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I'm sure everyone's done it, Ultra late nights/early mornings trying to finish off to many mini's..
Me, I only just got started in this hobby and already it's becoming a problem,
I just finished a marathon session without my regular backing track of tunes (due to my neighbour mowing his lawn "and god only knows what else" with a chainsaw at some ungodly hour this morning)
So anyway my mind started to wander after a few hours in, and i came up with this.

You know it's time to stop painting when-

- Your eyes are blurry and your hands are shaking but you just have to get that last little minuscule detail, even though you know your going to mess it up

- Your alarm clock to get up for work just started going off. Or worse still your Wife's alarm clock just started going off..

- You start eye'n off your kids army-men thinking they could pass for IG

- Even your demon prince is drinking coffee

- Your paint brush has bags under it's eyes and looks like it's given up aswell

- The jar of 'Badab Miracle' you bought much earlier in the day is completely empty and has been for some time...

- You finish off the last termie in your squad put him up on the shelf with the others and you realize you've just painted a 40k version of the village people.... who proceed to bang out a retro version of "YMCA"

- Your pet canary starts looking like a perfectly valid mount for your Elf lord

- Your Necron warrior's are giggling like school girls when you paint under their arms

- The missus's new Tupperware container starts looking like a great place to make a new wet pallet...

- Your "fresh" wet pallet has dried and is looking more like the Simpson desert

- Hot Pink is looking like a much more attractive color with every stroke of black you put on your Chaos SM's.

- Your freshly finished modded space-wolf mount looks like something 'Salvadore Dali' dreamt up..

- You are certain everytime you look away from your eldar they are "touching" each other inappropriately

- You go looking for your grinder because your hobby knife just isn't cutting fast enough

- Your out of cigarettes, your ashtray is full and you've taken up smokin paintbrush

- There is no coffee, milk or sugar left within a 5 kilometer radius and you know your going to be in if there is no coffee in the morning when the missus gets up

- In the corner of your eye you can see your Carniflex plotting your demise and sharpening his talons..

- Your Orc boy's are complaining their ride isn't Orcy enough, until you threaten them with the hot pink paint job your chaos guys just got..

- One of your Orc boy's takes the opportunity to come out of the closet and requests that hot pink paint job..

- Your Librarian is complaining he has already read "that" book!!

- Your fishtank looks like a good place to clean your brush and refresh your water cup, as the sink is to far away

- Your new Industrial based building is starting to look more like a Mac donald's

- You just re-heated dinner in the microwave for the fifth time...

- You are using paperclips and clothes pegs to keep your eyes open

- Your Orc warboss in a high pitched proper-well-to-do English accent just asked, "Excuse me sir, could i bother you for a cup of tea?"

- You catch yourself thinking how cool Papa smurf would look as a new addition to your Ultra-marines...

- Or worse yet, thinking how hot Smurfette would look with some Dakka


Think that's enough for me.... I'm going to go get some
Do yourself a favor and do the same
Or feel free to carry on with-
You know it's time to stop painting when-

...you start eying things in the real world, thinking "that could use another highlight".
...you wonder how whoever created the world did their wetblending technique, as it looks juuuuust right.
...you realize how much better you could've done one one model... and then go back and do it on every other model. (Seriously. Done it before. Sucks.)
...you start worshiping the chaos god "Kaffeine"
...you realize that you just washed an entire squad with coffee - and that it looks better than the wash you were using!

...when you paint the Tech Priest's data-slate to look like an iPad

Edit: When you re-spray things black, as you have to have something to paint...

...when you regret every notion of the craftsmanship of painting and think, "video games do all this for you!"

... your girlfriend or wife comes wearing not much...

When you look around yourself and realise that what was once a beautiful family home complete with nice furniture, ornaments from your travels to hot and sunny places, children and wife have all long gone and you are left with some crappy flat packed shelving units and about 3000 miniatures that no mater how hard you try you know that you will never get painted!

squilverine wrote:When you look around yourself and realise that what was once a beautiful family home complete with nice furniture, ornaments from your travels to hot and sunny places, children and wife have all long gone and you are left with some crappy flat packed shelving units and about 3000 miniatures that no mater how hard you try you know that you will never get painted!

You didn't need them anyway. Now go finish your armies.

You reach for your drink and realise, scant moments before taking a sip, that you're holding your paint water to your lips.

This happens more quickly if your drink is beer.

wuestenfux wrote:... your girlfriend or wife comes wearing not much...

Hmmmm possibly but you can still go back to painting afterwards -- wife didn't speak to me for a week after i pulled that one ( way hay just ment more paint time )

H.B.M.C. wrote:You reach for your drink and realise, scant moments before taking a sip, that you're holding your paint water to your lips.

This happens more quickly if your drink is beer.

This usually happens to me AFTER I've taken the sip and I'm wondering why my drink tastes like gak. Also, cleaning brushes in your beer.

H.B.M.C. wrote:You reach for your drink and realise, scant moments before taking a sip, that you're holding your paint water to your lips.

This happens more quickly if your drink is beer.

Guilty. Especially of the second part.

...when your brand-new set of brushes would give a serious painter a heart attack, and you are still putting out 'eavy-metal quality paintjobs.

When you catch yourself looking for an 'undo' button.

Or a 'copy and paste' button to copy the paint from one minature to another....

Eldar Own wrote:Or a 'copy and paste' button to copy the paint from one minature to another....

I really do need this.

----------------

When you clean your brush in your drink.

I concur with the drinking thing.

...when your miniatures ask how much longer it's going to be.
...when your family starts to realize your hobby isn't as healthy as previously thought...
...when you realize you didn't wait for that last wash to dry before painting again.
...when your hands look like you've strangled a rainbow.
...when you forget about your current work to go work on something that "wasn't quite done" (hint: it actually was).
...when you REALLY want to put googly eyes on your wraithlord to see what it looks like.
...when you accidently superglue googly eyes onto a wraithlord...

When you win golden deamon and still think your paintings not good enough.

When you paint every single model in your 5000 point Brettonian army with freehand heraldry that would not look out of place at Golden Deamon and its your first army (we have a guy in our gaming club who did this, every single model was different and not a transer in sight. Turns out hes an artist by profession).

When you get to model 699 of your 700 model all Goblin warhammer army and realise you didnt paint the eyes on them.

When you get to the final model of the above army and want to still paint more.

When you have just brought out your stores entire suply of tentacle pink.

When you wake up with a face full of whatever color you were last using and a mini for an eye.

When the models you're painting sit down for a rest because they've been standing up for too long...

When the Thorgrim Grudgebearer model you're painting dies of old age...

When you refinish 600 sq ft of your basement into a gaming area, so you have somewhere to keep, build, paint and play with your gaming stuff.

:guilty:

MagickalMemories wrote:When you refinish 600 sq ft of your basement into a gaming area, so you have somewhere to keep, build, paint and play with your gaming stuff.

:guilty:

Pictures please

When your painting water is the same color, taste, smell and tempature as coffee you poured hours previously.

When your wife calls you by your first, middle and last name because dinner was ready 10 minutes ago.

squilverine wrote:

MagickalMemories wrote:When you refinish 600 sq ft of your basement into a gaming area, so you have somewhere to keep, build, paint and play with your gaming stuff.

:guilty:

Pictures please

: )

I'll be posting them when it's done.
Someone has a "man cave" thread going on around here somewhere that I subscribed to. : )

Lord_Astaroth wrote:When your wife calls you by your first, middle and last name because dinner was ready 10 minutes ago.

Yeah. That's bad.

Also bad is when the wife calls you, you tell her "one more minute," then show up for dinner, only to find that it's cold & everyone's already eaten.

Oops.

Eric

Leptosoma09 wrote:


- Even your demon prince is drinking coffee

- Your paint brush has bags under it's eyes and looks like it's given up aswell

- You finish off the last termie in your squad put him up on the shelf with the others and you realize you've just painted a 40k version of the village people.... who proceed to bang out a retro version of "YMCA"

- Your Necron warrior's are giggling like school girls when you paint under their arms

- You are certain everytime you look away from your eldar they are "touching" each other inappropriately

- In the corner of your eye you can see your Carniflex plotting your demise and sharpening his talons..

- Your Orc boy's are complaining their ride isn't Orcy enough, until you threaten them with the hot pink paint job your chaos guys just got..

- One of your Orc boy's takes the opportunity to come out of the closet and requests that hot pink paint job..

- Your Librarian is complaining he has already read "that" book!!


- Your Orc warboss in a high pitched proper-well-to-do English accent just asked, "Excuse me sir, could i bother you for a cup of tea?"

If any inanimate object starts moving or starts talking you know it's time to get some sleep.

It's never time to stop painting.

MagickalMemories wrote:

squilverine wrote:

MagickalMemories wrote:

Lord_Astaroth wrote:When your wife calls you by your first, middle and last name because dinner was ready 10 minutes ago.

Yeah. That's bad.

Also bad is when the wife calls you, you tell her "one more minute," then show up for dinner, only to find that it's cold & everyone's already eaten.

Oops.

Eric

When you finaly emerge upstairs and find not only everyone else has eatern they have eatern your dinner to and are serving breakfast.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Im not sure whats happened above, for some reason the quoute marks have moved.

Dont know what you lot are on?!! Taken me 6 months with my guardians and iv only just glued on their arms.

Painting armies feels like a job rather then a hobby sometimes.

I don't have an amusing anecdote to add to this. I've never accidentally drank paint water.

Well, technically, I have occasionally smeared paint on unintentional targets by going to press forward on my mp3 player without taking the (wet) brush out of my hand first... but I don't have to be tired to do that.

I know it's time to stop painting when I'm not enjoying it and it feels like a chore. Once that happens I stop immediately and do something else, partially because I can always find something to do I enjoy doing, and partially because I'm aware that my painting is significantly less quality when I force myself to do it. As such, unless I'm on some sort of artificial deadline, I never "make" myself finish a project.

When you are sure your IG is completeing parade manouevers when your not watching

When your Minis start to annex others sections of the room your painting in