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The "Oh No"-Phase and how to deal with it

Aginor
Slann

Aginor

Fifth Spawning
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Hey y'all!

In this thread I'd like to talk about modeling and painting models, and one phenomenon I encountered while doing that.
I am almost sure there is another word for this among real artists, but I don't know it because I am obviously NOT an artist, so I call it:

The "Oh No"-Phase.

It is the moment while building or painting your model where you think "Oh No, I screwed this up" and you think this model will be a desaster and you could stop working on it right now because it will never become a good one. You might even think about the fact that you just destroyed a certain amount of your hard-earned money with your inability to build and/or paint a damn plastic model.
If you are in the painting phase you might think about starting over, and then feel crushing despair because you think about the amount of time and money you spent for all that color on the model and how the stuff for stripping the model of its paint might damage it.


Possible solutions:

A:
1. Hate yourself
2. Drink
3. Just keep doing that until you don't care how much you suck
4a. if painting: finish it the way you started so at least it looks somewhat consistent, even though you hate it
4b. if modeling: go to C

B:
- If painting: Strip the model of its paint, start over.
- If modeling: Try to build another variant without the parts you destroyed or stop right there and buy a new one.

C:
- If painting: paint/drybrush/shade/glaze over the bad parts that look bad and hope that you get it somewhere else. At this point you don't know how it will look (since you haven't planned it) but you pray it will at least look a bit better.
- If modeling: Try building your own parts out of sprue parts, try covering up with green stuff or so.
If this fails go to A or B.

All cases:
1. Try to find sympathy and/or consolation talking to your significant other or somebody else that may or may not be interested in what you are doing and/or think you are a complete moron.
2. Write whiny posts on Internet forums
 
I see all my failures as a learning process, learn what you did wrong and move on, many a time I have cut of the hand of a model while assembling models see it as a opportunity to make a conversion, always think positive or this hobby will destroy your confidence, post pics of your problems and I bet someone could point you in a direction you never thought possible.
 
I've accidentally painted the whole head of my Old One for my Carno gold.

I'm thinking I'll try and paint over it, but might end up trying to strip it. Having just had a nightmare trying to strip a bunch of old plastic Chaos dudes, I don't fancy that.

Either way.. There's (virtually) nothing you can't fix by either stripping and going again, or using green stuff.... Just try and work out the best way of resolving any particular situation!
 
Ritual said:
I've accidentally painted the whole head of my Old One for my Carno gold.
Click to expand...

Wait, what? I do that all the time. In fact I am actually quite careless with the base coat colors most of the time, I just follow the lines roughly, and then I have a "correction phase" when doing the more detailed stuff.
IMO If your layers are reasonably thin and your colors cover up halfway well you can add three or four thin coats of any color and still retain all the details. I usually just slap white (if the color should be bright afterwards, like if you want it yellow or something) or black (for darker colors like brown, green and so on) on the parts and then add the color I want. Most of the time I cannot see the difference.

I yet have to strip a model, until now I could always cover it up well enough. You should try it on some spare parts, but I am almost sure that you cannot see the difference between two and four boats of regular paint (if you properly thin your paints).
 
Aginor said:
Wait, what? I do that all the time. In fact I am actually quite careless with the base coat colors most of the time, I just follow the lines roughly, and then I have a "correction phase" when doing the more detailed stuff.
IMO If your layers are reasonably thin and your colors cover up halfway well you can add three or four thin coats of any color and still retain all the details. I usually just slap white (if the color should be bright afterwards, like if you want it yellow or something) or black (for darker colors like brown, green and so on) on the parts and then add the color I want. Most of the time I cannot see the difference.

I yet have to strip a model, until now I could always cover it up well enough. You should try it on some spare parts, but I am almost sure that you cannot see the difference between two and four boats of regular paint (if you properly thin your paints).
Click to expand...

Unless your going for display quality the way your painting is the right way everyone spills over and has a correction phase, thin layer equal crisp detail but I'm going to share something with you now, I never thin my paints and I only apply one coat, I use the paint from the pot because I'm lazy and I know that my models are for playing a game with so they are good enough.

I really should start using my wet pallette but I will only do that for models I do for comps, display if I ever get that far.
 
Ritual said:
I've accidentally painted the whole head of my Old One for my Carno gold.

I'm thinking I'll try and paint over it, but might end up trying to strip it. Having just had a nightmare trying to strip a bunch of old plastic Chaos dudes, I don't fancy that.

Either way.. There's (virtually) nothing you can't fix by either stripping and going again, or using green stuff.... Just try and work out the best way of resolving any particular situation!
Click to expand...

Cutex acetone free.
 
Yeah, I usually just go for the cover up, tabletop standard is quite good enough for me.
 
Oh, and disclaimer:

Until now I somehow managed to build no model that I really dislike. Right now I am working on my first Stegadon and I kiiinda overdid some stuff, and bit more off than I can chew right now, both concerning painting details and concerning modeling stuff. I also kiiinda messed up the skin tone on the Stegadon and then tried to save it and it looks really mediocre now and I am not sure if I like it but fear to make it even worse....

So that's the "Oh No"-Phase I am in right now. But it happens to me in almost every unit I paint. It was especially hard in these models:
- my second Razordon which didn't look as good as my first one
- those damn Kroxigor where the parts didn't fit and I globbed around using liquid green stuff
- the Bastiladon where I first thought I had totally messed up the Solar Engine
- the Troglodon where I drybrushed the skin endlessly because I wasn't happy, but also in constant fear to make it worse.

Mostly it happens on big models. But I still love the huge dinosaurs.
In the end all of them turned out quite well (up to my standards). The Stegadon is the worst one yet though. Not sure what is going to happen in the next few days.
 
Aginor said:
Oh, and disclaimer:

Until now I somehow managed to build no model that I really dislike. Right now I am working on my first Stegadon and I kiiinda overdid some stuff, and bit more off than I can chew right now, both concerning painting details and concerning modeling stuff. I also kiiinda messed up the skin tone on the Stegadon and then tried to save it and it looks really mediocre now and I am not sure if I like it but fear to make it even worse....

So that's the "Oh No"-Phase I am in right now. But it happens to me in almost every unit I paint. It was especially hard in these models:
- my second Razordon which didn't look as good as my first one
- those damn Kroxigor where the parts didn't fit and I globbed around using liquid green stuff
- the Bastiladon where I first thought I had totally messed up the Solar Engine
- the Troglodon where I drybrushed the skin endlessly because I wasn't happy, but also in constant fear to make it worse.

Mostly it happens on big models. But I still love the huge dinosaurs.
In the end all of them turned out quite well (up to my standards). The Stegadon is the worst one yet though. Not sure what is going to happen in the next few days.
Click to expand...

Pictures tell a thousand words, I bet we can solve the problem together.
 
Yeah I will post some when I am home. The thing is a bloody mess right now though, so I am not sure whether you will be able to grasp the problem judging by pics. We'll see. :)
 
Aginor said:
Yeah I will post some when I am home. The thing is a bloody mess right now though, so I am not sure whether you will be able to grasp the problem judging by pics. We'll see. :)
Click to expand...

Mess = badly painted?
Mess = legs for horns, head on ass, skinks upside down?
 
Crowsfoot said:
Mess = badly painted?
Mess = legs for horns, head on ass, skinks upside down?
Click to expand...
LOL nonono! :D

- The Howdah is OK I think, and the weapons as well. I overdid the details (pushing my painting resolution forward beyond the level I thought was possible) and it takes ages to have everything at a fitting detail level, but that will work. It just takes so much time which is kinda annoying because I'd like to move on to other stuff.
- The Stegadon's skin was intended to be a very light purple. My purple shade was too strong though and after I applied it the model looked like the Milka Cow. I wanted to drybrush it white to brighten it up, but when I started it looked awful, so I stopped. I then decided to try and make it darker and a bit more brownish. I used a sepia shade. Unfortunately that contains more yellow pigment than I thought (I should have known but didn't. I thought about using Reikland flesh shade but feared it would be too red and/or too glossy) and pooled a bit in the crevices, which makes the wrinkles look pretty good actually, but it turned some of the purple into a dark pink resembling my grandmother's drapes and other parts became a bit too brown, like my grandmother's drapes when she was still smoking a lot. I got used to it now and it looks better than the Milka cow version, but I am still not entirely happy with it because I think I could have done much better and just planned for it to look differently.
- Third and worst point: I wanted to make the best convertible Stegadon EVER so I am magnetizing everything, to try and make every variant look good. The project started promising with the Priest's throne and the ring and the weapons and the front plate of the Howdah all magnetized well, but now I have to deal with placing the crew. Unfortunately that's not an easy job because all the Skinks are in different positions in different versions, with different hands and poses, and they are hard to magnetize because they are tiny, and sometimes it is very hard to place all the magnets to hold them. Also I want to replace two of them by spare Skink Handlers I still have because I need the plastic Skinks for something else. I've come pretty far but there isn't much space to work with and having to think about three versions simultaneously isn't easy because at the moment my hobby time is interrupted quite often by my kids or my cat jumps on the table or I drop stuff. There are Skink body parts lying around everywhere and I sometimes forget which arm belongs to which Skink in which version. :D
 
Ok the paint part seems pretty straight forward to fix @n810 has the right idea, drybrush it again with Screaming skull, white is too bright then get Druchi violet and mix it with medium or water 4:1 (4 parts medium 1 shade) now apply the shade all over but do not let it pool, let it completely dry then keep applying coats until you get the desired colour, expect around 6 coats, you can then take it further and apply more coats around the feet, knees to add shade and contrast.

I lost the will to live when I painted my 2 they took me months to finish.
 
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