The Grey Plastic Epidemic (and how to beat it)

We've all experienced it, the deluge of sprues and grey plastic that are slowly taking over our homes as we cradle our heads in our hands and rock back and forth in the corner of the room from the sheer enormity of the task you've somehow set yourself. The true horror of our plastic addiction is that the newest and prettiest models to release become too irresistible and before we know it we're surrounded by more unfinished projects than we know what to do with . This unfortunate circumstance can lead to anxiety, feelings of being overwhelmed and, worse still, people leaving the hobby before being able to show off their amazing work to the world.

Is this what your hobby area looks like? Well we're here to help!

Well I'm here today dear reader to tell you how you can beat this sickness infecting the hobby, for I was just like you once. I once had the problem of never finishing any of the miniatures I bought, but look at me now, I've gone from painting around 200 points of Necrons a year to painting 700-1000 points instead. I think I've finally cracked the code and I am here to share with you what I changed in my day-to-day hobby life to achieve such a transformation. Maybe you do some of these things already, maybe you don't. Either way I hope this insight provides you with some advice to help you improve your hobby life.

Have your hobby table fully set up and always accessible

One of the biggest killers of motivation for me back in the day is not being able to just jump on to my painting table and do some hobby whenever I wanted. For me, back then (when this blog was still "The Art of Warhammer" even) my hobby preparations were an arduous task of setting up a painting surface, filling up my water pot, hand picking my paints out of my big box of paints and retrieving my paint brushes before I could even begin to think about starting any hobby, then I had to put all that away afterwards. Doing this every day completely killed my hobby mojo and I slowed right down on my productivity, if for no other reason than the time I wasted setting and packing up.

During the (very real) pandemic in 2020, like most people my hobby productivity shot up as I found myself housebound with my now wife when we pretty much just lived in a single bedroom together. Because it became such a chore to constantly be setting up for something I was doing every day, I got myself a tiny little table, the world's most uncomfortable fold up chair and permanently set them up in the corner along with my project box. Sure it was cramped, sure it was uncomfortable, but the important thing is it worked, and my motivation for my hobby had lasted even past the lockdown as I was putting paint to plastic every day.

Now I have a proper, purpose built table set up in the corner of our small flat, complete with paints, a light, my paint brushes and a (usually) filled water pot, and I sit at this desk when I have no need for the sofa. What I found this does is encourage me to look at whatever miniatures I have in progress at the time and that makes me think "Oooo, I can quickly do this layer whilst I'm sitting here" and before I know it I've done a layer of highlighting on a unit of 10 model, and hey it may not be a lot of progress but it's some progress, and some progress is still progress.

Limit your storage area for unfinished projects

The biggest mistake, as mentioned previously is that people overwhelm themselves with too much plastic and end up just staring at the ever growing pile as if it were an endless abyss that will one day claim their soul. Such a sight is sure to drive anyone to the brink of insanity.

What I have discovered is by limiting the space I use for each of my projects I have a much more focused and disciplined approach to my hobby. I have a hobby cabinet that I use each section of for one or two projects each - currently one is home to all my Necron items, another (smaller) section is home to my combat patrols and skirmish game units and my third section is reserved for my Old World and Horus Heresy projects.

My current "advanced" games cabinet

But what do you do when you have too many kits for your limited space for projects yet unrealised? Well there are a couple of solutions to this problem, both of which I have utilised myself:

1. Sell off the excess - Have a the difficult chat with yourself. Are you realistically going to paint 5 Intercessor squads in the foreseeable future or are you going to mix it up with some tanks and characters over the next few years? Check out your local club, hobby groups online and even ebay and make a little cash for yourself as an added bonus. It's difficult to let go of your purchases especially knowing you likely paid decent dollar for it, but it will be better for you and your hobby as a whole in the long run.
2. Consolidate your bits into smaller boxes - No I don't mean moving your projects 3" towards your nearest objective! Experiencing an overwhelming sense of how much hobby you have to do is mostly a visual thing. Take your existing kits and consolidate them into as few boxes as possible, that way if you run out of projects to do you can just pick up said box(es) and have a rummage around to see if anything tickles your fancy, for example 90% of my untouched Necron kits are contained in an old Megaforce box I got yonks ago. You can take this one step further like I have by getting yourself some small, resealable baggies, clipping the individual parts off your existing sprues and separating them out to save on space those plastic frames will inevitably take up.
   
   

Keep the bulk of your paint schemes simple!

Nothing kills someone's hobby mojo faster than a cool but complex paint scheme that has to be repeated over and over again over tens or even hundreds of models. I fell into this pit time and time again, it's why my Ultramarine army never really expanded past a couple of combat squads and some epic heroes. Indeed, even with my Necrons I went through a couple of painting methods before I settled on my current scheme.

My biggest piece of advice is to come up with way of painting your miniatures where the bulk of the model can be done in two, maybe three layers tops if you're using washes or contrast paints. As an example, whilst the reds/oranges and blacks/greys on my Necrons take a bit more effort than the rest of my models (especially the reds/oranges) the silvers are super easy and I can do them in under ten minutes for a unit of ten as they are literally sprayed leadbelcher and have a layer of wash slapped on top of them. Likewise the new army I am working on is a layer of wash followed by a highlight and they already look amazing. You can still get great results using really simple methods!

D J's metal recipe involves just an undercoat and a wash

Paint what you want, not what you feel you need to paint

I cannot emphasise the importance of this point enough. If you're a tournament player that just wants to slap down some miniatures on the table and to hell with how they look then you can kind of ignore this point, however if you are much more invested in the building/painting aspect of the hobby then this definitely applies to you. Always paint what you want, not what you feel like you have to paint, you'll feel more motivated that way.

As an example of this, my recently painted C'Tan Shard of the Void Dragon took me over a year to paint from start to finish, but I didn't solely work on this model all that time. I was hugely motivated to get it painted up until a certain point and then I wanted to paint other things. I ended up painting eleven units in that time along with some objective markers. At the end of last year I finally got the itch to finish it and, a month later it was done and I genuinely believe it came out looking better for it. Had I rushed it or just simply given up on it because I had run out of motivation I honestly believe it wouldn't have come out anywhere near as well as it did in the end.

Paint a little everyday

Honestly, even if you don't feel like it, just pick up a brush and paint for ten minutes. If you let the hobby steam run out for a few days it'll become the norm and procrastination will take over as your new hobby. Painting a little, but frequently will help keep you in that good habit and you'll be smashing out painted model after painted model before you know it.

Hobby Bingo!

Finally, and this might just be me projecting my own preferences onto this article but I truly believe that hobby bingo makes people more productive, there's no better feeling than being able to visualise all the hard work you've already put into your hobby to spur you to do more, plus Hobby Bingo becomes a game in and of itself as you can then decide on your next project by seeing how many rows/columns you can complete before the end of the year. It's more fun and a lot less restrictive than your typical hobby to-do list.

D J's hobby bingo from last year

If you want to start a hobby bingo of your own you can head on over to our downloads section for our latest hobby bingo sheet and get the creative juices flowing as you plan your next project!

And that's it for all the hobby advice I have for now! Is there any other hobby articles you would like to see on the blog in the future? Or do you have an army of your own you'd love to share with us now you've got your own hobby mojo in gear? Let us know by emailing us at dj.driver.theprojectside@gmail.com!

- D J Driver