Motivation is for chumps

We're nearly halfway through October now, and this means we're also nearly halfway through the latest iteration of Duelling Paintbrushes. So what have I done? Almost nothing.

Why? I have no motivation.

Hobby motivation is a strange and fickle beast. It can't always be predicted, and it can't necessarily be manufactured out of nothing.


I think I am still suffering somewhat from the fallout of the demise of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Whilst it existed as a properly supported game, it gave me a clear focus that aligned with all the effort I had put in over the last however many years. 

When GW pulled the rug out from under WFB, it threw the community into disarray. I think in a lot of ways, most of us are still finding our feet. Despite the fact that we're all still equipped to play WFB whenever we want to, many feel that an unsupported game has no future, and they would rather play something that did. This is probably particularly prevalent in the tournament community, where people are aware of the need for there to be a decent player base for things to survive. That includes the possibility of new players arriving on the scene. This is far less likely when you're dealing with a "dead" game.

The way forward for me is Kings of War. I've now played half a dozen games, and I am still happy with the system. I also think it will be a better tournament game than Warhammer ever was. The first few tournaments are starting to pop up locally, and it seems like it will most likely be the game I play at Cancon next year.

So I have a nominal direction. When I agreed to do Duelling Paintbrushes, I used my head and went for a solution that would require minimal painting to meet the requirements, whilst also targeting some of the obvious gaps in one of my armies when it translates across to KoW. My Dwarf army has no Earth Elementals or Brock Riders, nor anything that would translate across. There you go, easy decision.

Unfortunately, for all that the Dwarf plan was a sensible course of action, I have no enthusiasm for it at the moment. I was going to make some Elementals out of putty (they're made of rock - how hard can it be?), and could have been sculpting them before the challenge even began. After all, I devised the plan months ago. I now have the Brock Riders and have started assembling them (I probably would have finished had I not discovered part way through that they are made of a plastic that doesn't work with plastic cement. That was disappointing). And at no point in the last couple of months have I actually been enthusiastic about working on any of the things I planned to paint.

I have been known to use deadlines like tournaments as motivation for painting a whole lot of stuff in a short time frame. At times I've done it even though I haven't been all that keen on it. Generally it's just a question of building up momentum and just carrying on with it until the job is done. This time I have struggled to convince myself to get moving in the first place. Ultimately I've come to the conclusion that now is not the time to try to force myself into some sort of productivity.

For all of that, I noticed myself fidgeting with other things. I kept opening the wrong army cases when looking for things, and seeing things that offended me. Neglected things. I ended up pulling out some of these things and set about getting them ready to paint - finishing assembly, repairing and undercoating. I did this despite the fact that these models are in no way as practical as the Dwarfs I had earmarked - it's actually more Empire/human cavalry. When I was done with all the repairs and preparations, I found myself with the following undercoated models:

• 14 Kislev Winged Lancers
• 10 Empire Outriders
• 5 Empire Pistoliers
• Elector Count Valmir von Raukov

14 Undercoated Kislev Winged Lancers, parading themselves optimistically around my painting table.

Now let's be clear - I don't need to paint these guys. I have an awful lot of human cavalry ready for the table. But the state of these models was beginning to bother me, so I decided to do something about it. On Friday evening I even made a very modest start on painting the Winged Lancers. I figure I can use them as Mounted Sergeants in KoW (it's an excuse so they're not just competing for space with my 136 other Empire Knights). I also figure that, if I find myself getting up any sort of momentum with these guys, I am going to completely flip my Duelling Paintbrushes plans and focus on humans. There's still a big "if" in there though. 

For now though, you can focus on the fact that others have made more progress than I have (hard to believe as that may be)...
Owen
Drew