Tabletop standard is such a big one for me. I don't paint as often as I'd like, so when I do, I always feel like I've gotta push myself. Great tip. Also: WTF dude, that doll gonna give me nightmares.
I've taken to heart the same idea as in your last tip, and I've had the best hobby experience of my life. I got back into the hobby during the pandemic and vowed to finish painting each kit before I got another. I didn't have a backlog, but I spent a year with little motivation. When my local shop announced their re-opening Crusade league, I had two weekends to prepare my 1000pts of AdMech and Knights. I skipped all the detail and blasted through the army: just base colors, a wash or two, and uniform bases. Frankly, I can't pick out my finished Skitarii from the chaff. They look great in table pictures, and I've continued to pick away at the details on each model. The second Crusade league came and I got an entire Craftworld Eldar force ready in two days, and I've continued to clean them up to a great standard. It feels great to have two playable armies and no pile of shame. Getting a model to look good on the table doesn't mean it has to be finished, and you can always work on it more.
Having a goal like playing a game or wanting to see it done helps me a lot. One at a time, nothing else comes in the house until I'm complete regardless of who is offering what.
Definitely getting prepped for a game, that more than most things will get me painting. I will go out of my way to finish because I want it to be good for the game. I do wish I could go back to one box at a time, life was simpler back then. 😢
Great video. Good advices! I took few of them and made massive dent in my pile of shame. Painted quite a lot of minis to good standard for me (and sold most of them), some minis I just sold, very frw i just threw away, cause couldnt sell or use as bits even. Now I have around 25 models to paint, but those I consider more valuable models for me and I will put extra care in painting then and learning more how to paint good
Now the title says “please help me” well I am willing to relieve some of your burden for you. I will take that new killteam box, I know I dont have to do this but I can see your overwhelmed and I believe that not all heros wear capes. Lol
that knight cam out grate cleaning always give me the hobby bug and the urge to improve my hobby space watt in itself has become just as much of a hobby
One advantage of not having a dedicate hobby space is that I HAVE to clean up after every use. Can't really just leave stuff lying around half-finished; unpainted yes, but not half-assembled or whatever.
Totally into this way of thinking, and also a big fan of the foam inserts for boxed games- currently finishing off my copy of Space Hulk that I bought this year. I also organise my painted minis into foam trays, but not placing the trays into boxes or bags; just stacking them up. It's super organised and like 20 trays is only a couple of feet high.
So couple of suggestions. Find a place for a clipboard that can sit on the wall in front of your work space and attach your list of priorities or options for jobs. This is still flexible because you can say, go forth and multiply, I'm doing Grotz today. But the advantage is that you know what you skipped to do this. A secondary list can include what is in the drawers so you don't forget. In my case I channel my inner nerd and produce spreadsheets off an office product that makes the listing legible.
i bought a bunch of eldar models when i started wh40k and after 13 years i finally sat down, cleaned up the models, came up with an idea how to paint them and i primed them today. I magnetized the models at the base so i can properly store them in a plastic box with magnetic "paper". It made me really happy and best thing is. I stripped down sooo many steps that i think it wont be that hard to finish the job while still looking good.
The struggle is real... Trying to balance between getting a model done and putting everything you have into it. I know logically on a table if a unit has 10 plus models no one will notice if i skip a few steps but in my head im like "THEY ALL NEED to be "PERFECT" " I really wish at times i can go back to the 12 year old me mentality who just didn't care how or even if my models were painted. I think the problem lies within ourselves as we feel our armies are an extension of ourselves. What i mean by that is as a 33 year old man i dont want to show up with "badly" painted models just like i don't want to drive around in a car that looks like crap. We or at least i feel that people may judge you. Or maybe im just crazy and none of this makes sense, oh well.
Well said! Definitely not the only one - i spent forever to settle on my black and white nid scheme and this has been almost to my downfall production wise After a lot of experimentation, I finally found a method I was happy with that includes no dry brushing (!) and multiple layers and edge highlighting to make the white skin. It's almost soul destroying after doing 30+ termagants - they take an obscene amount of time per squad. But would i change now? Of course not :-D The slow grind is real but I do feel very proud that every model is my 'best' I want to do at this stage. I sort of 'deal' with this by planning other armies with a streamlined process but it's natural for your priorities and standards to change - there is nothing wrong with that at all! Go at your pace and standard - no one else's. If you are happy it's all good. I keep kicking myself wishing I'd gone for a more simple scheme but then I turn around and see that 60+ hr Tervigon on the shelf and think... nah, I wouldn't have it any other way :-)
lol. reading my mind with this video Sir… TL:DR - maybe add one thing to your list: “Reduce the hobbies you have to one or two you can actually do or devote adequate time to.” Planning helps. And don’t be afraid to get it done over time, instead of all at once, if it really is ALOT to go through. ------------------------ I’ve been doing this in stages cause it ended up being a whole room/hobby overhaul to reclaim space to move and work. Also, heres one that you could add to your list from the video. I had to choose between my hobbies. Which hobby(s) i would keep and which I needed to let go! Over what is roughly about 4 weekends at this point, I seperated hobby paint and supplies, hardware (air brush, 3-D printers(it really is a seprate hobby), storage systems), furniture (cubbies, lighting, etc), all models and games (so many KickStarter MINIS!!!), pc/server parts and projects (uh huh…another “hobby”), Console gaming stuff (systems/controllers/ games). I chose painting and gaming… both things i can do with my kids cause they are interested in them. Plus my old school friends still game. So i can enjoy both solo or with family & friends. reorganized what i was keeping (painting supplies took a DAY by themselves to consolidate into a rolling storage cart), separated what wasn’t being used or wouldn’t be. Gave away what i could. Trashed what i couldn’t (more bags than i’d like to admit of that). The stuff that i really need to recoup something from is destined for e-Bay. I took pictures for the auctions (time consuming as heck), found average pricing, and made excel sheet (cause how much am i actually going to get back after fees ya know?) now just have to create the auctions….actually have alot ready to go … and need to do that this weekend cause my wife wants that half of the dinning room back where its all piled till it sells 😅
Just got out all the Orks from the Battle for Vedros kit I bought to make both a Space Marine and Orks kill team. Painting the marines had stalled out, but building the Orks has got me back into the hobbying mindset.
For me it helps to make armies. gangs, fleets, teams etc compleet. Everything cleaned up, glued together and give them the right basecoat. At that point i can take al bits out of the sprues and trow them out, reserve the right storage for the models. And have a army ready to paint, loking uniform on my shelf. Emotiolny it helps me, to not have a chaos on different state of models, bits that need work, butt a ready to paint army. And beside that, only printing what i want and can use at that moment. Only buy items i wil at directly to a army and build en coat right away. So no new octavius box, no new this ore that. First seeing what is there, and clean something from the to do list. One of the things i do now, and realy helps to bring some fun back in painting is exaclty what Casey do. Butt instead of buying a new model. I go to my bits box, and grab a model that not used in a army. So i can paint something that stand alone, one cool model.
Mate I love most of your videos even if I've got no interest in the actual models you're painting. I enjoy your commentary and your results are always jaw-dropping. Just wanted to say thanks so much for this video - there's nothing "new" here or any groundbreaking observations, but having it all concisely summed up in less than ten minutes is awesome and it's motivated me to start organising and cleaning up my own hobby space in between today's projects. Keep up the awesome content dude!
For me at the moment; I needed this. I'm in one of the cities that is still under lockdown, 200+ days since Nurgle poked our planet. Despite this; friends of mine and I have started a slow grow army project; where each of us have two to three months to paint two to threw kits; and then have a narrative battle. It's Age of Sigmar, and with the new edition; it will be my very first fully painted army. I've hit points of having low energy because of the lack of ability to play games and hobby with friends. I've had issues keeping up the pace, because this army is a lot of airbrushing work - true metallic Stormcast - and I am very inexperienced with airbrushing. And; because my hobby space is also my PC desk (barring a cardboard box airbrush booth in my family crafts space); it becomes really difficult to actually motivate myself to paint; especially to take the time to airbrush more. This video has given me a lot of tips to keep in mind to keep me working through my log, maybe I'll finally start on my Dominion flagbearer Vexilor today and stop panicking about "how do I paint this flag!" Thanks, Casey. Really needed this one.
This might sound counterintuitive, but I've found having a passion project you can sometimes switch to helps. I was working on two armies and it completely ground me down. My will to do *yet another batch* began to slow my painting. By the end, I'd gone from finishing a squad every week (or less) to *maybe* getting a model done every week (yes I was still batch painting). Then I picked up a Frostgrave soldiers box on a whim because "hey those look cool." For funs, I decided to paint them all differently. No batch painting. No rules. Just whatever struck me as fun and cool in the moment. I started finishing a model every 1-3 days. I haven't finished the box, but I've got a small lineup that makes me smile and now? I think I'm ready to return to the armies. Don't understimate your own morale. Taking a break from the grind *can* help! For people with ungodly backlogs? Maybe take a look through and see what captures your attention. Or heck, maybe try what Goobertown does and, as a challenge, pick one at random from a box?
In a similar vein - Find a mini you really like, then paint it as a reward for each of those units you are grinding on that you get finished. So for every unit you also get a really cool project model.
I keep bits in those little boxes meant for screws and bolts and the like, that have little compartments. That way I can keep different kinds of bits (faces, arms, purity seals, etc.) categorized and easy to find. I use the same for magnetized weapons. Larger 'bits' I keep in army-specific boxes, but I don't have a massive amount of those.
Seeing you share your own backlog was really cool. I have a pile that I am ashamed of, and it is often disheartening when you only see the finished products of other people’s work. Knowing that many others in the hobby share this problem takes a weight off the shoulders. Thank you for this video.
That knight at the end is superb ! Sometimes 'just going for it' and not overthinking things and being too precious about it turns out some fantastic results.
I found organizing the projects into easily accessible, easily broken down containers worked for clearing up my backlog. Having to constantly clean up my table every time I switched projects became a chore. So with handy containers I can just sweep all the bits and models into when I was done or done for the day made clean up easy and mostly painless. Grabbing another project was as simple as opening up a container pulling the models and the bits are in the tray to use. This way if you're in an assembly type mode it's easy to go from kit to kit. Want to prime? Do it and set the models in the tray to dry, grab the next and continue.
Good advice! I have the opposite problem though. I live in a country with no official GW hobby store. To be specific, I live in an island where I started a Warhammer community with a few friends, and our biggest problem is that we have to wait 2-3 months for our models to arrive. By the time our next package arrive, we would have already finished all our projects. Sure, there are 2 hobby stores in our country, but both are in Manila... in a different island up north, and the pandemic made it hard for us to order from them as well. So yeah, our problem is quite the opposite of yours. Though it would also apply to other franchises like GunPla
Videos like this make me feel better about my pile of 'opportunity' while I have a sizeable collection of boxes and sprues waiting to be given some love, it's no where near the size of some of these youtubers. Custom foam inserts are great though :) been getting them for my box sets for a while.
I put models on my Christmas list. My insane aunt, instead of just buying something, actually went into a Warhammer Store. She bought a box of Tactical Marines (she had no idea what I played and that’s what the suggested). I’d say it was lame, but she took a look at the painting rack and bought a pot each of Blood for the Blood God and Nurgles Rot.
No matter what, Even if it’s not for your army, that amount of effort from a family member is greater than probably any other. To actually go to the store to ask, that’s so awesome! As a suggestion, if you aren’t planning on using the marines. Paint one for your aunt as a gift…it’s like regifting, but way better :)
This is great advice. I myself have recently started doing the same thing, hour a night just priming, building or painting what ever grabs my fancy and have made great progress on the POS...what, Pile of Shame...
"I only spent three hours on this". Proceeds to show of something most of us can't make if we spend a month on it. xD. Seriously though, a bit of optimizing is never wrong and your videos always inspire me to keep going and trying to improve myself. Thank you for that. :)
I do have a pile on my table alone (never mind the drawers full of minis to the left of said table) that I keep priming and painting as I see fit, with the following scheme in mind; the Protectorate of Menoth Warmachine minis I have are going to get sold on eBay when I'm done with them, so I paint one of those, then something original, then a Menite, then an original. The Protectorate minis are what you call busy and elaborate, so I paint one at a time to keep from losing my mind! Works for me anyway.
I got through the dominion box last month, I really wanted to have it done for when my little nephew and niece come for Christmas. The biggest problem was I was pumped to do the Kruleboyz but had almost no desire to touch Sigmars dementia patients. I decided I would do the stormcast first then I could go on to what I really wanted to do and it worked really well for me. Usually I buy as I go for the most part. I'm looking forward to getting ahold of those ORK Kommandos and the terrain, hopefully I'll score a good deal on both soon from ebay
Average 40k player taught how to paint by GW: "Wow painting a knight is so hard, it'll take weeks, I'm intimidated by it" Experienced painter who knows better, simpler methods: *Knocks it out in 3 hours* Sounds about right, Good thing to keep your space organised how you like it, honestly a little clutter helps me out, as I always have things to hand and know where my recent projects are, but as soon as I realise something isn't a "recent project" it gets shuffled onto the pile of opportunity. Good healthy place to be.
I have around 120 minis to paint in various stages (some still in box, others primed or painted halfway) and today I realized that the fact I feel like I am sitting in warehouse (seriously so many boxes) is putting me off from painting. That advice about cleaning your workspace is very much true.
Nice video, I refuse to buy any more models myself until I finish painting these 100 or so guardsman. I really wanna start and never finish a 100 man space marine chapter aswell though!
I keep a running list each year of models purchased/printed/unpainted vs finished - It's a great motivator. I've never got into the mindset of relagating an entire kit to just being 'bits' but with leftover parts I often bundle them up and sell them on ebay. Helps lower the cost of the original kit.
The box to bits it a tough one, but once you end up on that road you find that you don’t take much from the boxes so if you need to replace a model or 2 when the time comes to actually working on it, then it’s easy enough to find eBay options :)
Simple way of dealing with a huge backlog, trial by duress. Take your minis, get some nail polish remover, leave a mini in it for 5 seconds, and go until you're done, of the surviving minis you will be left with the best.
Great vid, I'm definitely not as embarrassed/frustrated with my pile of shame no lol, in comparison I have a lot less to paint (all bought from ebay haha) so I'm just going to battle ready everything! And then if i want to, which I'm sure I will, I can go back and make them all look a lot better
This doesn’t apply to most of us but as a lot of RU-vid channels grow they have to bring on additional people to help. Maybe if you know a local painter who needs some extra work you could outsource some of your unpainted stuff and get them sold
How about a spreadsheet to keep track of projects? I have one, tells me what I've got on the go and where I am with it, along with where it physically is stashed.
I paint most of my minis to the "Good enough" tabletop kinda standard and it's a great way to get through the back log and feel that sense of achievement while also being able to play fully painted. You can always come back and do more to them
hahaha, that's funny man. I know, it's mostly true for me. At least I try and guilt myself by having something like that 2 feet away so I have to do something about it at some point!
Jep. That thing with "prime everything" has helped me a lot in the last year. (I'M still a very slow painter, but at the moment I have a lot of Miniatures I can paint, when they feel right to paint insteat of painting nothing, because there is only Stuff I must paint.)
After feeling some serious burnout from the negativity I’ve been seeing all over social media lately regarding our hobby and various aspects thereof, I’m actually shocked that there are over a hundred comments and they’re all largely positive. The way I tackle my backlog is usually to get hyper focused on one project at a time for a very limited window of space. A ton of work gets done on that mini/minis until I lose focus and move on to something else. So… short bursts here and there. On the plus side, that’s been most of this year so far- I think the last time I bought any miniatures was in February. It’s all been backlog since then.
My backlog is pretty bad. I have way too many boxes. So many damn Orks. So, so many gits. What I prioritize is mostly scaling up. I like variety and usually my group of friends all use my models so I start building small combat patrols for different factions and eventually add more over time. Starting with simple troops to get the color scheme just right was my foundation. Having a dozen 500 point armies of every faction of 40k really gets me excited to paint more for each. But I recently became obsessed with the new Ork minis. Those beast snaggas are perfect for my "Wuf Killaz" Space Wolf "fanboyz." But I really, REALLY need to stop buying models for... like a year.
I was in this spot along time ago I had way more than you and I can tell you the reality behind all of those projects they called mistakes so much 💰 wasted sell off a good chunk of those miniatures and slow down on buying anything eBay included
Lol, dude it’s an extension cord, it’s in a plastic track that routs it up and over a door so nobody walks over it….if you think about it I’m being way safer than I even need to be for a regular power strip.
I have the opposite problem, nowhere to hobby, let alone clean up. I should stop buying it until I do. But the black templars are in coming..... How much for celestine?!
I’ve been there too man, I used to hobby out of a little tackle box. Which worked quite well I must say. It was a good time in the hobby, no worries, but a nice at a time and just kind of figure it out. There’s nothing wrong being there and I imagine a lot of people would go back to that given the option. Also…that Celestine box was empty…I painted her up on the channel last year! One of my favorite videos too :)
Real talk. I dont play, I just really like to paint. I like to try out different styles and schemes all the time. You got any spare models to make me up a mystery package?
My steps is 1. Buy up way more than I need. 2. Feel bad about it. 3. Become unable to buy anything else until I've properly painted everything I own, which might take months or years. 4. Feel good for a bit. 5. Return to step 1.
you could sell me some of that "extra" stock there Casey my man :P also id love to print you some custom stencils and decals :D great job man, and ya i hear ya lol great advice all around!
I'm fortunate in that I don't have any unbuilt or un-basecoated models. I started with Dark Imperium so just bought models for those 2 factions. While few are fully painted they're all at different stages ( I have 3 stages to my painting) so it's not the worst. Maybe someday I might have an actual game..........not gaming again but an actual first game.
