"Ever want to just toss it all and start over?" Topic

My lead mountain could keep me employed painting for years to come. Therin lies the problem. It is too big. Knowing I will likely never finish even the projects I still have interest in completing, let alone the projects I have lost interest in, makes me feel like just unloading the whole lot and starting over from scratch.

Just get a fresh start and only buy new figures when I have painted the existing figures. Strictly discipline myself to work on one project at a time.

Instead, I'm waiting for more Kickstarted miniatures to join teh ones I have now.

I did manage to prep and prime another small project worth of figures. Painting them will be a change of pace. Why is unpainted lead so shiny?

The struggle is real… :)

I feel like I'm constantly jumping around between projects. I've decided to stick to just one for the foreseeable future, but I'll be on to something totally different after that!

I have a lot of "old" projects that I should just sell off, but I just can't bring myself to do it…

Well, now that I have about 4 or 5 inches of water in the house, and the water keeps rising, there's a lot of MDF and card terrain pieces that will need to be tossed.

That means more room for more stuff!!!

Dan

@Cacique Caribe,

I take it you live in Texas, and offer my sincere condolences. You seem to be taking it a lot more equably than I could manage.

I found a pro-painter that took unpainted figures as well as money as payment. This solved two problems – too many figures and not enough time to paint them.

I have done. It is the one thing I have some regrets about. I don't regret getting rid of most of it, but getting rid of all of it was stupid. I should have kept just a few things.

I've been shedding projects like a wet dog shaking for two years, and I'm not done yet. But more of what I'm keeping is complete and ready to fight every few months.

Neal Smith +1

Oh….shiny…..

Yea, every once in awhile I get that feeling.

I do massive purges all of the time to relieve me of those situations – the club is about to benefit from a WWII unpainted clear out as I am determined that I am done now.

I have done it several times when I decided my collection was not that fun anymore and didn't fit what I wanted to work on. No regrets yet.

I have done it as well, with no regrets but a touch of sad nostalgia when I think back on what once was.

When I moved to Europe nearly twenty years ago (egad!), I took absolutely nothing gaming-wise with me. Therefore when I found that computer games were a poor substitution for the hobby, I started over from scratch. It didnīt help- I still found myself with a mountain of figures I could never hope to paint even in a thousand lifetimes.

Fortunately there is a happy ending. My girlfriendīs 15 year old daughter loves to paint figures! Especially cavalry! I am truly blessed. Of course I pay her, as being someone who truly hates to paint, I cannot imagine her doing it without compensation, but she says she really enjoys it. The icing on the cake is that she is a perfectionist and her work is really outstanding!

I guess the moral of this story is to find some inexpensive help, preferably from young eyes with a love for painting.

I don't know what is more "madness", having a giant lead pile, or wanting to toss it all and start over…..because you know that you will just end up with a new lead mountain.

Why all the agonizing over unpainted figures? They are just a means to an end and, unless storing them is a major problem, why worry? If they never get painted, so what? The other side of the coin is not having the necessary figures at hand when one is ready to paint and work on a project. So maybe having a "lead mountain" is not always bad. Selling unpainted figures is pretty much a waste of time and resources. You won't get much for them. Just think of them as potential that could be turned into treasures in the future. But focus on projects, one at a time, whatever interests you, and get them done!

The other side of the coin is not having the necessary figures at hand when one is ready to paint and work on a project. So maybe having a "lead mountain" is not always bad.

I used to feel that way. I bought cool minis on closeout, and squirreled them away, and yes, they were there when I wanted to start something new. But I did that for decades, and there is a multiplier effect.

Why all the agonizing over unpainted figures? They are just a means to an end and, unless storing them is a major problem, why worry?

Because having them around represents a failure to meet my own expectations. It's not like I am broken beneath the burden of it, but it IS there. Selling dead minis projects off is, for me, liberating.

Selling unpainted figures is pretty much a waste of time and resources. You won't get much for them.

I some cases, I get much more than I paid for them (classic GW). In others, not so much. But trading and selling them here, I figure they might go so someone who appreciates them.

In many cases, the MSRP has gone up considerably since I bought them, so even selling them at an attractive discount doesn't really leave me with loss. I have sold them all off now, but I had lots of Old Glory with $25 USD price tags on them. And I have no idea what you mean about time and resources. I ship lots of stuff for Ebay, packing and shipping this stuff off hardly puts me out.

I tell myself, "if you want them back later on, just buy new ones". Is that a waste of money? Sure. but of all that I've sold off, and it is a LOT, I have yet to re-buy any. There's my justification.

It makes no sense to eliminate stuff you're likely to revisit. How about simply "chuck what you'll never use"?

Did this once many years ago. Now I am back to huge unpainted piles again. I never really rebought the stuff I dumped. I am ready to purge again and at my age I know I will not reestablish the overwhelming lead pile.

OkieGamer – For me, storage is becoming a problem! :)

I made the mistake of "organizing" the storage of one "period's" figures and realized just how bad the addiction was!!!! :)

My fear is I won't survive long enough to paint all I have. And occasionally I see a few new things that I want to add to my inventory …

I am haunted by the specter of William Randolph Hearst. Weeks after he was dead, stuff he bought was still arriving.

I want to buy no more game stuff than I actually use, and not to leave my son or grandson with a hopeless pile they can't properly dispose of. So completed armies and fewer of them as I get older. A little lead to paint on a quiet evening is fine, but I'm well beyond that.

Oh heavens no, I haven't got to the end yet!

If you're lucky, like me you'll eventually at least get to the point where those occasional urges to 'complete' unpainted part-armies with a very large 'one-off' order are quickly crushed beneath the psychological weight of Lead Mountain. Fortunately I now find that when that feeling arises, for a brief moment it burns intensely, then it fizzles out well before any money can depart these sunny shores for the heavy duty lead pushers of the northern hemisphere; the desire is no longer sustainable.

No.