"Painting Time? How Long?" Topic

Hell-0

I was wondering…

When you sit down to get some painting done, how long do you plan on sitting there painting? Or do you plan a painting session at all, or just sit down and start whacking away at it?

How much is the minimum of time do you need to consider a 'worthy' painting session?

If I cannot do at least 1 full hour, I don't even start…

Every minute spent painting is one minute closer to a finished figure. No minimum time.

Al | rivetsandsteam.com

I paint whenever possible. If we're stood by the front door preparing to go out and my wife goes to check the back door is locked, she knows where to collect me from… can always deflash a 15mm figure in that time!

Painting has always been a problem for me – I'm slow and not very good to boot!

This past winter I attempted to form a painting habit. I was inspired by Jervis Johnson's Standard Bearer column in White Dwarf #346 – the topic being 'Making Painting a Habit'. So, here are a couple key points I picked up from the article: Get organized and make a plan. There is still the nagging time element, but…

One quote from the article stands out for me:
"Let's face it, everyone can spare 2-3 hours a week to paint miniatures."

Brilliant! This hits the nail on the head. Two to three hours a week; if we assume the full 3 hours and divide by 7 days in a week we arrive at a mere 25 minutes a day. Now, that doesn't seem to hard – drop the total hours to two and we are sitting at about 17 minutes per day…

So I have set my time windows on a range of from 15 to 25 minutes per session (hopefully per day). Combine this with an organized workspace and a painting plan (five 28mm figures per week in my case). And I can make it work. I don't always hit my target, but when I do it sure feels good…

So, to wind up my longish winded reply – I use 15 minutes a my minimum window of time for painting.

When I get to spend at least one hour painting then it's a good session.

I have my painting station in front of the tv and make it a habit of painting whenever I have a spare moment. The last couple of months, there have been few spare moments, so I've painted virtually nothing. However, summer is usually like this.

My goal would be 5-7 hours a week. I'm lucky if I get 3. It's one of the few things beyond work that I could do for hours. I find it meditative and relaxing. Maybe my lack of painting time lately is the reason I'm so grumpy.

I find that if I have everything together then I can dip in and out of painting, even just for a few minutes. But the key is having a work space you can leave out, with all the stuff to hand. If you have to get things from other places then this can be a big hurdle to getting started.

But I also like to be able to sit down for an hour or so to really make some progress.

I have a dedicated workspace where everything is always at the ready. I also have a bookcase behind me where hundreds of in progress models live for easy access.

So, I will take every free minute that I can get. My favorite and most productive sessions run 10-12 hours, but they only come along once in a blue moon. :-)

20 minutes is about my minimum. 2 – 3 hours a good session. Sometimes I can paint all day but that's less often than in the past.

My painting station usually gets put away between projects but while working on something particular I leave it out. I might paint for only a few minutes or up to a few hours at a time. It all depends on three factors…

Is the wife occupied and happy? If the answer to either is 'No' then any painting session will be brief!
Are the kids in bed or out of the house? Nothing gets finished when the kids are around, bless em.
How knackered am I? Lets face it, some times we all have those evenings when we just want to veg. Never paint tired, the results can be messy.

Whatever your style of painting, being organised and disciplined is key. Never leave a job half done and always clean your brushes when you're finished.

BigLee
Blog link

Any time painting is good time.

If I know I have a rememberable segment I can get done I'll paint with as little as 10 minutes. But I prefer to have a big chunk of time (3 or 4 hours) and I can usually only manage that on weekends.

Occasionally the girlfriend goes away for the weekend, in which case I paint up to 8 or 10 hours in 2 hour segments with breaks in between (vacuuming break, lunch break, clean the bathroom break, dinner break) – however I usually feel drained and achy after that!

More normally I only manage an hour depending on what else is happening that evening.

Minimum for me to do anything hobby related is 2-3 hours reasonably sure I will not be interrupted. I do not use them all (generally about an hour to an hour and a half used) but I need some time spare to not feel too pressured to enjoy it.

I used to be of the mind set that if I don't have at least and hour and a half that I could devote to painting, I wouldn't do it. What that meant is that I never got anything finsihed as I seldom have more than an hour of free time.

As one of the other posters said, I read the same White Dwarf article and decided to quit looking for the long windows and just do it when I have any free time. Most of my painting sessions are now 30-45 minutes in length. I have an hour long lunch break at work, so on most days I take 10-15 minutes to eat, and the remaining 45 minutes or so are spent painting. At home each night I try to get in some time painting after the kids go to bed as nothing gets done while they are awake. I average anywhere between 2 1/2 to 10 hours a week now, and in the last five months I've finished more than I ever have in the past over a similar period of time.

Making it a habit and be willing to do short 20-30 minute painting sessions is definitely the way to go. I have a friend who is in a gentlemens competition with me to finish painting a reasonbly playable 2,000 point Warhammer army before I finish my army. He's doing Dark Elves and I'm doing Empire. I just finished my 50th model in my army and he's only finished one spearmen which he did to work out his color scheme. He keeps complaining about not having the time, but I keep telling him he does, he just needs to sit down and do it.

Ultimately any amount of time spent painting is a worthy session.

An hour is about as much as I can do in one sitting these days. A back that is getting bad is not my friend at all.

Minimum time is 30 minutes, and I rarely paint solid for more than a couple of hours. When I'm prepping I generally do it at weekends so I can dip in and out for odd slots of time between the various stages. I tend to do more detail painting in the week.

Seldom less than 30 minutes. Seldom more than an hour.

After I put some paint on everything on my table its time to stop and let stuff dry.

mjc

Minimum time for me is usually 30 mins. Maximum is all day, on those rare occasions when the missus takes the kids off my hands for the day.

Usually, I manage an hour long painting session in the afternoon when the kids are having their afternoon nap. I then manage three to four hours painting, four nights a week. One night a week is spent gaming and two nights I have off to spend with the missus.

Domestic bliss.

I try and plan tasks such as, tonight I will finish basing 4 FOG bases and paint X colors on those FOW artillerists.

That usually works out to between 30 minutes and 2 hours unless it's a bad weather weekend in football season in which case it could go 4-6 hours.

Just the other day, while killing time before work, I sat down and base coated the boots/gloves/belts on five Blue Moon aliens I have on my workbench. Ten or so minutes work, and soon to a wash and touchups and highlighting.

Anytime I have time to kill, I will push some mini(s) just a little farther towards completion; every little bit helps! A "session" might last an hour, two at most before I get too fidgety.

Any time there is a basball (Phillies) or hockey (Flyers) game being played. I will listen to them on the radio. I can get quite a lot done during the course of a game.

Tom

Minimum is 30 mins, and that includes getting the stuff out and tidying it away again.

I paint while listening to the radio or watching TV, so a decent painting session is 2 to 3 hours.

Now and then at the weekends i have an all day painting session, probably lasting from 11.00 to 20.00 with meal breaks, going across the road to the corner shop breaks, etc. Those don't happen very often as there is too much else to fill weekends with.

"tidying it away again"

Oh, now if we have to count tidy away time….

The only reason "tidy away" time happens is that my painting table is also my game table.

I haven't had to 'tidy away' for 20 years.

If you don't have one already, you absolutely MUST find a dedicated painting station.

This can be a roll top desk or half a room (not mentioning any names here).

The biggest reason folks do not paint is because they know they have to drag it all out and put it all away. If all you have to do is fill up the water cup and sit down . . .

mjc

Here is my little painting corner…

link

aI have a close up shot too… Sorry about the mess…maid's day off….

I am one of the fortunate few. After being forced out of the Army on a medical, and drawing disability and retirement, my wife told me to stay home(luckily house was paid off before).
So, now I paint every day. I have a dedicated area to work, so always have paints, figs, etc. set up ready to go. On average 4-5 hours per day. I will usually paint up a batch of one scale, such as my 10mm Nappies, then do a couple of chores for an hour or so, then paint up some 15mm FOW stuff, a couple more chores, etc. I only get about 4-5(out of about 20, because my disability precludes sleep), hours because the rest of the time is spent with my girls (when they're around), or with the dogs or even out on the porch reading, hunting, etc. Basically just enjoying retirement, I guess. So I'm luckier than the majority of you guys. Hang in there, your day will come.

I paint when the mood takes me and generally go through spurts where I might paint every day for several months and then not pick up a paint brush for several weeks. When I was younger, I could paint for hours, but these days I find 30 to 45 minute sessions works great (work, family commitments and a hectic running training schedule make life difficult). I'll then take a break, watch TV or play with the kids and then go back and do some more. I tend to paint when the family is watching TV afer dinner, my table is not far away so I can be included in conversation or stick my head around the corner to see what's happenning.

I also find these days I paint what I want and thus have several projects on the go. I get stale painting the same thing for a long time and then I end up not painting or the quality suffers. So, when I start to get bored of painting 15mm WW2, I'll change to 28mm Sci-Fi for a while.

I also find it's good to have all figures deflashed, assembled (if necessary), based and undercoated so that if I want to paint, I can just haul the figure out and start. I think I'd do a lot less if I didn't spend this important prep time in advance.

Like streetline said, I also make use of spare time if I'm waiting. This morning before work I managed to varnish a couple of figures whilst I was waiting for my daughter to get ready for school. Every little bit helps…

I rarely start painting unless I know I can set aside an hour for it.

After three hours, though, either the back or the hands will be aching, so that's the limit.

I try to pre plan a completion time, based on the amount of figs I buy. I keep track of it in my personal blog, and track the completion. I usually can paint about 24-36 in a weeks time, if I have the entire weekend. I cant forcast what Im doing every weekend for the next 4 monthes, so I just average it out. But the completion date, helps me actually stay focused. Its like a challenge, and keeping track of it if fun to…I start at 0% completion to 100% completion, and update it as I complete units or armies. I only paint no more than 500 minis in a 6 month period. Then take 6 monthes off…for I get burned out fast.
tom