My Warhammer 40k Blood Angels Are Still Half Gray With My First 11th Edition Game Just Three Days Away

My first game of Warhammer 40k 11th Edition in a long time is three days away, and half my Blood Angels army is still basically gray. That is genuinely where I am at right now, and I am not tidying anything up for this piece.

I picked these Blood Angels up second hand, and what I thought was going to be a quick touch up turned into a full strip and rebuild. I compare it to buying a project car, like my neighbor does, where you realize the only original part left is your own regret. They ate my time, they ate my money, and in return I just get judged by these small half painted red men sitting on a shelf. After all that stripping and rebuilding, I just stopped painting. It has been ages since I touched any of it.

My Blood Angels Came to Me Second Hand, Already Lived In

These Blood Angels came to me already lived in, which I think is a pretty good way to describe the state they were in. I thought a quick touch up would sort them out, but that touch up turned into a full strip and rebuild before I ever got to actually painting them properly.

Once the rebuild was done, the painting itself just stalled. It has been ages since I picked up a brush on this army, not because I went off Warhammer, but because I hit what I can only describe as creative differences with the hobby.

My Desk Is Total Chaos, No Staging for the Camera

Before getting into any of the painting, I wanted to show my desk exactly as it is, with no staging and nothing shuffled out of shot. That means the chaos, the brushes that have seen things, and paints that may or may not legally still count as liquid. I said if there is a pot in there that has achieved sentience, we would find that out together.

My water pot is the bottom of a protein shaker. My paints live in a varnish tub. My palette is apparently a bit controversial because people do not like it, but I do not care, because it works for me. My brushes are originally from Hobbycraft, and they have held up better than my confidence has. I also have a new set of brushes from Tesseract Minis that I have not been brave enough to try yet, because I do not feel qualified to use them.

My Hobby Philosophy: If You Don't Want to Do It, Don't Do It

My whole philosophy is that if you do not want to do something, do not do it, unless it is paying your rent or going to work so you stay employed. Everything else is optional, and I think that is the entire point of a hobby.

I said the fact that it is fine to not do it is basically the whole ethos of what I put out: no gatekeeping, no pretending my desk looks like a Games Workshop advert, just honest hobby stuff at whatever pace you can manage. My pile of shame is judging me at this point, and it is just disappointed, so I do not make eye contact with it and I do not look at it.

What Actually Filled My Last Four Months Away From Painting

Asked what the last few months have actually looked like, my honest answer is busy, just not with the right thing. I have been out in my camper van a lot and been to a couple of festivals. I attempted to build some LEGO that is sitting right next to me. I also started a new solo role playing game, which is essentially just me talking to myself with dice.

On top of that, I never really stopped playing Knights of the Old Republic, even though I tried to start it again properly. I just cannot leave Darth Revan, because I love him too much. A break from painting somehow turned into a break the length of the extended editions of Lord of the Rings, repeated for about five months.

I'm a Genuinely Average Painter and Comparison Is the Thief of Joy

I describe my relationship with painting as complicated, lots of will they, won't they, mostly landing on won't. I am a genuinely average painter, and I am not fishing for compliments when I say that. My Blood Angels looked like they had been painted with a spoon in the dark when I got them, and honestly they do not look a lot better now either. Hours of repetition just gets me to fine, which feels like grinding experience points and realizing you are still under leveled for the boss fight.

I have muted a lot of painting and Warhammer accounts online, not because they are bad, but because they are annoyingly good, and I said "comparison is the thief of joy." Watching cozy paint along videos with beautiful setups and beautiful miniatures leaves me feeling like I was proud of my own work until I saw theirs. I lean hard on self deprecating humor, but I am not blind to the fact that some people in this hobby are genuinely skilled and that deserves respect. I am just not that person, and I will hide a bit I know looks bad by rotating the model so I cannot see it anymore.

Keeping the Hobby Budget Friendly With a Secondhand Desk and Six Year Old Paints

Life is expensive and Games Workshop prices things like everyone has a trust fund, which is part of why my Blood Angels are second hand and previously traumatized but financially sensible. I used to sit on my living room floor like a Victorian child told to be quiet, and my back and my coffee table both hated it. The desk I use now came off Facebook Marketplace, sitting on some lady's driveway looking like it had emotionally checked out, and I thought it was perfect for me.

My chair is probably twenty years old and I do not care. When you hit a slump and see everyone else's online setups, your brain tells you new stuff will fix it: new desk, new paints, new brushes, a new personality. That feels like a solid plan for about five minutes, until your bank account reminds you it is not. I am still using the original Citadel paints from lockdown, six years old, and they still work. I said, "It's about momentum, right? Not perfection."

My Plan to Get Back Into Painting Before Friday's Game

My actual plan is to lower the bar. I am not aiming for Golden Demon, I am aiming to paint one thing without wandering off to do something else. I compared it to going back to the gym after a break: you do not walk in trying to deadlift what you were lifting before in front of strangers, you ease yourself back in.

The plan is to use what I have got, no new purchases, nothing about starting again once I have better gear. Paint something small, not the model or the brushes you are terrified of. Then make it enjoyable, whether that is music, a podcast, or gameplay footage in the background, because whatever kills the pressure helps, and the second painting starts to feel like a task, you will dodge it like every other task.

Nothing is going to be fully done within three days, but I said the one model I was working on through this piece will be finished. I am publicly committing to finishing that model before Friday, and I am aiming for two more on top of it, three in total. Whether you are genuinely talented at this or more in my camp, just trying not to ruin it halfway through, I think there is room for you here, and being in a slump does not mean you are falling out of the hobby.

What does your version of avoiding the hobby look like?