Stuff I'm not getting done

Alan of the Duchy of Tradgardland has been discussing the "Black Dog," a euphemism for hobby depression. Hadn't heard the expression before, but it's caught my interest as I've got the same thing - exhausted after work, I haven't been doing anything at all despite at least three tentative projects to work on. A little reading, a little watching of Youtube painting videos in a desperate effort to inspire me to paint something of my own. In between going to work, I've been imitating my sleepy cats! Haven't even eaten much, which at least has lost me a little weight. So in an effort to get past that, I'm listing my projects here.

I've taken most of the week off due to having to "use or lose" some of my leave hours. Let's see if I can achieve anything at all...

• Building and painting some Warlord Games French partisans, for my vague Very British Civil War project. Bought on the spur of the moment, these were fairly expensive so I really do need to do something with them, but have never painted anything civilian or WWII-ish so am not sure how to color them. Suggestions welcomed.

A squad of rifles, a couple heavy weapon teams, and a
"French 75" with crew.

• Trying another round of either Charge! or the One Hour Wargame variation by Grid-Based Wargaming. Both would use eight-wound elements, so I've made a handful of cardboard counters also inspired by GBW. I should probably use another scenario of Programmed Wargames Scenarios, as I've only tried the first so far. I'd like to go through them all in progression, but really should settle on a ruleset first.

20mm a side, these will denote casualties or hit points.

• Testing "slap chop" painting, that is progressively lighter drybrushing before using Contrast paints. This makes them very quick to show impressive results, which would make for a useful painting program at work, and luckily I have nineteen of the new plastic Termagants to work with. I need to try one to start with to see how it looks, and have collected bone, red and black Contrast paints to try with. If it works out, I'll pre-drybrush the rest, take them to work next week, and use them in my effort to restart a weekly gaming program for teens. I'm also considering recording a painting video in the same vein as Games Workshop ones, using the electronic gizmos in Youmedia to promote the teen space and interest kids in my own programming.

Painted black - mostly.

Will I actually achieve anything? Time will tell.