Procrastination and Progress

Well, we're officially into NaMoPaiMo (National Model Painting Month) now, so I thought I might as well give you a bit of a progress report on how I'm doing so far.

I've made considerable progress towards coming to the realization that I am a terrible procrastinator.  I always knew this about myself, which is why I have always gravitated towards work that involved deadlines as opposed to more open-ended, creative work.

Although I've known since last year that NaMoPaiMo would be coming around again, and I decided which horse I wanted to paint and what colours I wanted to use over the past two months,  I've let the first few days of NaMoPaiMo pass me by without doing a thing about it.

Ready and waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting.

It doesn't really make any sense, since NaMoPaiMo does have a deadline, and since my goal is to paint more than one horse this time around, you would think I would want to get a good start on my official NaMoPaiMo selection.

But no, if there's a way to procrastinate, I will find it.  This time I seem to be doing it by convincing myself that I still have enough time to reach my goals and promising myself that once I really get working on painting, momentum will carry me through.

At least I know I'm not alone in my hesitation to actually start.

One of the nice things about NaMoPaiMo is the way the experience is shared worldwide by participant updates on the NaMoPaiMo Facebook page.  Last year I used to visit this page for inspiration and to marvel at some of the things that others were doing.  This year, I've already noticed a "confession" thread where a good number of people have posted about not having even started yet.  Some of them have good reasons -- like waiting for last-minute supplies to arrive -- but others are just like me and just haven't started because the mood hasn't struck them yet.

So I already know that I'm part of a larger, like-minded community in this respect.  And as I go on, and start to make some actual progress, I'm sure I'll find others like myself who are struggling with the same issues I'm struggling with, whatever they turn out to be.

Last year my big problem was getting seamless shading on my model.  When I laid the various layers of colour on they looked fine, but after drying the paint looked odd and uneven.  I eventually ended up painting the whole horse again with a solid colour that already had the shading mixed in.  It wasn't great, but it was the best I could do at the time.

This year's NaMoPaiMo model doesn't require as much shading, so I'm hoping things will go more smoothly this time.

That's once things start going, of course!