Get all projects with assigned / not_assigned projects

Hi,

I have three tables: users, projects, and project_user (pivot). I need to display all the projects with a Assigned / Not Assigned label on them to a user.

For a single project page, I could do it by

$is_already_assigned = $project->assigned_artists()
                                ->wherePivot('user_id', Auth::user()->id)
                                ->first();

if( $is_already_assigned ){
    // do something
}

However, for all the projects, I'm doing this

$projects = Project::with('assigned_artists')->paginate(12);
        foreach( $projects as $project ){
            // Check the pivot table to see the current user is assigned to this project
                // $project->is_assigned = true; 
        }

Running 12 extra queries per page loading! it looks pretty bad already :(

Is there a cleaner way to add an additional attribute to the result depending on if the current user exists in a pivot table?

Thanks,