SpiralingCadaver's hobby thread

[3eland]

Love the grimy white looking effect. This for your nurgle army? (you have a nurgle army right?)

[spiralingcadaver]

No, and yes

It's for regular old Death Guard, though I do have some corrupted Nurgle Death Guard (but they're the modern/chaos green with black trim, instead of white with green and brass like early DG)

[3eland]

The white and green looks so good though! I vote redo!

[spiralingcadaver]

I tried it once on a new death guard and the oxidation made it look like some sort of ridiculous rainbow marine- terrible stuff. But, yeah, since the land speeder came out so nicely, I'd consider repainting them (I don't have many I've painted).

[spiralingcadaver]

The Caestus is one of my favorite sci-fi vehicles ever- this one got a fun photoshopped FX shot, because of it, too.

[3eland]

See.. that white and green look FITS.

[spiralingcadaver]

Okay, I admit it... white and green look pretty classy together. When I finally get around to working on my chaos death guard again, they'll be getting old school colors

[3eland]

My work is done here.
LOL

[spiralingcadaver]

*shakes fist at 3eland and the sky*

(...will be working on those pretty soon- nothing makes a fun conversion like Chaos, and I haven't done many recently)

Moving on... a few more guys that I just finished, including customizing many of my old samaritans and matching them to how I'm currently painting.

[3eland]

Very cool.

What keeps you from "burning out"? I can go a few days straight painting, loving it, having soooo much fun but then BAM, hit in the face with the "ugh" wall and I don't touch a model for a week or two.

"Vat iz yur secretz?!!??!?!"

[spiralingcadaver]

Thanks!

Re: burn out, 3 (and a half) things most of the time:
-hopping back and forth between projects (even in the middle of working on a given piece): if I get bored, I figure out something different to paint. For instance, I did the groundwork for the loader suit above probably around the turn of the year, did other stuff, eventually finished him last week. Same has been my policy with everything in life: even in stuff like college and work, I've (as much as reasonable) always been working on 2-4 projects at any given time: I can focus very intensely on something, but only for a limited time in one go. I have no idea how much of that's personal, but it's at least how I work best.

-setting smaller goals: sometimes it's "get through all the skin color on this set"; sometimes it's "completely finish this model". Making and achieving goals keeps my momentum up. Also makes me not feel like the above is me not focusing. Another general life attitude. Ex: I rarely stop in the middle of reading a chapter. (However, if I do, I won't necessarily start it immediately just to complete it... got the completionist bug out of my system around the time I went to college and realized life was too short to double my play time getting the last 5% of the items in a game only I care(d) about and I'd rather re-play it or pick up something new than fulfill my personal need to see "100%" on a file.)

-the "half" kind of relates to both of the above. I almost exclusively save cleaning models for when I don't have the energy or interest to do anything creative. It's a way of feeling productive without needing to think about what you're doing, and can help with momentum (or at very least mean that you've got more fun stuff when you come back to painting if you do burn out). I find little mindless tasks like that very helpful to kind of bridge things.

-playing games: if I want to start a game or have played a game, it always makes me want to play with spiffy models next time. If I can add a squad or character or whatever that I'll field in the next game, it makes it more fun for me, even if no one else notices. For instance, I worked on the above set while working on testing the game: I knew I'd be playing a lot (since I always do most when testing) so wanted to play with fun pieces, after not painting much for the game for months before. I'm in the middle of the last few sets of pieces I have for the game, but have no idea if I'll ride this momentum and finish everything, or get bored in a day or two and move back to that squad of space marines I started ages ago that I've recently been thinking I'll finish

...I guess the answer is the age-old "know thyself"? Don't force yourself to finish what you're working on if you hit a block, because it probably won't keep your momentum going, even if you finish your goal, and generally try (after the fact) to recognize why you were enjoying yourself while painting and aren't now. It's really difficult for me to finish armies/collections in one go, and I don't think it's a good approach, at least for me, since at a certain point it stops being fun...

(edit: I also definitely do burn out, too, but the above bolsters against it...)

[3eland]

Very interesting, thanks Spiral

[spiralingcadaver]

Glad I could help (or at least not bore)

Yet more Malifaux monsters, with some new gore techniques I'm trying out.

[spiralingcadaver]

Just a quick one today- the Myth Brigand.

[3eland]

Very cool!

I'm a fan of the Rats (hence why I play Skaven). Looks very well done, good job!