Warhammer 40k - Just get paint on your brush every day!

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This is a Warhammer/tabletop painting motivation post, but it is also a philosophy post. I have not had this concept for long but it has opened my eyes to new possibilities and the skill is quite transferrable to other things that are not hobby related.

Just get paint on your brush every day!

This is one of the best pieces of advice that I have ever gotten about getting the proper motivation to get painting (or anything) done. The fact of the matter is that so many so-called motivational speeches which you can search for on Youtube is of a man yelling about "just doing the thing" and "never give up no matter what".

Now, I believe that this has the time and place. But you are already in the gym, in your clothes, on the bench and in the mood. Now you need someone to push you further, into a frenzy and get past certain boundaries.

But for the unmotivated, depressed, overwhelmed people who are still at home, laying in bed, last showered 3 days ago, last had a healthy meal 2 weeks ago... the shouting man does more harm than good.

There is nothing in what the man says to you that will get you to just do something.

Now. I am not a therapist. I am not here to resolve exactly what it is that is blocking you or making you depressed.

But let's bring it back to Warhammer 40,000 and painting miniatures.

I love collecting models and playing the game. I love the painting and modeling part too... however, it takes time and I struggle to block off the time required to do so instead of doing one of a million other things I need to get done.

Thus I have a massive amount of unpainted and even unbuilt models.

But all I want to have is a truly massive Imperial army.

So I needed to find a way to change that and this is where the best advice comes from:

Just get paint on your brush every day!

This is a simple step and a simple instruction. It is also simple to do.

It is not commanding me to paint a model a day. Or to do a basecoat one day and overcoats the next day. It is just getting me to put paint on my brush. At minimum.

Part of cracking open the painting habit is getting your stuff out and starting to paint.

It is like camping. One person has never done it. Pitching a tent and making a fire takes all day. To a seasoned veteran, it takes 30mins to set up his tent and 10mins to start a fire. Most likely he will start the fire and then pitch the tent and go straight into making food right afterward. He is parking off and enjoying nature while the other person is rummaging around, looking for all the tent pins.

So practicing on how to include this very simple step into your daily routine changes your whole life.

I have done it for only a few days and my family is none the wiser. I go to my paint tray and my wet pallet. There are still wet paints there from last weekend's painting session - which is the first in 2 months! Then I wet a paintbrush in water, put some paint on the brush... and clean the brush. A tiny bit of paint.

The next time, I put paint on the brush, I picked up a Space Wolf Long Fang with missile launcher and the paint I selected was the very light Space Wolves Grey. I then used the edge of the brush to highlight three edges on one shoulderpad. I did not have time to paint but I had not spent more than a few seconds doing this.

I then cleaned the brush and put it back in the brush jar.

I am going to go put paint on my brush again. Maybe I will make one more highlight on the same model. But I have broken the ice and importantly: I am making it easier to start and get going. So that when I do a painting session once every 2 months like I did this weekend, it does not take me a whole hour just to get set up and motivated to get going.

I am looking at a lot of other mammoth tasks the same way. You just have to touch it, open it, start it. You don't have time but make a habit of starting just to get there. Soon enough the time will present itself and you will have an idea in your head where you will go when you have the chance.

So get out there. Put paint on your brush every day and then tell me where you end up after a month!

Thank you for reading!

Cheers!
@zakludick

Hive South Africa