Imperial Knight progress & motivation

The Imperial Knight continues. Slooowly.

I've passed through stages 1 and 2 and caught myself veering into 3 and possibly 4 recently. I recognise the signs because I don't think I've ever painted or kitbashed a mini without even a 5 minute "this isn't working, OMG I suck waaaaah" moment.

I had a bad case of stage 3 and 4 on the Morkanaut. which is why that took about 5 months to finish.

So - time to break out all the tried and true techniques to get through it:

1. Reduce scope. Instead of aiming for a solid one or two hours painting (and feeling like crap) I try for just a 15 minute painting session. Instead of batch painting 5 minis, I focus on 1 or 2 guys.
2. Paint more. Given I'm only painting for 15 mins, why not aim for four or five 15 minute sessions. I start to see progress more rapidly, rather than just an arduous saga of painting that lies ahead.
3. Start a small side project. I just put an undercoat of Chaos Black on three Reaper Bones minis to be used for my monthly D&D session.
4. Ban myself from buying anything new until its done. A combo of carrot and stick. If I finish the project, I get the new shiny. But, no new shiny until the project is done! But I wants it my preciousssss..... tough!
5. Play a game of 40k. If only I had my Imperial Knight finished, I could totally have won (probably not, but its nice to dream).
6. Remember every other project that looked like congealed crap until that point 80% of the way through when suddenly it looks ok, and then awesome. Welcome to stages 5 and 6.

So. The Knight might (might? will) not be finished by end of March as planned. But eventually it will get done, and it will be awesome. In the meantime, keep on painting....