Firstly, I've identified that I'm a bit burned out with so many committed to and half finished projects that I'm trying to push myself to complete. It's just discouraging me from going to my painting table. So, to solve that, I've taken everything 'in progress' and either put it into a holding box to be picked up as I get motivated about them again. A couple of exceptions to this were made where I had no longer got a clear idea of what I was trying to do with the model. These got dropped back into my stash. Out of sight, out of mind.
Secondly, I'm going to making my focus be more about larger projects this year. I've previously described individual models or squads, which are a single item on my kanban board, as 'projects'. That's a bad term for them. They're basically 'work items' - projects are much larger.
So instead of focussing on, say, a particular model or unit, I'm going to try and get some significant pieces of work done, involving multiple models and squads. I think getting one a quarter done is a reasonable thing to aim for - we'll have a look in a few months to see how that went.
Finally - I'm getting a bit put off by the lead time between me getting enthused about something and me getting to apply paint to it. I also end up buying stuff and it just sitting around in boxes for ages, never seeing the light of day.
The planned solution to this is to try and move towards immediately assembling anything I get, getting it undercoated, then packing it away ready for me to get enthused about painting it. I'll get a better visualisation of what there still is to do, and less lead time if I want to get something finished. This means one of my early projects is going to be starting to get some of my existing, massive "to do" list assembled at a reasonable pace.
Beyond that, goals really come down to "try and paint more stuff than last year" and "actually, thinking about it, two items completed a month doesn't sound too bad as a basic target".
Lets do this thing.
Labels "Outright Lies" lol
ReplyDeleteI had the label lying around not doing very much. I thought it a good time to bring it out of semi-retirement. ;)
DeleteI remember you trying to describe the Kanban thingy to me. Good to see it worked so well....
ReplyDeleteIt's been useful for keeping an eye on what I have, if not for actually motivating me to paint stuff! ;)
DeleteOn the motivation/"project" front, I've set up one of those "Tale of X Gamers" things over on the Dakka forums for Jan-June with a few criteria. I'm now committed (as much as these things can actually bind you, anyway) to finishing 1 Undead and 1 Gondor unit a month. Units can be as small as 3 or as large as you like, or even a character model with the presumption that they get a slightly more special paintjob. So far I've finished those Undead Ogres, and will hopefully finish something for Gondor that's been sitting around annoying me within the next week... Not quite "projects", but a distinct unit each month for each of the two larger army projects. Whatever else I get done each month is the gravy, and can be anything to reward myself.
ReplyDeleteI did OK at little things for the first half of the year last year. My "work items" can be a unit or a character model - it's a small self contained thing. The idea of my projects will be a collection of them.
DeleteSo, say, a project will be my Fallen project. Each of the three squads is a work item, and Cypher himself is his own work item. (I mention that one as I'm kind of excited about getting to it...)
Yep, that sounds very much the same as I'm doing myself for Gondor/Undead. I'm not going to "finish" either at that pace in a 6-month timeframe, but I will have more for each, so I'll happily call that a win.
DeleteYeah, the important thing this year is to keep motivated and keep things being done - more stuff will get finished eventually.
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