"Favorite Show to Watch in Background while painting?" Topic

What's your favorite show to watch in the background while painting and working on assembling/preparing models?

Mine lately has been Star Trek, ranging from the original series all the way through to Enterprise.

I also like Doctor Who, Being Human, and the various Gordon Ramsey shows, as I find it comforting hearing that guy shred some buffoon for lack of common sense, and the inability to fry an egg properly. lol

I'm also from North America, but I really enjoy BBC America, since TV here in the states really is crap anymore.

Sports

Sports for me too or whatever is on the History Channel.
With sports, I can keep my ears on the game, while most of the time keeping my eyes on the miniature being painted.

I find myself way too distracted if the TV is on. I try to stick to theme music.

Scrubs.

English Premier League Soccer or Rugby. Other than that I like Time Team or the Daily Show

Big Bang Theory, Top Gear, Wooster and Jeeves, EPL soccer and Firefly have been some of my standards.

Anything that I don't have to pay too much attention to. No TV though only DVDs or videos. I try to avoid movies I haven't seen before, as I spend more time watching them than painting. I usually wheel out some old favourites that I know, more or less, word for word like Battle of Britain, Zulu, or Where Eagles Dare.

I have a Netflix subscription and have gone through dozens of complete series either on DVD or with their Watch It Now feature: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Angel, Nevermore, Sliders, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., BattleStar Gallactica, Supernatural (just started season 3), Farscape, Babylon 5, Kings, Life, Heroes, Lost, Smallville, Hercules, Xena (I find it hard to paint while this one is on, so I only made it through Season 1…it is so bad at time you just can't help watching and that gets in the way of painting), South Park, Archer, Better of Ted, Pushing Daisies, The IT Growd, Rome, Deadwood, and Red Dwarf to name just a few. Of actual TV shows that are current I like to paint during Colts, Browns and Ravens NFL games, Entourage, Stargete: Universe, Legend of the Seeker and Merlin….oddly, I often don't even know what the characters look like but can identify them quite well by their voices.

Of all of these shows I get the most done while watching Buffy. I never watched this show when it was on the air, but I find the easy flow of the dialog and the occasional one liner to be very conductive to painting.

I like everything off but the lights :) I've had porn on for ambience while painting Amazons.

I listen to the director commentaries on movies I've bought over the years ..

Sean Hannity.
I can ignore him while I paint.

Movies on DVD . DVD series , UFO for Sci fi , Rat patrol for historic, Lord of the Rings , for Fantasy .

Any of the 'Property Porn' programmes, I can happily ignore them.
@Impala, how did you keep the strokes even?

"I listen to the director commentaries on movies"

I do the same!!

BTW NEVER listen to the "Total Recall" commentary

I don't watch television. It's bad for you.

I like to watch stuff I know backwards, so that I'm not too distracted. My Alan Partridge and Father Ted box sets come in handy.

I listen to podcasts and old time radio shows… though lately I've also been watching movies on Netflix streaming using the Ipad… 'one-eye movies'… things I don't really need to pay much attention to.

I can only do grunt work while watching TV, like trimming, priming, making armatures, etc. For painting or sculpting, the stereo gets cranked up loud (okay, as loud as I can without waking up the kids, which, when I think about it, isn't really that loud. Sigh.)

Lately it has been Farscape via Netflix streaming or whatever is playing on SyFy channel. :P Last year it was Law and Order on USA Network, I think I "watched" every episode atleast twice. :)

Director's commentaries are good, as are complete Futurama seasons. Futurama commentaries are funny!… and there's one for every episode.

Kosta

Porn here too. I can't paint like I want to, as I have a copy of 'Louisiana s 2' but don't want to spoil the plot of the first one.

Pat

Bill, you seriously need to improve the filter – I had to edit that twice to get both bleeps.

Pat

Golf

Cable programing: White Collar, Burn Notice, Eureka, Haven, Covert Affairs, Santuary, and a couple of others I can't think of right now. TIG

I prefer old war movies that I've already seen a couple of dozen times. I can almost lip sinc some of them, and I can see in my minds eye exactly what is going on visually, so there's no need to stop what I'm doing and refocus on the tv screen which ultimately will give me a headache.

I only ever listen to music while I am painting. I find I can't "watch" anything at all except the figure in my hand that's getting painted.

Audio books. I am listening to Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle right now and trying mightily to resist ordering ECW or Malburian troops.

Not a lot, my painting desk faces away from the TV so I only ever get to hear whats on, so normally Family Guy or American Dad.

I stream programmes from BBC iPlayer or Channel 4. I most often listen to radio shows, especially crime or comedy but will also watch various TV programmes. US ones like Big Bang Theory or How I met your Mother. UK ones like whatever comedies are currently on such as Mitchell and Webb or QI. Sometimes I have a binge on archived series and watch half a dozen episodes from 4oD in a sitting.
I also watch the Swedish prog Wallender but can only do things like prepping figures as I have to read the subtitles.

Show has to have good audio. Anything to visual will distract me from, you know, looking at the figs.

Used to put on movies I have seen a lot. Like Starship Troopers or Blade. These days, Tivo will find something easy to put on: Supernatural, Angel, some History Channel nonsense. Also, shows I have seen a lot. Firefly, Home Movies, Justice League…

Whatevers on TCM or AMC. I like the old B horror movies too,they are easy to ignore.

World at War usually gets a complete play-through for a big project. Baseball used to be another good one, but it has disappeared from UK TV except for one pay channel – lack of demand alas.

I usually put in a movie or documentary that is of the same time period I am painting.

WWII: Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Kelly's Heroes, and etc..

WWII Naval: Midway, and etc..

ACW: Gettysburg, Ken Burn's Documentary and etc..

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Attack of the Clones, and etc..

AWI: The Patriot, and etc..

Colonial: Zulu, Zulu Dawn, and etc..

Radio 4 from the BBC or Croatia's HRT 1

on occasion BBC's radio 7.

How can you watch s0mething while painting?

(That's 3 nominations if we are counting)

Back in the 90's…(gods that sounds sooooo old)…I used to paint while listening to Art Bell…and then when his show did the repeat second half, I would switch on the tube and watch Dr. Gene Scott…it made for some amazing evenings…