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I just spent the last few hours painting a model that I've been trying to finish for a week or so.
I left it on my painting table to go downstairs to get a cup of tea and when I came back not 5 minutes after I find it in 3 bits in the hand of my "really sorry" brother.
Naturally I'm pretty pissed off.

Anybody else had this "accident" happen? Any ideas what i could do to prevent it happening again? And any advice on fixing a model without the paint messing up?

Never happened to me because of someone else but I have managed to break my own often enough. I find a delicate dab of plastic or super glue does the job but posting your query in painting and modelling might get you some more sage advice.

Ah the horror when you pack your case and one misplaced foam cover causes a horrific tide of minis that cascades down to the bottom of the case.

When your mortified girlfriend (Now my wife) greets you as you come home and goes "You know that Daemon prince guy" you answer "Yes Honey" and she presents the cleanly broken torso with the angel wings you tried to pin and epox putty to his back thats pure pain...........horrible biting pain.

When your asleep a good nights painting done your mind is as numb as anything (Long nights and days without work back in 2005-2007) Your Space marines arrayed proudly under the lower shelf you stacked with magazines thinking "Yes that brittle plywood shelf will hold 200 odd issues of SFX" you awake! to a loud crash to find your pride and joy 2000pts crushed under the Uk's leading sci-fi mag and a plywood shelf that didnt hold.....

yes I know broken Minatures well.

Try have kids around, not only do you have to take care so they don't break them, but also make sure the little Bleeders don't hurt themselves with the nice sharp things, Knife, Drills, bit of wire etc.
Some years ago my son thought he'd help paint one of my figures, the one he choose to painted had just that day been completed after 40 hours work, he painted it completely black, how he survived that day i still don’t know, I seem to recall the wife was extra nice if you follow my meaning.............

Moving home’s not recommend either, I still looking for some of the bits years after the last one.

I have had several broken over the years by the kids, the latest was by our dog.

To prevent damage, my models that are being worked on are stored a portable painting board that when not in use is locked in the study, away from the lovely little bleeders. All completed models are stores either in carry cases, plastic boxes with bubble foam or in locked display cases .

As for the dog its been warned, wag his tail near my models again and he off to the pound.

BOSS_PIMPALOTZ wrote:Your Space marines arrayed proudly under the lower shelf you stacked with magazines thinking "Yes that brittle plywood shelf will hold 200 odd issues of SFX" you awake! to a loud crash to find your pride and joy 2000pts crushed under the Uk's leading sci-fi mag and a plywood shelf that didnt hold.....

Jeez, even I know how much 200 magazine issues weigh - and when it comes to stacking stuff, the HEAVY STUFF goes on the bottom.

Sympathy? Not a jot.

Then again, I compartmentalise and disassociate easily and don't empathise readily. It's not like they are a part of me. The hobby is a part of me, but that does not rely on the pieces.

Plenty of broken stuff, but never catostrophic. The key is noticing it broke before you lose track of the bit that fell off and lost it forever.

My stuff breaks constantly, usually from transporting the miniatures to and from the game store(working on getting better foam trays).

Also, while I'm away at university, occasionally the cat gets into my room and pretends she's godzilla allover my desk, knocks half the models down onto the floor... which my dog then finds and utilizes as a chew-toy/after dinner snack.

The only time I've had stuff broken intentionally was when I was back in high school taking the SAT's. I came back extremely tired to find that about half my necron army was lying on the workdesk broken. My little brother decided it would be funny to break my models to get revenge for me beating him in his favorite video game or something like that.

I've had my dog chew a primed tank barrel into a pretzel.

My toddler's picked up a tank, but not broken anything (yet!) - all the more reason to keep stuff boxed!

I had a tower of tau suits fall off a table at my local gaming store a number of years ago. Never was able to use them again I couldn't find all the pieces.

I was at a GW In GrapeVine Texas, were they let any one touch your models. Due to its location in the mall. Ive had Models stolen from me when i went there, Few stepped on, I had one four year, get ice cream all over a Rhino once... It was Horrorable. The store did replace all my models but , time of painting and converstion.... I only started going there after that for the tourments and there free give away....

local gaming store kid, asked about my silver pyramid 'monolith' and picked it up when i wasn't looking trying to see if anything was inside past the doorway. well his little chocolate covered fingers couldn't grasp it well enough and dropped hard on the floor. Oh I was quite upset, as it was under the table for the very reason I needed it to deepstrike. Asking for my opponent for a quick break, asked the store for glue and repaired what damage I could. Now it's missing the green jewel from the top, half a gauss flux turret and a piece on the back. Thankfully it's in better shape than before and I received a earnest apology from the gentlemen the little broodling came from. Now, it always stays in the box until further necessary use.

Side note: anyone know if you can order the monolith bits still or I have to endure?

Luckily (I say luckily) I am the only one who has broken my models. Usually by pinging them onto the floor when I am moving something around my exceptionally cluttered hobby area.

Although this will probably change if I ever start gaming with them "in public"

Harms66 wrote: Try have kids around, not only do you have to take care so they don't break them, but also make sure the little Bleeders don't hurt themselves with the nice sharp things, Knife, Drills, bit of wire etc.
Some years ago my son thought he'd help paint one of my figures, the one he choose to painted had just that day been completed after 40 hours work, he painted it completely black, how he survived that day i still don’t know, I seem to recall the wife was extra nice if you follow my meaning.............

My daughter got hold of a trio of freshly painted Forgeworld Crisis suits. Two of them were fine but the third was missing it's base (with the feet still attatched) and both arms. I was more than a little upset, especially as it took me several days to find all the pieces once again. But it was fine in the end, all fixed. Lots of pinning. I tend to do more damage myself so I really shouldn't get annoyed.

I have hurt myself countless times trying to save my minis from breaking -_-

Most recently while trying to assemble the razordon , while waiting for the glue to dry my hair was tangled within the razordon's too many sharp spikes ( or glue? no idea.. ) . So when i lift my head off the table it was dropping to the floor , i try to grab it in the air with my hand , needless to say there are like 12+ stabs from the spikes.

Gorechild wrote:I just spent the last few hours painting a model that I've been trying to finish for a week or so.
I left it on my painting table to go downstairs to get a cup of tea and when I came back not 5 minutes after I find it in 3 bits in the hand of my "really sorry" brother.
Naturally I'm pretty pissed off.

Anybody else had this "accident" happen? Any ideas what i could do to prevent it happening again? And any advice on fixing a model without the paint messing up?

Little brothers are rubbish.

When I was 8, my little brother killed Jetfire, my favourite transformer. The catchphrase 'It just broke in my hands' became very common. In response I often kicked him down the stairs.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Gorechild wrote:I just spent the last few hours painting a model that I've been trying to finish for a week or so.
I left it on my painting table to go downstairs to get a cup of tea and when I came back not 5 minutes after I find it in 3 bits in the hand of my "really sorry" brother.
Naturally I'm pretty pissed off.

Anybody else had this "accident" happen? Any ideas what i could do to prevent it happening again? And any advice on fixing a model without the paint messing up?

Little brothers are rubbish.

When I was 8, my little brother killed Jetfire, my favourite transformer. The catchphrase 'It just broke in my hands' became very common. In response I often kicked him down the stairs.

Justice!
Jetfires cool btw.

Oh, and I always broke my models before someone else got the chance as well. Putz

"KILLMAIMBURN!" is usually my response. Then my wife kicks them in the balls.

She has a firm "you break his models he spends hours away from me working on and I kick you in the BALLS!" policy.

yes i have. i went to work for 3 hours. my mum was watching the my 3rd cousins. she left them go into my room to what she thought was watching tv. but when i came home some of my best conversions were gon model pieces all over my room and ruined.
they are never allowed in my room know.

Locking away your stuff when potentially harmful creatures are around is the smartest way to go.

Fortunately my 2,5 year old dog has never shown any interest in my miniatures, but I am still not taking any chances by leaving them around unguarded.

chromedog wrote:

BOSS_PIMPALOTZ wrote:Your Space marines arrayed proudly under the lower shelf you stacked with magazines thinking "Yes that brittle plywood shelf will hold 200 odd issues of SFX" you awake! to a loud crash to find your pride and joy 2000pts crushed under the Uk's leading sci-fi mag and a plywood shelf that didnt hold.....

Jeez, even I know how much 200 magazine issues weigh - and when it comes to stacking stuff, the HEAVY STUFF goes on the bottom.

Sympathy? Not a jot.

Then again, I compartmentalise and disassociate easily and don't empathise readily. It's not like they are a part of me. The hobby is a part of me, but that does not rely on the pieces.

You know how much 200 magazines weigh your my new hero! lol and believe me those magazines that now total over 400 are on the bottom shelf.

And I realise those who compartment and disassociate and like to make their posts sound clever and sarcy a skill best won on those bereft of wit.

My sister once toddled into my room and picked up my Bloodthirster in one hand and my Lord of Change in the other... and started to play dolls with them!!!!
i wandered in and followed a trail of bits to the other side of my bed where i saw a horrific carnage of Bits....
i almost cried. then i saw my sister and kicked her out my room with more Ferocity than a Bloodthrister...

Thankfully, only my father has broken my minis. It was this Christmas when he was removing the Christmas Tree, he heard something falling while vacuuing the "needles". It was my old-school metallic Tiranoic Chariot. Needless (oh the irony) to say that many bitz of the broken Chariot, which didn't handle the impact well, were vaccuued. Most of them were found after long search in the vaccuum bag, though the spear hasn't been found yet.

My current girlfriend tripped whilst hovering my hobby room. She fell into my shelving unit where I keep all my models bringing the whole lot down. The final body count:
3000pt space marine army destroyed
1500pts Tyranids crushed
6000pts of Eldar in pieces
10000pts chaos in pieces
1 broken Titan
2 cracked ribs

and one very upset girlfriend who spent the whole day crying and even packed her stuff expecting me to kick her out.
I got home from work saw the devastation and laughed.

I tend to provide quite a few models to some of the players in our group whenever we hold an event, and without a doubt it's my models that get broken. It's virtually never by me, just by them. It's very annoying.

Yeah, it sucks when people break your stuff like that. Generally my response is an annoyed "Okay, okay, I'll fix it, just don't touch it!"

I do wonder what goes through people's heads sometimes when I see them picking up other people's models by the weapon or something. But I break most of my stuff myself, and I don't mind fixing them. It's one of the reasons I prefer plastic though- my warmachine stuff is way more prone to breaking than say my WOTR stuff.

Sometimes I run out of things to do. Model breakage is exciting "Ooh! the tyrant fell over, I can fix it." Due to not having a foam case (part price, part tyranids don't fit right) they are all packed neatly into an ammo box. It takes time to get them all positioned so they won't rattle around and I usually only get chipped paint. I dropped my tyrant once and the upper torso split back into it's original three pieces. In the end glue+paint+time = no problem.

Every time I transport my miniatures, I expect something to have fallen off. Now that I use properly fitted Sabol trays, it hardly happens, just to pieces that are too tall for the foam like antennae and the little stuff on top of backpacks.

Now there's a new problem.

Recently I discovered that my kids kept passing off cleaning the litter box off on each other, so the cats found alternative pissoures to use..namely, my army box. I'm slowly but surely rinsing the models off with water under the sink and then spray them with Frebreeze (goodbye transfers). "Luckily" it's been mostly tanks, but that stuff ran through all the layers of foam. I don't know of it's the bases, but urine makes huge crystals on GF9 magnetized bases. So far, so good. Another thing, it was furniture foam I bought, not Sabol trays. If it were Sabol trays, I would have made bookcovers out of my cats, but it was my fault for not locking the lid in place.

BOSS_PIMPALOTZ wrote:Ah the horror when you pack your case and one misplaced foam cover causes a horrific tide of minis that cascades down to the bottom of the case.

When your mortified girlfriend (Now my wife) greets you as you come home and goes "You know that Daemon prince guy" you answer "Yes Honey" and she presents the cleanly broken torso with the angel wings you tried to pin and epox putty to his back thats pure pain...........horrible biting pain.

When your asleep a good nights painting done your mind is as numb as anything (Long nights and days without work back in 2005-2007) Your Space marines arrayed proudly under the lower shelf you stacked with magazines thinking "Yes that brittle plywood shelf will hold 200 odd issues of SFX" you awake! to a loud crash to find your pride and joy 2000pts crushed under the Uk's leading sci-fi mag and a plywood shelf that didnt hold.....

yes I know broken Minatures well.

That proves that the pen is mightier than the sword.

There is an entire thread on this here.

Fortunately, I've only broken my own models.

I had about 2500pts of high elves on a desk , when i came came from school one day to find them i a pile broken and half dead. My mum had knocked them , to this day I have no idea how you can break soo many models accidentally. Although my room is pretty messy, probably tripped over something :/ . Made me not want to pick up another miniature for like 3 months because it took me so long to make them, plus I am a very lazy person.