Topic: How to not hate my models as I paint them?

[Syphon]

So I have a weird thing.
The moment I put brush to a model, I hate it. I hate that I can't paint right and I hate that I don't like painting and I hate the model and I hate how I don't have the patience to get any better.

Does anybody recognize this? Have you pushed past this?

[Tyvw]

Yeah I get something similar. Mainly because I'll plan something and then realize it's not as quick or easy as I thought 

I usually paint in batches and focus on painting one colour at a time; and that'll be my goal for the day and I won't worry about anything else.

For example; yesterday I basecoated the grey robes of the flagellants I'm working on. It was pretty easy so I decided to do a layer the robes on my warrior priest as well. I'm planning to do his in white, so it didn't look as good with a single layer on as the darker robes did. But I did my painting for the day and I put them all away.

For today I planned to do the first layer on the grey robes and a second layer on the priest's. Which I did and I still feel like painting so I'm taking a little break and am going to start basecoating the skin. I might get tired of it before they are all done, but I don't mind since I already achieved what I was planning to do and everything else is just a bonus.

And I'll keep plugging away that way for a few days. Usually the minis start to look the part once there's 3-4 colours and some wash on them and that inspires me to finish them and I'll start spending more time painting them. So what I try to do is start early in the week so I get hit by that inspiration just before or during the weekend and I'm excited to paint and have some time to do so.

It works pretty well for me, even though I'm  a pretty slow painter and I get easily distracted..

[GamesPoet]

Have always had to be content with how I paint in the current moment.  That isn't always fun because I'm not a high end, nor high experienced painter. However, not expecting a lot of myself, in terms of quantity and quality, keeps me mentally balanced as I move forward with the projects.

Also, I reserve some time for watching painting videos on youtube.  Whether short or longer, some are better than others.  Regardless, sometimes I pick up small ideas for future use, sometimes I find it is good to watch them more than once, and sometimes I am reminded of other ideas when watching different ones.

Learning a skill is typically works best by giving myself time, allowing myself to make mistakes, slowing myself down, and coming back to some items later.  And painting in batches like I do, provides for painting one color at a time on several to a dozen figures at once, and some figures come out  better than others, or I make mistakes and have to come back and fix eventually.

[Jmash]

Although personally I've had mixed feelings so far, I continue to see good things about the GW Contrast paints. They don't need much skill to whack them on where they're needed, they're quick and if used right you can get some nice results. I've not given up on them yet, only just dipping a toe really.

Flesh colours in particular came out pretty good on faces, reds, browns and blacks I've tried so far on uniforms. They give good coverage and depth/shading in one coat, so if painting isn't your bag maybe give those a try and see if you get some results you're happy with, hopefully with less time and effort?