Picture the scene - you turn up to your local games club, and one of the guys is looking for a game. So, seeing as it means you'll be getting yourself at least one game in the session, you oblige. You unpack your army, which you have spent many an evening sat painting - it may not be 'Eavy Metal standard, but its pretty respectable.
Your esrtwhile opponent arranges a selection of metal and plastics - none of which have seen a brush, and very few of which have been on the receiving end of an undercoat spray.
Not a good start, you might think. Maybe he only got the models recently and is testing his army. You might think many things about this until, after the game has finished, you speak to some of the other people at the club and find that the models have been in that state for six months or more.
Fortunately, the above scenario is not too common. There are gamers who are missing out on one of the main aspects of the hobby. I myself am not the best painter in the world, but I appreciate the big difference in look between a painted army and an unpainted one - it becomes easier to picture what is happening as a result of your dice rolls. Anyone who has played against me knows I end up describing what happens, making sound effects and staggering around as if it were me getting shot/stabbed/blown up.
For everything except Veterans evenings, Games Workshop have introduced a policy on painting that I agree with. They feel it is not unreasonable to expect gamers to have their armies at the stage where there are three colours on each model, and for the bases to be decorated in at least some fashion, even if they are just painted Goblin Green.
While this is the minimum standard they would accept from an established army, Games Workshop recognises that people have more to do that paint miniatures all day (unless they happen to be the 'Eavy Metal team, of course). Though they prefer three colours and based, as long as the models show some progression as time passes, then they tend to be happy.
I agree with this view - it is not particularly difficult to make time once or twice a week to sit down and do some painting. While some may view this as a bit of a chore, there are ways to make it less so. One of these was, in fact, probably factor when your army was selected - you chose figures not only because you liked how they performed in game, but also because you liked the models themselves. For example, I'm more likely to sit down and paint some Guardsmen, Dwarfs or Battlefleet Gothic ships than I am to paint Chaos or Tyranids, because I prefer the models.
A second way of making painting less of a chore is not to do it on your own. If possible, getting a group of people to paint together is a good idea. For a start, it makes painting a social activity ratehr than just a solitary one, which will make it more enjoyable that painting on your own. There is, after all, a reason why Games Workshop have painting tables in their stores.
The other advantage to this method is that if you know people who paint to a better standard than you do, you will generally be able to get their help. It's a good way of learning new tricks of the trade, be they blacklining, ink washing or just drybrushing.
Even if you find painting reasonably enjoyable, painting an army of very similar models, such as Space Marines, Dwarfs or Tau, can swiftly become monotonous. No matter how good yout intentions were to begin with, it can become difficult to motivate yourself enough to start on the next unit, especially when they look almost the same as the unit you just finished.
There are two relatively straight-forward ways around this problem as well. he first is to set yourself a realistic target for each week - say to assemble, undercoat and basecoat ten models. By setting yourself a target you will achieve, there is a sense of satisfaction as you make your goal. If you manage to surpass what you had planned, then that's a bonus.
The second solution to this situation is not to buy new models, no matter how shiny they are, until you have painted what you already have. Personally, I don't know any gamer who has the willpower to manage this, so almost every gamer I know has a large stock of unpainted models. If you try this, and can stick to it, congratulations.
So, there we go - hopefully some of these ideas will help the local gamer with the constantly unpainted models.
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