Last week Michael Plummer shared one of his strategies for staying motivated to paint his WARMACHINE and HORDES armies. Michael and I have painted a lot of models in a short period of time during Lunch Time Paint Parties and today I’m going to share a few more secrets to getting your army fully painted and on the table in no time.

There are a ton of tips, tricks, and techniques for painting your armies on the P3 Hobby Series DVD and the Privateer Press forums. From washing and drybrushing to two-brush blending, if there’s a technique you haven’t tried you can bet that there is some expert advice to be had from the P3 Studio. With that in mind, I’m going to leave teaching to the experts and focus on the mental game of painting an army.

1. Set a goal.

Pick a list that you want to have ready for a certain event and commit to having that list fully painted. It doesn’t have to be a Steamroller tournament, convention, or a release event; you can just pick a time and place, and challenge some of your buddies to have their lists painted and ready to throw down.

Over the two months leading up to Lock & Load 2015 my goal was to have a 35-point Protectorate of Menoth list fully painted and ready to hit the tables.

I am so glad that I stuck to my goal because I had a blast at Lock & Load and played some awesome games with some amazingly fun people.

2. Keep criticism at arm’s length.

It’s easy to get frustrated when a model isn’t turning out like you had hoped. Your brushstrokes are sloppy, your blending isn’t as smooth as you’d like, your wash pooled in a weird way and now there’s a splotch on your warjack’s armor that you swear is the spitting image of your Aunt Nellie. Trust me, we’ve all been there. It’s important to remember that you are your harshest critic. You fixate on your errors and lose sight of all the things you’ve done well. In times like this you need to take a step back. Literally.

Pick up the model that’s got you so frazzled and extend your arm away from your body. That’s the distance from which you will probably be seeing that model most of the time. At that distance can you even see that wayward brush stroke? Can you even see Aunt Nellie anymore? It’s important to remember the context that you will be seeing your models most of the time. Which leads me to my next point….

3. You are painting an army, not a model.

I’ve adopted this as something of a mantra as I am painting. Whenever I’m tempted to go back and spend more time shading a belt buckle or redoing the eyes on a model because they aren’t just perfect I remind myself, “I am painting an army, not a model.” As you finish model after model and your collection grows, you can start to see that the sum is greater than the individual parts.

When your force is arrayed on the battlefield, armor glistening, banners waving, your warcaster heroically posed before her troops, you should feel proud of what you’ve accomplished. You aren’t thinking about the blending on the scabbard you were so worried about the day before. You’re thinking, “This is so freaking cool! I love this hobby!”

I’ve gone hobby Zen master on you long enough. Now it’s time to put my money where my mouth is and show you what it’s like to paint an army. Everyone around the office was so excited after Lock & Load that we decided to start our own casual slow grow league. I’m raising the banner of house Balaash with an Archdomina Makeda list, so look for updates from me as the league progresses.