Pushing Through a Bad Model

Like I said in my last post, painting is zen. If I have an hour or two free, I love nothing more than to turn on every single light around me, grab a paintbrush, and make a piece of plastic come to life.

But when I'm painting a group of models, it's hard to push past that one piece that holds zero interest for me.
I ran in to this problem when finishing my Super Dungeon Explore heroes. I had several models that were exciting to me, which  you've seen, and two that I would have been happy never painting at all.

 
Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a completionist and I can't leave a task undone.

Finally, after hours of staring at me while I happily painted the models around them, the Deeproot Druid and Angry Bear were the last things on my painting tray. I used my first night to take a break and get some work done around the house; I'd been painting a lot and needed a break. Then the second night I decided to hop on my Xbox and say hey to some buddies. But after about 5 days of stalling, I realized that I hadn't done a single bit of fun painting, and I missed it like crazy.

Sadly, that hippy and his furry shapeshift form were standing in my way. And it's not like they're particularly bad models; there is just nothing there that excited me other than using a green wash on his beard.


But I had a whole tray full of minions that needed to be painted, so I had no choice but to push through and deal with it.

Long story short, they finally got finished. I decided to practice some exaggerated highlights on the minimal pieces of fur that were sticking out,


but otherwise this isn't a piece I got in to. But it's done, and I know I'll be happy when I finally see it on the game board. And fortunately, I found a bit of a revelation through this whole experience.

I found a parallel between painting and getting my kids to eat dinner. I have two kids who are picky eaters (isn't that a redundant phrase?), and we've recently begun figuring out how to manipulate them in to eating most of their food. 

We start with giving them equal portions of food, including one thing we know they'll eat (usually a fruit). Of course they blow through their little bit of fruit immediately and want more, but we won't give them any more until they eat the rest of their stuff. So when they know that there is more yummy fruit to be had, they are willing to push through a horrifyingly disgusting meal of spaghetti and green beans.

So from now on, I'm going to try manipulating myself in my painting. I didn't realize until now that I treat my commission painting differently than my fun painting. When doing a commission, I have a job that needs to be done quickly. I love painting, but any models I don't like are covered by the knowledge that I'm getting paid for it. But with the fun painting... not so much.

So really, the Royal Paladin should have been my final model painted. I think having that dangling carrot would have really helped comfort me as I fought through the most boring model I've ever painted.