Perfectionism: Curse or Blessing?

[Herb the bitter]

I\'ll admit it, I\'m a perfectionist. I think this can be a good trait considering the hobby. It has driven me to improve dramatically over the years but...

It seems I can never look back at a mini I was happy with a few months ago without being drawn to the flaws instead of the good.

So the very thing that drives me to improve also is the root of my dissatisfaction. Anyone else suffer from this?

 

[Treacherous_1]

i know where your coming from..

perfectionism i believe gives you ability to excel at a talent. problem is as you have already said as you improve you detect flaws on your old minis that you can do far better, which always gives you the feeling that they are not your best projects. likewise it gives you the desire to improve yourself too.

perfectionism is particulary a hinderence when you are taking on a paint job of a whole army! you want all the minis to look as good as your showcase. the talent lies in knowing at what point to say NO MORE! getting it to an acceptable level and leaving it is so hard to do but a must if you want a fully painted army. thats what ive found anyway. obviously there are tricks of the trade but im yet to learn them.

 

[Sturmhalo]

We should start a club - \'Perfectionists Anonymous\'.

The reason I have so little in the way of painted minis is because after a few years I end up stripping old models because I\'m no longer happy with them.

Spending time getting a paint job just right is also a pain in the arse when you\'re a figure painter by trade. It\'s the whole time v money thing. Difficult to get right when you\'ve got a rep based on figures you\'ve spent days working on. People will only pay up to certain amount, regardless of how good the work is. What do you do? Produce the best quality work you can and make a loss, or reduce the quality to get the right money but at the expense of your rep?

 

[Cerridwyn1st]

Not necessarily perfectionism

Originally posted by Herb the bitter
I\'ll admit it, I\'m a perfectionist. I think this can be a good trait considering the hobby. It has driven me to improve dramatically over the years but...

It seems I can never look back at a mini I was happy with a few months ago without being drawn to the flaws instead of the good.

So the very thing that drives me to improve also is the root of my dissatisfaction. Anyone else suffer from this?

The \"look back and grimmace\" is a common problem for anyone who\'e skills are rapidly expanding. Anything you did more than two months ago doesn\'t look good. The older it is, the crappier it is.

Try to keep in mind what it was about the mini that made you proud of it in the first place. You obviously accomplished some goal. Instead of thinking of the ways that you could do the mini better now, think about how you found new challenges for yourself in that project, and how you met them.

This should allow you to find some satisfaction in your work, even when it is an older piece that now looks like crap compared to your new work.

I\'m just as bad as you are about looking at my older stuff and thinking, \"Ew, that\'s aweful!\" But if I look hard enough, I can usually find something that I did on a piece that meant I met a new challenge, and this helps me to appreciate the piece, even if it isn\'t up to the standards of my current projects.

 

[vincegamer]

I don\'t have this problem. I paint so infrequently that whenever I look at one of my finished minis I start to reminisc about what was going on when I painted it, like the first episode of Friends, or the Nixon presidency.

 

[stumpkiller]

Originally posted by vincegamer
I don\'t have this problem. I paint so infrequently that whenever I look at one of my finished minis I start to reminisc about what was going on when I painted it, like the first episode of Friends, or the Nixon presidency.

Ditto, kinda

 

[Taer]

Painting? Is that what this site is for? :flip::bouncy:

 

[Herb the bitter]

Originally posted by Sturmhalo
We should start a club - \'Perfectionists Anonymous\'.

The reason I have so little in the way of painted minis is because after a few years I end up stripping old models because I\'m no longer happy with them.

Spending time getting a paint job just right is also a pain in the arse when you\'re a figure painter by trade. It\'s the whole time v money thing. Difficult to get right when you\'ve got a rep based on figures you\'ve spent days working on. People will only pay up to certain amount, regardless of how good the work is. What do you do? Produce the best quality work you can and make a loss, or reduce the quality to get the right money but at the expense of your rep?

Sturmhalo,

I have such a backlog of unpainted minis that stripping painted ones isn\'t necessary. Besides they serve as a good record so that I can see that I am in fact improving, not just imagining it.

In regard to painting for money I noticed that Elouchard had a mini up for auction that he \'speed painted\'. He must be trying to get a better return on his time investment. The mini looks great but isn\'t his best work. I think it\'s great that he writes in the description that it was \'speed painted\' so maybe whoever bought it will have lower expectations. Could you do the same?

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=51151

HtB