Tonight, I experienced the worst kind of hobby failure a man in this hobby can put himself through. That's right, strap on your party hat because it's time for my little pity party of shame. Anyway, this all starts over the weekend. I found a color of Vallejo Air called Sand that was very comparable to Dheneb Stone, which is the base color for my Death Wing. I have also recently learned that I can wash a model after basing it and keep the base color in tact by varnishing the base and then washing - followed by rubbing alcohol to remove the excess .... but just when you thought that would be the ticket to fail town, it wasn't ...
... as much as alcohol, varnish and reverse washing sound like bad ideas, it was the Model Air that betrayed me. That is right, for all the praise I have sung (and still will) for that range of paints, I killed my Death Wing tonight.
That's right, they are gone, kaput, killed, slain. Even thought I love model air paint, I figured I would play it safe and spray the Sand color on a piece of paper to color match it to my painted models. I did and it looked fantastic. So I busted out my Death Wing and put the first model up as a test. I sprayed him down and the smooth coverage looked great and the color matched Dheneb Stone perfectly. Then I based the rest of my models and brought them upstairs to dry.
Now, I sat down and enjoyed my favorite Weapon of Mass Distraction, Skyrim, for a little while, then went back to my minis. This is where the horror set in.
The color was all wrong, the minis looked like a crappy version of Bleached Bone - even worse - the color hit the models in a very inconsistent manner that meant further coats would only make the model lumpy in some of the smoothest sections. The color also appeared way glossier and brighter than it did when it was wet or on the paper.
For a second I gave up hope. I figured I could sell the army on Ebay as a converted, primed DW army ... but then I thought of the time I put into the green stuff molding and the builds. I thought about the fact that I had pulled this whole army out of my Bits Box ... and then the U.S. Marine in me kicked in. I would not give up. I went down stairs, pulled the airbrush from its chemical bath and then I ... dropped a $24 dollar part down the drain of my sink! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I still have not given up hope. Instead, I put my big-boy pants on and got to cranking out models, but like I said, the Death Wing is dead and so are the Unforgiven. In the morning, I might introduce you to something a little different. Sometimes we have to destroy something to create something of our own.
How about you? Have you ever messed up something so bad you just wanted to quit? How did you get back on the horse? Did you?
Duuuuuuuuuuuuude!. They looked good! Y U repaint good models!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could post pictures I need the Y U Meme guy.
I was painting the one who weren't fully painted yet. Disaster struck, but I have made plans ... They shall be ... Forgiven
ReplyDeleteYears ago I'd spent a month beautifully painting Fabius Bile (aka: Fabulous Bill) and reached for the spray varnish...and covered the front of him in BLACK.
ReplyDeleteThat's right, I'd picked up the wrong can.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!!111One
My first attempt at the Privateer P3's I spent the weeks leading up to GenCon busting ass on a Circle battlegroup (Pureblood Warpwolf, Gnarlhorn Satyr, and Kromac the Ravenous). I had them looking pretty good. I had done some nifty blending on Kromac's skirt (I was doing an Autumn-theme instead of the standard green) which flowed from a dark burgundy red to a leafy yellow. His axes were detailed in different colors (warm hues for Sunrise and cool purples for Sunset). The bases looked sweet and I had used some dying-grass static flock. The warbeasts looked pretty spiffy as well. I finished up the night before we were to leave for Indy. I took the figs into the garage to give them a shot of the new Armory matte varnish I had picked up just for the occasion. The next morning I went to pack them up. It looked like they had been sitting a deepfreeze for months. Frost and fuzz galore. I did what I could with a stiff bristle brush, but ultimately they were screwed beyond hope.
ReplyDeleteNever had it happen to me yet (touch wood), but I dread the day.
ReplyDeleteI've got all the sympathy for you though, spent 1000's on a bike over a few years, had just got it where I wanted it and it was nicked just a couple of weeks after I was finished. Ripped my heart out.
I feel for you. This kind of thing has happened to me, and I have been so upset I considered throwing away the models. Basically seeing them brought back such bad memories I did not want them around.
ReplyDeleteHowever.... They are just models. Pick yourself up, shake off the dust, and get those great models into simple green. Use the opportunity to clean those mold lines and fill gashes that always seem to be present on my perfectly painted models.
Everything is going to be ok.
That sucks man. I once painted my Zerkova model for Warmachine, loved it, went outside and sprayed dullcote on it and the whole thing foamed up and paint started dripping off. No idea what did that.
ReplyDeleteAre you selling your tyranids?
Thanks for the kind words gents, they are appreciated. Don't worry, I already have a new scheme (one that hides the chunks) that makes me happy, fluff to re-enforce it and some cool ideas I got while talking to CVinton this morning. The DW aren't dead ... well, the army isn't, lol. The new project will go much faster and be called "The Forgiven."
ReplyDelete@Muggins, Selling? Sold. What's on Ebay is the last of my stuff really. I started selling them after I got back from Virginia. I won the Super Vast majority of my games with them, so I am not going down the path of the whiney gamer. It really came down to the fact that I stopped having fun playing them about a year ago and nothing I did, no matter how well it performed, made a difference. I think it was a good army and I am glad I proved you can be successful on a competitive level with them, but I just wasn't in love with them any more. I kept the Arachnarock Tervigon though and reserve the right to mentor new Nid players.
Back in 2007 I was planning an entire Saim Hann force, and took all 24 jetbikes with me on vacation one year to get them done. All I had to do was prime them the first day, and I could spend an entire week painting them and get them done. There's no TV where I go on vacation...
ReplyDeleteThere's also a HUGE lake about 100 feet from the cabin.
Yup, the humidity from the lake snowed EVERY model. I tried to fix them, but in the end it was a lost cause. I still haven't gone back to Eldar since.
On the bright side, I took the opportunity to retool my old Black Templar force, and when I took it to the GT in Chicago that year, I won players choice with it :)
Good things can come out of Tragedy, my friend. Good to see you not bucking under the disappointment :)
@OST dang. There aren't many Tyranid bloggers left now.
ReplyDeleteAnd I should say, I'm primarily blogging about Mantis Warriors right now, so that includes me.
ReplyDeleteYou should check the trap on your drain... your lost part might be down there.
ReplyDeleteI went back to a bunch of models once.. it worked ok for some, less for others. Basically, I figured out that a flesh wash made models look like they were in a sunset.. looked nice.. went back and did most of my Eldar.
The black dullcoat is something that at least half of us have done. I did it at least once. Probably my biggest screwup was I jumped the gun on an ork army and primed it before noticing that I hadn't actually finished removing mold lines and a fair number had missing pieces waiting for conversion.
ReplyDeletenot nearly as big a deal as yours, sorry to hear your story.