Great way to organize projects. I’ve been cataloging my models on a google spreadsheet (650+ models and 30+ columns). I timed myself painting one model then built a calculation to get how long each project would take in hours. Adding a value to each project would make this matrix easy to visualize!
I have over 3,000 unpainted minis. I finish, on average, around 300 a year. That means I have 10 years of painting and I still want to compulsively buy more.
I have a titan sized Quetzalcoatl for my lizardmen I built several years ago. I'm waiting to tackle it until I have that army in my sights and I've built up my skills enough to have confidence to paint it. I would recommend at least spending some time to assemble it (preferably with magnets and JB weld) so you can have something to aspire to.
I think a way the Time sinks manifest is when you have to put a perfectionist degree of work into minis but get diminishing returns and end up dragging it out. Great ideas here!
It was really easy! One of the easiest paint schemes I did. You know what, I’ll make a video on it within the next month. Be sure to tune in and let me know what you think!
I am currently painting up an entire campaign for ttrpg and i try to paint up the required combat encounters first by chapter then the optional ones the chapter boss if any and then the reoccurring npcs and non reoccurring npcs if i unexpectedly find myself with lots of time i guess ill put some work into terrain. I dont know if the matrix will be helpful for this. i have made an Excell sheet with all monsters and npcs and if i have the model built and painted. Each adventure and campaign need less models painted but the first ones took a lot of effort. Having played a lot of diffferent tabletop miniature games i had a lot of painted models to start with and also some unpainted kickstarted boardgames. I am slowly climbing my tower of ambition.
Sounds like you have a good system for your painting! Especially going with what is required per encounter I think you nailed it and no, the value vs effort matrix would not be useful for this. Having a list that you can just check off works great in your situation! I think this matrix helps especially if you have lots of projects in various stages of completion. But there’s lots of methods out there of course, and I really like yours!
I only buy a new squad after i finished another. keeps me motivated and is budget friendly (i'm a bit hard on money rn but it is what it is.) The only exception is when i see some limited miniature i fancy.
Trying the same. I used to buy everything I like. Now I have so many ‘nearly painted’ armies that it annoys me. And I have a lot of cool models to work on my painting skills. Like the Warhammer Underworlds boxes for example.
My method is called Noble Knight and eBay and a strict hobby budget. I'm a purger and a cold-hearted budgeteer. During Spring clean up I take a cold eyed assessment of everything in my pile of shame and sell or give away anything that's unpainted and I'm certain I'll never use; most of what's in the left side of your quadrant. I only allow myself to spend about 5% of my take home pay on hobbies, though money I get from my purges is allowed to be added to the budget. I still have a pile of shame mind you, but it's at least under control. Mostly....
I have always used spreadsheets to rank my projects but this is a great approach. Goes to show that just because you are familiar with a concept like your quad chart, everything can add a new perspective if you are open minded. Thanks. Gonna build some bubble charts..........
@@thewynnest they are too messy to share, merely a list of projects ranked by hours of work, cost, interest that sort of thing. Never tried graphing them.
Quick Win: My Blood Bowl team has a fourth catcher as an option I might never use but it's only one more model to make the set complete. Big Project: I want to get into the Old World. I'm going to paint up the bret box (as soon as it's no longer sold out) in Kislev colour so they can be fillers once the Kislev army is released proper. I have to start from scratch and I want it to look good. Fill-ins: I have a bundle of D&D style mini's that are probably just going to be townsfolk or random encounters. I'll slap on some white primer and speedpaints with minimal tuneup after that. Time Sink: I got an old Tank Model I kind of want to paint up at some point but it's going to be a large project for a single model which will just be on the shelf after I'm done with it. Plan: The blood bowl catcher will be the next time I sit down to paint. After that I probably try the tank and move on to the Fill-ins after that. If the bret box comes in it'll take priority over the Tank while the Fill-ins become little break projects when I don't want to do knight after knight after knight.
I love how you are using this little matrix for your own stuff! I am currently working on one of the quick wins (Star Wars Legion rebels). And the big project atm is Old World for me as well (dwarfs). Keep going at it and let me know how you progress!
I am pretty good about building my models so that I can at least use them, but hunkering down and painting is such a chore there’s an entire wall of grey that I just haven’t touched
Finishing one project really helps you understand the scope of what you need to do on the rest. I have 14k+ points of AoS painted between 3 armies (maggotkin, slaves, and Gloomspite) and 3 more to complete (lizardmen, Tomb kings and beasts of chaos, though beasts isn't quite as big). As you get going you learn what techniques can save you time and what steps you can do without if you want to complete it and still be sane.
Sounds like a lot of work went into that, well done you! I am learning a lot from my Star Wars Legion rebels, just a simple base coat and shading. I take some more time for the alien heads I kitbashed on. Works like a charm.
@@thewynnest yep, unless you're doing a special character that deserves a mountain of time, everything just needs to look good at arms length. Everything more is icing on the cake.
I take forever painting anything. But i dont play so i am never in a rush. I said when i brought the Leviathan boxeset I would not buy any more 40k till it is 100% finished. So far so good... no big pile of shame unless u include the Nid half of that box which I have not even looked at (yet)
Yeah I think if you don’t play there’s no friends waiting on you to finish everything. And I know I’ll buy or get new stuff this years, but it’s definitely time to finish up some of these ‘almost done’ projects, otherwise they’ll never be 🤣
I have a huge pile of shame and spend forever trying to make tiny models look as good as possible, what should I do? Should I just be fast with small cheap point models and only spend time on big high point models?
It really depends on what you want to achieve. But in general, yes you’re right! If you want an army, don’t worry about your ‘normal’ units too much. Paint them up together, and make them look good as a group. I used to stress over every single skitarii model I had, I worried that the bottom inside of one cloak didn’t look good 😅 a few years later I speedpainted them as a group with my airbrush and they look great to me. So in short; make the smaller units look good as a group, not as single models. Let me know if it helped!
Thank you so much! I never thought about it that way before, I’ll give it a go sometime. I think it’s because I usually follow the citadel paint guide as accurately as possible to the end of the “parade ready” section, but maybe I’ll just try to focus only on main details for the groups overall.
If you really want to go all the way its ok, but consider getting everything to a decent standard then deciding if you think its worth doing all the extra stuff
@@thewynnestyes. But on a more serious note. I am finding this diagram very usefull. I also have to see how I can fit commissionwork in. So maybe that is a category on its own. The one with high priority, no matter how I feel about it.
@@roelandpellis3679i think this would work pretty well for commission painting projects that have (almost) the same deadline. Then again, I don’t think having lots of commission gigs at the same time is wise, it would freak me up. With it without a method 🤣..
Great way to organize projects. I’ve been cataloging my models on a google spreadsheet (650+ models and 30+ columns). I timed myself painting one model then built a calculation to get how long each project would take in hours. Adding a value to each project would make this matrix easy to visualize!
Sounds like a 2.0 version of this video might be coming up! Leave me a msg on Instagram or discord, would love to see that spreadsheet!
I have over 3,000 unpainted minis. I finish, on average, around 300 a year. That means I have 10 years of painting and I still want to compulsively buy more.
🤣 wow that’s quite something. I was looking at some of the new Dark Angels the other day, had a hard time ignoring those!
3000.... dude, you have a problem
@@dicedoom7162 It was a problem, but at least I am working through them. I’ve slowed down a lot.
my pile of shame includes a chaos reaver titan. I've been too scared of it to build it for 5 years.
I mean, THAT I can imagine hahah. I’ve had the same, but with the eeny-weeny metal white Dwarf figure 🤣
I have a titan sized Quetzalcoatl for my lizardmen I built several years ago. I'm waiting to tackle it until I have that army in my sights and I've built up my skills enough to have confidence to paint it. I would recommend at least spending some time to assemble it (preferably with magnets and JB weld) so you can have something to aspire to.
I think a way the Time sinks manifest is when you have to put a perfectionist degree of work into minis but get diminishing returns and end up dragging it out. Great ideas here!
Sounds like you just described me 😆, and yes pretty accurate for that category in the graph. Thank you 🙏
I use the term "pile of fun." That's all it really is - fun you haven't had yet. But this is a cool idea!
Yeah I contemplated calling it that haha. There’s no shame here.
A great video. I absolutely love this Value vs Effort Matrix and will be sure to adapt it to my pile of "opportunity". Thank you!
Eyy Blacksword! Yeah just one of the many methods that could work I think. Glad you liked it!
@@thewynnest I did. I wasn’t aware of it! I’m going to try and organise my grey this weekend using it
Those DBZ space elves are awesome would love a video on how you customized them.
It was really easy! One of the easiest paint schemes I did. You know what, I’ll make a video on it within the next month. Be sure to tune in and let me know what you think!
Something that has worked for me… is to not have more than 3-4 boxes of minis.. and then finish them all before I even look to buy new ones😁
That’s the best thing to do hehe. Trying to hold myself to that this year.
I am currently painting up an entire campaign for ttrpg and i try to paint up the required combat encounters first by chapter then the optional ones the chapter boss if any and then the reoccurring npcs and non reoccurring npcs if i unexpectedly find myself with lots of time i guess ill put some work into terrain. I dont know if the matrix will be helpful for this. i have made an Excell sheet with all monsters and npcs and if i have the model built and painted.
Each adventure and campaign need less models painted but the first ones took a lot of effort. Having played a lot of diffferent tabletop miniature games i had a lot of painted models to start with and also some unpainted kickstarted boardgames. I am slowly climbing my tower of ambition.
Sounds like you have a good system for your painting! Especially going with what is required per encounter I think you nailed it and no, the value vs effort matrix would not be useful for this. Having a list that you can just check off works great in your situation!
I think this matrix helps especially if you have lots of projects in various stages of completion. But there’s lots of methods out there of course, and I really like yours!
I only buy a new squad after i finished another. keeps me motivated and is budget friendly (i'm a bit hard on money rn but it is what it is.) The only exception is when i see some limited miniature i fancy.
Trying the same. I used to buy everything I like. Now I have so many ‘nearly painted’ armies that it annoys me. And I have a lot of cool models to work on my painting skills. Like the Warhammer Underworlds boxes for example.
My method is called Noble Knight and eBay and a strict hobby budget. I'm a purger and a cold-hearted budgeteer. During Spring clean up I take a cold eyed assessment of everything in my pile of shame and sell or give away anything that's unpainted and I'm certain I'll never use; most of what's in the left side of your quadrant. I only allow myself to spend about 5% of my take home pay on hobbies, though money I get from my purges is allowed to be added to the budget.
I still have a pile of shame mind you, but it's at least under control.
Mostly....
I started implementing this this year and it has helped me
applying this idea, working well so far. TY. working on my own new votann army. this helps a good deal
Thanks Brandon! Drop me a link somewhere (instagram, discord, all same username) would love to see!
I really felt the “so yea”
The ‘I spent hundreds of dollars worth of plastic which I never touched’ so yea.
Yep 🤮
I have always used spreadsheets to rank my projects but this is a great approach. Goes to show that just because you are familiar with a concept like your quad chart, everything can add a new perspective if you are open minded. Thanks. Gonna build some bubble charts..........
Thank you! And I’ve seen people work with spreadsheets as well. Would love to see some if you’re willing to share!
@@thewynnest they are too messy to share, merely a list of projects ranked by hours of work, cost, interest that sort of thing. Never tried graphing them.
Quick Win: My Blood Bowl team has a fourth catcher as an option I might never use but it's only one more model to make the set complete.
Big Project: I want to get into the Old World. I'm going to paint up the bret box (as soon as it's no longer sold out) in Kislev colour so they can be fillers once the Kislev army is released proper. I have to start from scratch and I want it to look good.
Fill-ins: I have a bundle of D&D style mini's that are probably just going to be townsfolk or random encounters. I'll slap on some white primer and speedpaints with minimal tuneup after that.
Time Sink: I got an old Tank Model I kind of want to paint up at some point but it's going to be a large project for a single model which will just be on the shelf after I'm done with it.
Plan: The blood bowl catcher will be the next time I sit down to paint. After that I probably try the tank and move on to the Fill-ins after that. If the bret box comes in it'll take priority over the Tank while the Fill-ins become little break projects when I don't want to do knight after knight after knight.
I love how you are using this little matrix for your own stuff! I am currently working on one of the quick wins (Star Wars Legion rebels). And the big project atm is Old World for me as well (dwarfs).
Keep going at it and let me know how you progress!
Your Star Wars figures look so great. =)
Also, very interesting video.
Thanks! If you liked it; this Friday I have a video dedicated to Legion out on the channel 🚀 let me know what you think!
Good subject!!! really enjoyed the vid!
I am pretty good about building my models so that I can at least use them, but hunkering down and painting is such a chore there’s an entire wall of grey that I just haven’t touched
I do the same for my huge pile of Star Wars legion models I got the last couple of months. Just getting them ready for the battlefield.
Finishing one project really helps you understand the scope of what you need to do on the rest. I have 14k+ points of AoS painted between 3 armies (maggotkin, slaves, and Gloomspite) and 3 more to complete (lizardmen, Tomb kings and beasts of chaos, though beasts isn't quite as big).
As you get going you learn what techniques can save you time and what steps you can do without if you want to complete it and still be sane.
Sounds like a lot of work went into that, well done you! I am learning a lot from my Star Wars Legion rebels, just a simple base coat and shading. I take some more time for the alien heads I kitbashed on. Works like a charm.
@@thewynnest yep, unless you're doing a special character that deserves a mountain of time, everything just needs to look good at arms length. Everything more is icing on the cake.
I take forever painting anything. But i dont play so i am never in a rush. I said when i brought the Leviathan boxeset I would not buy any more 40k till it is 100% finished. So far so good... no big pile of shame unless u include the Nid half of that box which I have not even looked at (yet)
Yeah I think if you don’t play there’s no friends waiting on you to finish everything. And I know I’ll buy or get new stuff this years, but it’s definitely time to finish up some of these ‘almost done’ projects, otherwise they’ll never be 🤣
That,s nothing compared to what I have,warhammer,horus heresy,age of sigmar!You can never have enought!
Yeah it’s not toooo bad. But it’s still always in the back of my head hehe
I have a huge pile of shame and spend forever trying to make tiny models look as good as possible, what should I do? Should I just be fast with small cheap point models and only spend time on big high point models?
It really depends on what you want to achieve. But in general, yes you’re right! If you want an army, don’t worry about your ‘normal’ units too much. Paint them up together, and make them look good as a group. I used to stress over every single skitarii model I had, I worried that the bottom inside of one cloak didn’t look good 😅 a few years later I speedpainted them as a group with my airbrush and they look great to me.
So in short; make the smaller units look good as a group, not as single models. Let me know if it helped!
Thank you so much! I never thought about it that way before, I’ll give it a go sometime. I think it’s because I usually follow the citadel paint guide as accurately as possible to the end of the “parade ready” section, but maybe I’ll just try to focus only on main details for the groups overall.
If you really want to go all the way its ok, but consider getting everything to a decent standard then deciding if you think its worth doing all the extra stuff
Where is the pile?! You need to work on your pile more, itnis too small! 😂
I’ll take that as a compliment? 🤣
@@thewynnestyes. But on a more serious note. I am finding this diagram very usefull. I also have to see how I can fit commissionwork in. So maybe that is a category on its own. The one with high priority, no matter how I feel about it.
@@roelandpellis3679i think this would work pretty well for commission painting projects that have (almost) the same deadline. Then again, I don’t think having lots of commission gigs at the same time is wise, it would freak me up. With it without a method 🤣..
If that’s all you got you have no problem at all…
So I’ve heard hahah. Still gives me the chills sometimes tho.
High effort low value would be making a whole army for a game you're not realistically going to enjoy much (for me that would be 40k...)
Yeah good one. And I have the same at the moment; I don’t see me getting a lot of playtime in 40K.
Stop buying stuff. Simple. 😂
Teach us your ways hahah
They're not my ways. I've got a pile of shame too.