Hey, everyone...

I get ideas. Lots and lots of ideas. I'm sure you do, too, so that's why I'm starting this up.

The problem I have is that sometimes I end up with so many ideas that I can't follow through on them all, and I have seven half-finished projects. I know, I should "just pick one and finish it, then move on to the next," but that is much easier said than done. I guess the main hitch is that I'll get a new idea while I'm working on one project, maybe sparked from something else I'm doing in the first. So, I get all excited to try out this new idea, and the old one gets pushed aside, onto the pile of pushed-aside projects.

Does anyone else deal with this kind of thing? How do you get around it?

Only seven?
I have like 30 projects in various stages of completion. That's only conversions, and I probably forgot about a couple scratchbuilds.
Getting through them - and painting them - is my major new year's resolution.

Ah, the frustration of temptation.

I figured that the easiest way to deal with the drive to paint up everything was not to actually build playable armies.

I have one army per system that I actually play. Everything else is a little side project to keep painting a thousand Dwarfs fresh.

I used to go into a project with a cool concept in mind, point out a 1850-point list, buy all the figures and promptly be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of unpainted metal. That killed my enthusiasm really quickly and actually completing it would be such a chore I would usually just sell the new army the minute it was completed.

Nowadays I'll get a little tired of painting Dwarfs, so I'll buy a Wood Elf Lord and paint him up nicely. I get to play around with a new pallette and use different techniques. Then, going back to drybrushing a ton of chainmail and beards isn't so torturous.

I typically keep a list of all my "cool ideas" in a file, be it warhammer or other. Then i wait 2 weeks. If it still seems like a cool idea after 2 weeks, and if i have the drive to start it up, i look at what i have left to do on all the other projects. I then pick a project that i can live with it being on the sidelines for a little while, and park it (making no pretenses of doing work on it)

Right now i have Eldar as my main goal for painting W40k and i have a side project of painting up Khador Warmachines minis. Terrain projects, my Tyranids etc. have all been sidelined.

It's amazing how many cool ideas fall out of my mind after 2 weeks. This is also a great way of figuring out if you "really" need to spend x00$ on that new console/tv/computer piece.

Believe me i know, I'm doing a blood angles battle company and now i feel like also doing a imperial fists battle company. but im not shelling out anouther 480$ to make that happen any times soon:D

You need a wife who monitors your projects and limits you to so many. Not that I have one... but sometimes wish she would :D

I keep a Word file of ideas that I've had for conversions or themes that I want to do. I also limit myself to one fantasy army and one 40K army at a time (Space Marines and Bretonnia), although I desperately want to start new ones (Orks, Orcs and Goblins, Daemon Hunters, Witch Hunters, Imperial Guard, Dwarves, Empire, and Vampire Counts). God knows what would happen if any of the places around here that I liked actually started seriously running the Privateer Press games.

In short, keep a record of what you want to do in the future, get the ideas on paper. This is also cathartic in that planning the project can help cool your ardor for it to the point where you aren't frantic about it. The second secret is just willpower.

Tekore

It sounds strange, but the impulse is often not that good upon further scrutiny, so try this. Next time you get an idea, by all means, write it down. You never know, it could be a good one, but DO NOT let it derail you from your current project, otherwise you'll do what I did, and wind up with a pile of metal and plastic that amounted to... well, nothing besides a huge waste of money.

Casting aside this uber-kewl idea, or that uber-kewl idea, in order to finish this 1,000-point project you thought was great but now seems boring is a H-A-R-D thing to do, but I promise you it's worth it. It builds discipline, for one. Without naming names, I've seen many people on many forums (not just LO) who are far more creative than I, and far better painters, but I have a 1,000-point necron army, painted to "substandard" levels, while they have nothing but half-built and half-painted stuff to show for all their great concepts. Ideas are only really good, and only earn real respect from others, if you FINISH what you start.

In addition, what you do finish will serve as inspiration. Now that I have 1,000 points of necrons, the idea of boosting it to 1,500 (when I have time in between my marine stuff, that is), doesn't seem so daunting, as opposed to hundreds of points worth of UNPAINTED stuff staring me in the face.

So what about your ideas? Keep them written down, maybe even a few quick sketches to go with them.

Then, when you FINISH YOUR CURRENT PROJECT (ahem!) go back and look at the list. You might be surprised to find one or two of the ideas you had that you were SURE would be AWESOME now seem to be... well... lame. This is your own way to test how strongly you REALLY feel about something. The ideas you go back to later on paper that still sound like good ideas, well, THOSE are the ones you should pursue... one at a time, of course :D

Canew says everything I would have liked to, and better. Cheers to that.

Tekore

So, basically, I'm getting two messages. The first is, make a list; write down these ideas to help filter out the bad ones, or come back to any of them later. To a degree, I do this; I have a folder on my jumpdrive with all of the 40K stuff I do in a variety of formats, and some things in that folder have come and gone more than once. The ones I'm really interested in, though, stay and usually get re-visited.

The second message I see is, finish something, because a finished project is worth a dozen half-done ones. I tend to agree with this, although, like I've said, very often this is easier said than done. When a "project" is a one-model conversion, that's simple enough. But, the "projects" I'm considering are entire armies and scenery tables. I require patience, but a little discipline is called for as well.

And, as much as I hate to do it, I might have to abandon a few projects. I started the Blood Drinkers Chapter mainly because the Codex was free and I wanted an army that was easier to use (a debate for another thread; sorry). But, when you get down to it, my heart's really not in it, so I may put them on a shelf. The models from that Battleforce, though, I might use for something else entirely, like this Chaos Legion Ive got brewing in the back of my mind...

Hmmm. Well, what I usually do is try to schedule it. Even though I just started, I have about two or three that I'm in various stages of completing. What I try to do is actually just go with whatever I feel like doing at the moment. If I want to prime and paint my Dark Elf Warriors their spiffy new colours, I'll go do that. If I feel like fiddling with my Dark Elf Noble conversion, I'll go and do that. I try to do whatever I feel like doing at the time so I don't have all of it everywhere in piles. xD

So, basically, I'm getting two messages. The first is, make a list; write down these ideas to help filter out the bad ones, or come back to any of them later. To a degree, I do this; I have a folder on my jumpdrive with all of the 40K stuff I do in a variety of formats, and some things in that folder have come and gone more than once. The ones I'm really interested in, though, stay and usually get re-visited.

Booyah! You got it! If it can't hold your interest over time ON PAPER, it won't at the modeling and painting stages either.


The second message I see is, finish something, because a finished project is worth a dozen half-done ones. I tend to agree with this, although, like I've said, very often this is easier said than done. When a "project" is a one-model conversion, that's simple enough. But, the "projects" I'm considering are entire armies and scenery tables. I require patience, but a little discipline is called for as well.

Well, yeah, if it were THAT easy, there'd be no point, and no sense of accomplishment once it's done. Finishing things also helps when deciding what projects to pursue in the future, too. If, for example, you're going through your jump drive for inspiration, the more projects you finish, the better idea you'll have about how much work and patience you'll need to bring certain new ideas to reality. That narrows the field ("Hmm, I'll save that one for when I've got more time")


And, as much as I hate to do it, I might have to abandon a few projects. I started the Blood Drinkers Chapter mainly because the Codex was free and I wanted an army that was easier to use (a debate for another thread; sorry). But, when you get down to it, my heart's really not in it, so I may put them on a shelf. The models from that Battleforce, though, I might use for something else entirely, like this Chaos Legion Ive got brewing in the back of my mind...

That's what Simple Green is for :D

Well, I always have crazy ideas for terrain running around in my head. As they're normally gothic buildings, I'll draw out something to see if my idea is even feasable, figure out dimensions and specifics (although, if I showed these to anyone, no one would have any clue what they were, even I have problems later on), and then I play around with SketchUp for a while to see what it would look like. Tweak things here and there, mentally note where I'd add things I can't possibly do on that program, and then I do the two week thing after that's done. Now, it's quite time consuming to do the thing almost completely on the computer, but when I come back later and say to myself, "Well that's crap," I haven't spent any money, and I can use any lessons I learned in new projects.

Does anyone else deal with this kind of thing? How do you get around it?

I think that smart people call it Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - there are pills for that I am sure 8X

Hey, everyone...

I get ideas. Lots and lots of ideas. I'm sure you do, too, so that's why I'm starting this up.

The problem I have is that sometimes I end up with so many ideas that I can't follow through on them all, and I have seven half-finished projects. I know, I should "just pick one and finish it, then move on to the next," but that is much easier said than done. I guess the main hitch is that I'll get a new idea while I'm working on one project, maybe sparked from something else I'm doing in the first. So, I get all excited to try out this new idea, and the old one gets pushed aside, onto the pile of pushed-aside projects.

Does anyone else deal with this kind of thing? How do you get around it?

I have the exact same thing, way more inspiration and ideas than time and money. First of i always write every idea i have in a little book, that way you collect them for later!

And i usually go for the one i can not resist, the one army that will make me unhappy not to colelct. I also always start with 500pts of any new army, which means i don't have to much stuff to get through and paint!

Basically I have the idea muck about with it, one I have currently is a radical Daemon Hunter teamed with a 13th Company army, then I forget clean about it for a month or two, generally find it later on whilst rooting around and if I still like it I roll with it.

Another good idea is only draw up an initial 850pts list. This means you can field a decent sized playable army relatively fast and keep interested long enough. Then you can always come back to it and add on more units as you wish.