what motivates you to paint or start painting?

[kturock]

When I get a new game or new army, I start painting.
this year, Killteam, Spearhead and Necromunda started getting played in my area, so I painted the minis for them.
I am running the Conan boardgame at a board gaming convention, so I'm painting some of the minis. I painted a few characters years ago and now it's time for some of the adversaries. I'm finishing 5 hyenas. Next up are some Picts and a shaman.

Sometimes I'll build some or all of a new model or unit, like the dinos for Conquest, but not paint them. Once I start playing, I'll paint or finish painting some of them.

[Ambience 327]

I do my most prolific work when I am going to be running something where other people will be playing with my minis. Back when I was an Outrider for Games Workshop, I never ran demos with unpainted minis (except for when I got ahold of the first version of the MESBG slightly before the release date, a few days before a convention I was running demos at).

Similarly, when I am running D&D for people outside of my immediate family, I am very reluctant to put unpainted minis on the table. (I have done it a few times, and I hate it.)

So I tend to do a lot of last minute work, where the wash or the varnish is dry just a few hours before time to pack things up and head to the game/con/etc.

Alternatively, I occasionally get really excited to paint a specific mini, and spend lots of time lavishing details on it until I am finally happy. Sadly, they don't often end up looking much better than my last-minute, batch-painted speed jobs.