Will I Ever Paint All My Models?

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As an adult individual, I have finally gotten to the point in my life where I have a space for all this hobby stuff.  As we all know, once you have a place to put things, you inevitably put more things in that place than that place can actually contain.  Thus, Spartan order becomes Bohemian chaos, and the next thing you know you can't find specific models or bits because they are buried under other models and bits.

Or you simply can't remember what case something was in.

While I've tried to keep up with most things, it becomes apparent that space is by far the most serious problem concerning the burgeoning of collections.  If you can't accommodate the space requirements for your cases of miniatures, terrain, hobby supplies, counters, dice, books, etc...you probably don't have a place to play with them either.  The best you can hope for, then, is to accurately track where things are so that when you need it you don't have to search for it...you simply need to dig it out, which could be a serious operation.

No matter the condition of your hobby and gaming spaces, your storage space probably contains quite a few unpainted models, or models scheduled for other projects, or entire games that you simply don't have the time for this year.  Everyone has this issue.  It's the emergent quality of the 'lifer' - the life-long gamer who will undoubtedly spend many years curating their collection of gaming materials.  For modelers...this is exacerbated a great deal by the fact that often times you will buy a box of models and put them away.  You may forget about it entirely before you dig it out and go OH YEAH!

I was tempted to take pictures of the boxes of unpainted / unworked / old projects that have amassed, but I thought better of it.  Far better to buckle down and start producing stuff from them.  I have entire sets of models that have never seen the table.  Boxes under the table, in the closet...all stuff I just haven't gotten to yet or leftover from the club days when I had a lot more games to play.

Sure I could sell it off but that would really defeat the purpose.  Instead, I've come to a sort of understanding with my hoard - there will always be stuff I haven't gotten to yet.  If I manage to actually paint ALL my models, I might be totally done.  Then I really might sell it all (to a pretty penny, I might add)...but I'm really hoping that never happens.  It's been something like twenty-six years and my hobby fervor is still strong.  In other words - if I do ever paint my entire hoard with nothing at all to mess with in the vault...I'm probably close to death.

Now, that isn't to say that I don't want to decrease the size of my unworked hoard.  I want most of it gone...but a spot on a shelf in the closet will always contain a box of boxes.  One of my favorite things is going to the vault when a new project comes up and rediscovering tons of stuff I forgot I had.  Reaper Bones 4 is on the way as well...and there are a LOT of Bones I haven't gotten to from the previous Bones projects.

I've focused more recently on stuff I've already got, rather than new kits and such...mostly because I'm done with the edition treadmill.  I'm ready to work on models and play games, and honestly it's hard for me to feel the 'hype' about new 'editions' of games I've already put a lot of energy into.  However, I really have started picking up models from a variety of companies, along with a lot of different rulesets as I've talked about previously.  I'm sure my space for unworked models will continue to demand all the space I've allotted for quite some time - though I would like to halve that, if only to have more legroom.