It's all in the bases

I've been having a good think about my painting points. 'What else is new?' I hear you ask. Well I've been taking a long hard look at how I approach my projects and how I complete them.

It all started on Monday night. I was chatting to  one of the regulars at my local gaming club about my current projects and he said 'it's awesome how much you've been painting recently. Your stuff's looking really great'. While it's nice to get compliments, it got me thinking: I have been painting a lot recently. Since last July, I've pretty much painted an entire Emperor's Children army for 40k, as well as launching back into my Thousand Sons for 30k, plus some Necromunda stuff. So why don't my painting points reflect that?

So I thought it over and realised something. My problem is the way I paint, or rather the way I almost finish models. Looking back, I've realised that I rarely actually complete models 100%.  I work away at a project until it's more or less done, looking good and just a couple of details to go, then get distracted and move on to something else before it's fully complete. Even if I finish a model, I often end up leaving the bases till later, which means the painting points can't be claimed.

Long story short is that due to my hobby ADD, I've been cheating myself out of a lot of painting points, even though I've been more or less painting whole armies!

So how do I fix this? Well I'm taking the obvious route. I'm going to go back to projects I've been working on recently and do the little bits which will let me claim the points for them. Bases seem to be the biggest offender in this area. As an example, I'll be able to claim 16 points just for adding another layer of washes and trim to finish these Cultists!

I can't believe the amount of easy points I've been missing out on. It seems insane. I think it's just that my mind struggles to focus on those last few boring details which complete those models and gets distracted by the next shiny thing/cool project. I'm even more amazed that I hadn't picked up on the fact that I was doing this until now.

It should be easy enough to fix though. If anything, I could do with a rest from the endless red and gold I've been painting recently, so it'll be nice to go back and break things up somewhat.

The only danger is that I'll get too distracted and forget to work on my Two Week Hobby Challenge, but hopefully I can stay disciplined enough for that not to be an issue.

Expect to see a lot of 'squad completed' posts from me in the next few weeks!

Anyone else run into this kind of problem in the way they paint? I'm sure I can't be the only one who does this.