, took a mini break and built a 1:24 scale GTR34, just fished Crisis suits and now I’m slugging away on my broadsuits… while doing all of this I also scratch build terrain … so I’m pretty much doing all the stuff ur suggesting without even meaning too.. :)
One tip that can really help is to clean up your work space… letting it get cluttered or messy is not helpful to a creative mind… it’s ok to be messy during… but don’t leave it like that… it’s like a sink full of dishes, u may just want to cook and u can do so around those dishes but it’s much more enjoyable and easier if those dishes are not in your way ;)
The selling bit, that’s what I need. When to cut your losses!
I paint terrain the way you mentioned. I paint it "while the paint drys" on my big army project. And currently I inserted a kill team instead of terrain. Like I read your mind before you published the video :)
I'm so glad you made this video. Every time I look at my pile of 40 rubrics and think about all the gold trim I have left to paint, I die a little inside.
A bad proportion of grey to painted models on my shelf deals me psychic damage whenever I look at it.
So I ebayd stuff except a couple of things I was actually excited to paint.
Now my cabinet is 95% painted, and it delights me when I look at it.
do you have any tips for selling loose figures online? The ones i never even took out of the box to build will be easy. But some I built,and even primed, and i just don't care for them at all
I created a kanban board on trello to keep track of my currently painting and what to paint next. So far its helped me get through painting over 2000pts of 40k minis in the past 8 months. I also sold stuff and put that money into things that got my juices flowing and that helped a ton.
I think I struggle with having too much going on at one time, I should probably put some things away and just focus on what Im doing until I get it done. I appreciate you giving some advice, this is just what I needed to hear. I've got some old stuff that I could get rid of that I'll never get around to using, might as well just sell it off.
Thanks for this - I'm one of those long timers who has rarely been able to put down a fully painted army (in my case this was at least partly down to previously undiagnosed ADHD, but that doesn't make it less annoying for me!), so I really appreciate the non judgmental tone you'e taken here. I'd love to overcome this hurdle, it upsets me that it's a problem for me, and I really don't need anyone else telling me how much it sucks!
I've found that 3/4 or a mix of the two are the best approaches for me personally - 1 and 2 often just feel like I'm "punishing" myself and that makes me get all defiant, which simply isn't productive. We need to work with ourselves, not against.
Absolutely, I never want to make anyone feel judged. We all have our struggles and it’s a real bad move to look down on anyone for their method of hobby, my goal is always to help where I can and provide some items that people can try that may work. All the best! :)
Good tips! 👍
I hope i eventually will finish paintig the starter set a good friend gifted me 9 years ago😅
We haven't even played yet because we didn't want to play with grey or primed but unpainted models...😰
My issue is every time i encounter a problem, or a challenge which feels too big for me, or something i just can't do in a way so that i will be good enough that i can feel ok with the result. Then i start a new project, painting another mini, building some terrain, rocks, rubble, buildings or my battlemat etc.
But with every new project i eventually encountered a new problem and got stuck at some point, which left me with a mountain of unfinished things all in a state where it is quite unfun and very challenging to make any more progress. And no more fun projects left to do and i haven't even finished then ones which were fun at first!
It got way too frustrating at one point and i gave up, then i didn't do any hobby stuff for years.
A few weeks ago i decided to come back to the hobby, strongly determined and enthusiastic to paint some minis, finish some terrain etc. but i feel already the frustration building up again as i encounter new and old challenging problems again and already getting stuck again😢I have no problem with the more boring and easy stuff, it can be quite cathartic to do these, but everything becomes so overwhelming after the easy stuff is done.
At least now there are way more and better tutorials on youtube than back in the day!👍
Excellent adviice as always Vince! I've made a rule for myself, if I don't even start a project within two years, I move it on (exception for special one of a kind minis of course), but it works well for armies. My main hangup seems to be the further away things are, the less I feel like getting up and doing them. If I move them closer to the main painting area, voila, suddenly I'm working on them. I love the idea re: terrain as a palette cleanser. I tend to alternate working on my terrain and my minis, it definiitely helps keep the fire going!
There is something vindicating and wonderful to see someone with your experience, Vince, affirm techniques that I’ve discovered through trial and error…in addition to picking up new ones. Thank you for all you do for us and the hobby! It’s deeply appreciated!
I am the „Different projects“ kind of guy. So many different projects and I always enjoy getting back to those Minis I set aside for a few months.
What works for me is to having your armies assembled, primed (zenetial), and even tacked on to your handle of choice (pill bottles, dowels, etc.). The motivation to paint can remain high with less barriers. This also helps with army consistency as you are more likely to tackle more squads at a time.
💯% reducing barriers is key. If you can make dedicated spaces for the projects you intend to work on, and get them set up so that there is basically nothing stopping you from getting colors on plastc, you will be surprisingly successful.
I weirdly do come back to abandoned projects, everything has a season. Beastmen might strike my fancy for a few months and then live in my storage locker for a few months before I get the itch to paint beastmen again.
The biggest game changer for me has been playing with scale. I alternate between 32mm gw stuff and 15mm stuff, or scale of the project. Trying to do back to back warhammer fantasy armies is a slog. Painting different scale is almost like a different medium, it makes you rethink volumes and highlight intensity.
Variety is what keeps me painting.
Sometimes I want to paint cowboy, sometimes I want to paint tiny iguna men with bazookas.
Another great motivator is gifting painted minis. I'll often paint up a killteam or bloodbowl team as a commission or a gift. The pressure of getting it done for somebody else always makes it happen in record time and to better quality than I would do for myself.
3rd tip for big forces is to be realistic, you won't finish an army if it takes 40+ mins a fig, pick colors that don't need a bunch of coats and utilize a quick all over wash with a few highlights and aim for about 12 mins a fig max (horde army). Using this I have been able to get a massive kings of war army built and painted in a month and had a ton of compliments at tournaments.
As someone who has actually finished 3 armies over the years but who also has 5 armies in various phases of completion for a while now this was some great advice.
I'm good at not buying more than I can paint and can focus on one army. The most difficult part for me is going back to other mini's in the army, tweaking them, and generally not being able to call them done. Without having a real deadline (like a tournament, not a self imposed deadline) its hard to call a mini finished.
Great tips from a legendary army painter himself.
As a Sisters of battle player & I started Skaven for AoS I can wholeheartedly recommend doing no more than 10-20 models in a unit at one time. I get bored painting basic troops so try to keep colour schemes simple & just go to tabletop standard & spend extra time on Hq & centerpiece models. I also tend to paint models between different game systems/individual minis that I’ve bought. I just went from 10 battle sisters to a Malifaux crew to a space marine Phobos Librarian & next is 20 stormvermin.
I also agree with you on No1. When I moved from the UK to the US I ended up getting rid of a ton of stuff from my collections of different gaming systems that I should of sold much sooner.
I do the Sorbet Method a lot myself, Ive ended up with 200 Marines, 100 Eldar, like 100 Chaos, 160 Wehrmacht and 100 USF (Bolt Action). Chaos and Wehrmacht are finished and the USF and Eldar are on the road. I have one main army I focus on painting but I start on my second army too when painting. Chaos and Wehrmacht where painted together, when Chaos was done Wehrmacht was the main army to paint and Eldar became secondary, now its Eldar and USF.
My personal rule is no new units (excluding characters) until I paint a certain amount of models, I want to get some more Marines and Cultists for my Black Legion but until the Eldar and USF are done they gotta make do with what they got 😂😂
Great tips, thanks Vince! So many of your videos are (incredibly helpful) technical guides, it's always nice to hear a bit of your philosophy to stay motivated. Thanks!
Happy to help!
Non-named heroes are the perfect pallet cleanser. They don't have the investment of a big named hero where not only is it usually bigger and more detailed but you also want to go the extra mile. Quick, fun and points on the table without the big mental investment of a named hero.
I have a bunch of unpainted mini's but don't feel guilty. At least not any longer. What helped is focusing on what I have painted (proudly displayed), instead of focusing how much I have yet to paint. Glass half full kind of thing.
Thanks for the bird’s eye view of process . This was helpful for me to examine my current process.
Weirdly enough, all that did work for you, did work for me, but now I feel unsnow-flaked. Then again my armies get finished way faster, thank you!
Good to hear! :)
The only thing that works for me is literally batch painting every single mini in the army. It may be 120 minis but Ill just do one color/step (or sometimes even just half a color if i have no time) per night. After a week or two, its all done at once and it feels great.
For me, i enjoy painting the basic troops. Painting up heroes and characters is draining so i usually just do half a step above tabletop
Hi Vince, absolutely a fantastic and necessary video. Many thanks. I do alternate unit type and system, and that keeps me going. Other than that I prepare couple of display models for Salute and GD. I do not sell stuff simply because I keep it in a different room, it is also in an inventory. Cheers, thanks again for the video
Glad it was helpful!
I would love to see your recommendations for storing and displaying armies. Your arrangements and lighting look so appealing. I have seen your hobby room tour video. But I think there is a video on specifically how you design, build/light, and scale those displays. The "final" step of painting an army (and finishing) so to speak. I would love to display my models around my hobby room in a similar way to yours, but ideally in a wall mounted solution due to limited floor space.
I'm having that problem right now: I'm about to start a new army, and while it is exciting, it feels overwhelming when I think about the time I'll spend doing the same minis over and over again. I love thinking of painting individual groups of the army, as specific goals, but considering that rushing only one may take a month, or more, just to see that I need to paint 3 or 4 groups… it can be demoralising, at least for me.
So thank you! The tips really came at a good moment! 😊 I'll try to be more realistic about the times, giving me more margins, avoid rushing, and give myself breaks from one project to another, maybe a different army, scenography or minis for display (I feel really rewarded with these ones, as I can spend as long as I want in them and I'm free of improvising and experimenting, without thinking about the coherence of the army).
Vince, are you able to give us a walkthrough of your armies? Would love to see them!
I do want to do this as a video sometime, just not sure how yet. :)
Funny enough I do all of these except 1. I painted 10 Ork Boyz. Then a Hero for my friends gloomhaven Game. Then I painted a Ork character. Then some more Boyz. And if I don't feel like painting today I build stuff. Most of the time this happens when I'm exhausted and don't want to do something "hard". Assembling is easy. Don't need to think about it too much.
Great video as always.
I don't play any army scale games but have a number of boardgames with chaff enemies, and the 2 project style works well for me; balance between a group of fodder and a boss/hero mini.
Great tips. Useful for life in general
Tip #4, person. Helps with painters block, if i am stuck on how to finish a piece I start another piece.
I use do-delay-delegate at work. Apply the same method to painting (sadly don’t have any painters reporting to me at home so delegate becomes outsource) - it has genuinely helped with reducing the anxiety around having cupboards full of grey plastic.
Really enjoyed this one, Vince :)
Absolutely - great way to think about it. :)
I prefer the first tip as "stop buying models for the army".
Buying a 2K list sets a reasonable target for getting done in general. (Some lists are of course a lot more models than others) The good thing is even if there is a lot more models, getting a unit done is always great progress (be it 1 or 40 models). You get that kick of endorphines from having the unit done and seeing the army progress.
I just wish I followed that rule with my Lumineth...
I'm also ok with having a lot of projects on the go, all of which have different priorities for completion and goals for completion. This way when I'm staring at the next 10 Wardens and I'm feeling "screw this" I can pick something different to make progress on. Just having 2 projects isn't enough choice to get the "cleanse" from changing sometimes.
Thank you! Great tips!
I'll give you a tip, that I discovered painting a Vampirella model kit. After you've painted your mixed fleshtones; you can re-highlight, and highlight the high points, in Pearl white. It makes the skin glisten. I gave it a shot, just here and there, and it's an amazing effect.
I really leveled up taking a break from armies and painted a few larger model like Kingdom Death Monster pinups and 54mm display models. Lessons learned with blending, fleshtones, lighting in a different scale made me excited to go back to the army and apply on smaller scale models.
THIS sounds like advice I need to hear
Tip 1 - "Stop lying to yourself and sell all your treasures" ... Vince I uhhh, look I mean ... No
Thanks Vince! Got me thinking on my next project :-)
I’ve been much better about parting with stuff I no longer want/need. My biggest issue is knowing when to stop collecting for an army. As I build and paint stuff and think I have all I need, I play some games and realize I want something else so the army is never really done. Keeps me from starting another army 😊
I tend to use a combination of tips 2 and 3.
I work in various combinations of items. I have a space marine army underwa. I will work in Marvel:Crisis Protocol sets, where I may do 2-3 sets of a particular affiliation, then throw in a terrain piece. Then I may try an experiment with a new technique (for example, I am working on "slap chopping" my way through a Zombicide: Darkside box).
I find "palette cleanses" help me keep motivated.
Great video and very helpful tips, in my case as I don't play the game I just paint the figures , I currently have boxes of Battle Sisters, Cadian infantry, Ork Boyz and Stormcast Eternals to finish ( boxes have 11 figures and I've only built and painted a few out of each box) and bought some other Warhammer figures just on the sprue. I find I like or tend to have a couple figures on the go along with a model kit to break up the norm and fight the depression monsters when they come calling. Love all your videos, they help when I can't do a model or miniature.
I've been painting for years and the first point is one I only lately learned myself. I've been into Kill Team lately and converting a lot of models, but I just did not enjoy painting my most recent batch. At some point I just cut my losses and realized it didn't make me retroactively not enjoy the time I spent modeling. I'll probably come back to them another time even, but for now they just aren't doing it for me. Picked up something altogether different, been painting it, and now I'm motivated to paint everything.
Great video Vince hope this helps get more armies painted! Thanks
I hope so too :)
I practice the “100 brown boots method” of each night I’m going to sit down and paint. Even if I paint 1 set of brown boots on 1 model of a unit, that’s 1 fewer brown boots I need to paint.
All good advise. Just mashed thru 60 zombies, speed painting that necro after in like 30 minutes never felt so good.
Now to the 40 direwolves…
Outstanding video!! Love hearing these strategies for slaying the gray. I'm a big fan of tip # 2.😁
Glad you enjoyed!
Reason 3/4 is why I started Ynnari. Between the 3 factions that can be used I can hop around between different styles and units and still feel like I’m making progress towards an army.
The biggest brick I got rid of was me thinking I wanted to paint a whole army, while in fact I like painting single pieces, maybe a warband, way more. After burning myself out on painting a army, I even quite the hobby for about 9 month and after picking it back up, I changed directions. Right now I am just painting what I like to paint.
I like to do mixed batches. E.g 1 stormfiend, 3 plague monks and 3 clanrats. They all use the same colours, and it's more interesting than 10 clanrats.
I use the 3rd and 4th tip interchangeably.. Ill paint some necrons and then paint some random model from my backlog or venture off to a book or video game or different type of model kit altogether. But also maintaining the Sith rule of 2. I am starting to get interested in other games like AoS, Warcry, Necromunda, and Killteam. Should I continue to stick with my necrons or could I find a nice stopping point at 1k to venture out to AoS and skirmish games? I also got rid of about 2k points of Tau because it was just sitting and I felt real good about it so tip 1 is definitely sound advice for anyone.
Uf … that was a gut check Vince. I’m not selling the nighthaunt as I finish sbgl- they’re cousins for Chrissakes. It’s practically the same army. At least faction…. The lies we tell ourselves.
on top of the wisdom vince shares here, i'd like to share my tactics:
leave your projects somewhere where you HAVE to see it multiple times a day. whenever you got 10-20 minutes left in your day, just sit down, do one thing, then carry on doing what you actually need to do. that way i have painted 4000 points of classical warhammer fantasy minis over the coarse of weeks.
dont overachieve. yes, having an army look like a gw studio army is nice, but it also crushes your soul. go easy on yourself. find ways to do an effect quicker than by highlighting a gazillion times.
take time for preparation. having a well prepared, well primed zenithaled mini is half the job done.
be realistic. are you ever going to play those 13000 points of skaven, or is 4000 maybe enough? having to paint 3 core units vs. 15 core units can really make a project go from fun to exhausting work. i barely find the time to play more than 3000 points. so i paint up 3000 points worth of minis plus some substitute options.
Great video! I really love your videos on practical hobby advice
Thank you Vince! Amazing advice from an amazing person!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I’m a sorbet.. I always have a piece of terrain to reach for and just slop paint on and play with weathering enamels. Then I’m like man that was fun, back to chaos trim 😂😂
My biggest issue with any army has always been vehicles.
I admire ny results with them and I love how they look but oh boy they are such a pain for me. I can become tired through 2 hours painting a rhino more then as well after finishing a sister of battle squad in one go of 12-14 hours straight painting. This alone pulls me back watching unfinished exorcists of mine, and unfortunately I have to make myself set a timer for 2 hours and work almost every day on a single tank for whole 1-2 weeks alone.
Great advice, thank you 😊
Glad it was helpful!
Letting go is indeed important.
3 & 2 works wonders for me. 4 would be too restrictive, as for 1 I only buy armies that I'd like to paint
Hi!
Thank you a lot for your useful advices!
Can you please tell what is the best way of painting miniatures: fully assembled or sub-assembled?
And can you give an advice: what kind of techniques, paints and instruments should i use while painting flat surfaces of vehicles to make soft gradient of armor panels?
Best regards!
It very much depends on the model, but in general, you want to assemble as much as possible and only use sub-assemblies when absolutely necessary. So vehicles are a whole separate world, I have many videos in the playlist about it. - This is the most recent video I did on vehicles - th-cam.com/video/jGidaioV5Y8/w-d-xo.html
I love using endless spells as my sorbe when painting armies.
Vince, I finish my armies but then I buy a new one lol?! I find painting a list for a event motivates me (NOVA, or our own narrative events). We planned a Chaos apocalypse game and it was fun to finish up my less “competitive” models for the game and it’s one of my favorite armies.
I tend to get excited about a monthly STL release or 3 and I want to paint them all but I get bogged down by wanting to paint them at display quality. I need to cool it and just paint the most interesting figure and not worry about the army because there will be another cool model the next month. Or I should just paint TTS and not worry about quality but I have a bit of OCD which makes it tough not to go a bit higher in quality.
Really good tips.
Tabletop Minions aaid something recently on TikTok and that was have multiple things on the table so if you get bored of something then go onto another e.g. you painting an ork trukk, then go to paint some ork infantry like nobz and go back and forth between them
I do actually have a question I've been meaning to ask for some time, I know you have travelled wide and far and seen most things that are even in the slightest way related to painting miniatures. Is there anything to put on a brush to make the grip bigger? At this time in my life, gripping something as thin as a brush for longer periods of time is quite paintful. I know there are for pencils, but they don't fit a miniature brush.
Try putting a big blob of milliput on the handle and gently grip it to create your finger hold before it cures?
Just good old fashioned blu tac can work. Just wrap and then let it shape to your hand.
Hey Vince!! What color or color mix did you use for the blue cloth of the demon? You are an inspiration and an honestly awesome teacher! Keep being real and tell the truth not what people might want to hear! Thanks for sharing your wisdom!!
I believe it was just a turquoise - Blue-Green- Ice-yellow transition. Hope that helps and thanks!
Great stuff friend 👏 👍
What a great video!!! Oldcheesewiz says thank you!! Just what I needed. I always have 3 yes 3 projects on my desk!! It’s time to go down to two!!! Yep I will fallow the master ! No Mercy. But I have question. Where does Larry fit into all this? I know he hangs out somewhere???
He is the guardian of the grey, he shows them what their future entails. So much paint. :)
I've been preparing now for going on 4 years
I still haven't played a single game But I do have 4 painted armies of 2000pts and a Faction for every kill team but only half are painted. 😆 I've enjoyed hobbie side so much I really don't wanna use any spare time doing anything but painting an building lol
A video dedicated to Tyler!!
Have you thought about getting a lapel mic Vince. Could improve the audio slightly. 👍 great video.
The only way I finish an army is with a deadline: I register for a tournament that requires painted miniatures and now I have no choice (that usually involves finishing at the last minute but that's how I went from 0 to 2000pts painted in 2 weeks after procrastinating for months)
4:56 have not seen this piece before. Was it ever featured in a video? Either way, lovely stuff!
It was not. I will have to share it out eventually. :)