I'm sure most, if not all, of us have been there at least once.

I'm in a hobby-related rut. I'm having trouble finding the time and/or energy to paint or do any modelling (and it's been that way for months). My writing for my Mordheim homebrew rules has hit a wall.

I'm not at the stage of even giving a half-second thought to quitting the hobby - but I wanted to ask, how have you managed to haul yourself out of your hobby ruts?

i'm in the exact same situation. the trick is, to find inspiration and what i do is LITERALLY meditate on it. for example the link i'll include at the bottom. look at that Khan model. meditate on it for 15 minutes. see how you feel. if not, find another model.

or just buy more stuff. that also works for me

www.miniaturebases.com/wordpress/archives/101

Ok I was in this boat a few years ago. It was actually pretty devastating for me because I had lost all but 2 friends (we went our separate ways) and now since one is married he doesn't play anymore either. So after years of my brothers not playing I roped them into starting the hobby back up by the prospect of us all working on a brand new table from scratch. So we gamed to get them back in the swing of things and now as promised we are working on our table. This was my experience and even though I am raking in the hours at work, we still set aside at least one day a week to work on the table or that I spend a few hours repainting my Tau.

Hope this helps your rut.

David

The best way to stay enthusiastic is to play games as often as possible.

Clubs, in my experience, are better than shops in this respect (although a few shops are an exception), because you'll find people coming in with new games, books and minis all the time. At my club, those of us who go often are invariably torn from one game to another like a moth in a room full of candles.

Dark Heresy? Yay! Tales of the Old West? Yay! Lord of the Rings? Yay! Warhammer Fantasy? Yay! Rogue Trader? Yay! Space Hulk? Yay!

Variety is the spice of life. Although enthusiasm and borderline insanity are perpetual bedfellows.

R.

Thanks guys, I guess it's tricky cause there is only me and my wife... and we are yet to play (I haven't played any games since back at least two/three editions- so I'm not just rusty, I'm shy about it too!)

The lack fo clubs locally, coupled with relying on public transport is also a problem.

On old gaming buddy of mine is expressing an interest though - and I've sweetened the deal by giving him a lod of AoBR space marines.

i can't even begin to tell you how annoying it is having nothing local. the nearest thing to north andover is the three trolls in chelmsford and toy soldier in amesbury. D.O. is usually how i get my stuff but theres a huge differance between going online and going to a friendly local game store

I've found that doing a couple of separate projects keeps me going. I am painting a bid Dark Elf Army and because I'm a little anal about the painting standard it's taking me quite a while to finish units. So I break up the job by assembling Eldar. One week I'll paint, the next I glue - you do need to have the discipline to stick at it though. If I let things go for a few weeks it takes a bit of effort to get up the enthusiasm to pick up the brushes again.

So far there have been some good pointers on this subject that I am sure every gamer comes up against frequently in the hobby. I have a number of different armies and sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have to do. At the end of the day, this is supoosed to be a hobby, something you enjoy. When it becomes a chore, it's no longer enjoyable. I would suggest either painting something else, like a different army, if you have one (variety, after all, is the spice of life) or just put the stuff away for a week or two and focus your energies on something completely different. I do both occasionally, and it does work.

Good luck sir!

I find myself in the same kind of rut. I sit down to convert and love it but when it comes to painting i get burnt out by not seeing any real progress. Also since i am living at college right now i don't really have any place to play. North San Fernando California seems to be devoid of gaming. Also the only places anywhere near are at least 30 min away and are GW stores which are not that comfortable for playing.

Sometimes it's hard to get motivated to do anything with these models. So, I usually pick up one of the fluff books and get re-motivated to build, paint and convert. Doesn't always work, but most of the time it does!! Easy now days to find fluff reading material for said motivation between all the new novels and availability of material on web sites. Sometimes, though you just got to keep plugging along??