The Dreaded Painting Block

If you have been following my blog on a regular basis you know that I have been working steadily, albeit slowly, on my Sci/Fi diorama for the upcoming painting competition, which is this weekend. Its not finished and its not going to be finished. As I started to hit that final detail stage I completely hit a wall and my desire to finish it has come to a standstill. I have forced my way through a couple of the secondary character miniatures but I can't seem to raise the enthusiasm for the project. 

My usual solution is to start something else to get the creative juices flowing and rejuvenate my enthusiasm again. To this end I pulled out the unit of Amazon archers. Well I hit the wall on those last night too. I have stutter started on the skin tones and now I'm back to something closer to what I started with. Which is fine but it means that there really isn't much visible progress, except the eyes, I painted eyes last night. Still, I find myself staring at them uncertain where to go next.

Like many gamers, and railroaders for that matter, I have a list of projects a mile long and, for the most part, have everything I need to complete them; WWI USMC, modern USMC, Union ACW, TYW Danes and British Napoleonics. On top of that I have the town of Calamity that is begging me to return to it and get the boards built so I can run some games. And lets not forget that I have AWI miniatures and books coming as well. Then there are the railroads, granted my Colorado & Northwestern in On30 is really going hand in hand with my town of Calamity so there really isn't any track to lay at this point but my HO AT&SF Patch District has been languishing for a number of years now and I do want to get back to that as well. 

I find I'm not actually overwhelmed with the number of projects that I have but that all my enthusiasm for doing any of them has waned, well except for the AWI which lets me do some research which I love doing.

So none of my regular tricks to get back to being excited about painting seems to be working right now. Genghis Con is this weekend and I'm teaching a class tomorrow on basic basing. ReaperCon is coming up at the end of April and I'm going to have to push really hard to have more than a couple of entries ready for that. Maybe after the convention this weekend and being exposed to a bunch of other painters will get my enthusiasm up again. I am looking forward to the auction on Friday night, I always enjoy talking about and selling games so maybe that will help fuel the fires again.

Its so close I can taste it

A finished boxcar for Calamity. I have actually finished quite a few cars for this railroad. I think I finished 4 box cars; RGS, D&RGW, CC and DSP&P

The last batch of WWI US Marines. 15 28mm Marines in mixed USMC and Army uniforms.

A new mini for my Pathfinder Dwarf character

The auction at Tacticon last Labor Day. The Genghis Con version is even bigger

The Dave "Mac" miniature for Calamity

Part of my ACW Union Army. There are 10 stands in each line, 3 minis per stand so 180 15mm miniatures in this picture. These are mounted for Fire & Fury and will work with either the original Brigade level rules or the new Regimental level rules.

Part of my British Napoleonic Army. There are 4 stands in each line, 8 minis per stand so 160 15mm miniatures in this picture. These are based for LaSalle, I'm going to change them to Napoleon's Battles which will work for Age of Eagles as well.

And maybe this is what I really need