Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

lol! ok this may seem odd to some people but!! Does anyone else get abit nervous before you start to paint? I do and it feels stupid, but it happens, am i the only 1?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

VicStaUk wrote:lol! ok this may seem odd to some people but!! Does anyone else get abit nervous before you start to paint? I do and it feels stupid, but it happens, am i the only 1?

And if so, what calms you before painting?

I can understand where you're coming from; you just don't want to mess up the model, right?

I occasionally get the same thing; I say occasionally because I only ever paint... occasionally.

I guess... practice. If you're really nervous about ruining the mini, get a couple of spare models together, coat them with a few thin layers of hairspray, and then paint over the top. When you're done, if it looks like crap, the paint will just wash off in lukewarm water; the hairspray keeps it from drying onto the model itself. Then, just rinse and repeat!

Hope that helps.

If you're nervous about trying a new colour scheme or technique, buy one of those boxes of 5 Guardsmen for £5 and practise it on those beforehand. That way if you balls it up, you haven't ruined your top project you've spent dozens of hours converting, you've only ruined a Guardsmen, and there's hundreds of them left, they won't miss one!

Im not nervous at the start, its usually when im adding final highlights to something like a LoC i get nervous.

1 slip means re-blending and highlighting the section ive done previous.
and with blending i find you have to do the whole section again, i cant blend in to a blended area.

Seems trivial, but i just dislike the fact i can ruin hours of painting with a slight slip.

Thats spot on, i dont want to mess it up, i mean some of the things you buy aint just well a £5 job, I like the expensive stuff, some people would say thats just typical me, but its the way it is, the nice stuff is more pricey, the £5 little box set stuff is great for trying new schemes, but my problem at the moment is a Ork WarBoss looking straight at me in his black primer thinking "well get on with it then" lol!

Haha, it happens mate.
Ive got a range of random models (20 gouls, 20 marines, 20 skellies etc) that i brought simply to test out schemes and tricks.
Not counting a few different vehicles.

ill try a scheme out, then again to make sure i have it solid, and then get on with it.



However, i am pretty daunted with my recent project lol.
fateweaver and 4 LoC's, which is possibly the most horrible unit (not really a unit, but i treat it as such) to paint. (constant texture and colour change and no air brush make this hell)

@ jack.......well u're nerves pay you well mate! u're stuff is epic and if i could paint like you i would'nt be nervous about it lol!
Well i guess the saying goes " Theres no harsher critic than ureself" so i should just go for it? hm!

I wish i could paint at the moment though
Got soo much piled up that im only doing odd bits here and there.

Aside from what ive said, ive also got 3k of daemons to paint up, including each greater daemon and 3 princes.
And thats just the daemons.

Got 9k of nids now that arent going anywhere, 1k of crons with another 1.5k on order now.
5k of BA, without a drop of paint.



Just not in the mood for painting at the moment lol.

I get nervous for sure. When I sit down to paint I have to start on something easy because my hands shake for the first five minutes or so. After that I get settled in, start to relax, and become steady. The wierd thing is I can paint well, and do almost every day. I am a classic over worrier though.

What everyone has said, is what i feel when i start to paint, as i'm fairly new to this again, i just dont know where to start sometimes, i first brought the black reach box set and thought this should be fine, but i've found the figures.....boring ( sorry not to offend anyone) and havent had the inspiration to paint them, so, i went and brought other stuff now and havent even finished the black reach stuff, i have the proper Ork Nobz set now also the Lootas & Burnas, space wolves, dark eldar kabalites, inncubi, space marine devastrator squad & black templar's. who, what & how is now on my mind lol!

The only box set items that have really cranked my tractor are the elves from the Isle of Blood set. Such great detail and minimal mold lines on all of the miniatures. But they're the exception rather than the rule - the Macragge minis were just kind of "eh," with the real highlight of the box being the crashed ship terrain. So I can totally understand not getting really excited about the AoBR stuff.

I get nervous all the time. Especially if I'm starting from scratch on a new unit, a new color scheme, or on a major focal piece like a general or character model. Usually I'll just put on some music and try to relax, or have a beer to unwind - not too many, of course, as that leads to problems of its own.

I've also found that working in stages has been a great help to me, both in making sure I'm patient and in keeping me motivated to paint. I generally work on 4-5 models at a time, all from the same unit. I'll paint the bases, 1 through 5, then go back and put on the basecoats, 1 through 5. After that comes the washes, then the highlights, blah blah blah. But by having an assembly line going, I don't feel the need to rush to the next stage on one model.

And, when I've done 1-2 full units of Army A, I'll treat myself by allowing myself to do either a showpiece unit (like a Dreadnaught or a hero) or a unit of another army that I've been eager to do (goblin spider riders). After that, though, it's back to the salt mines and more bleached bone for the masses of Tomb Kings awaiting their painting.

I'm pretty terrified of painting my first IG tank... I've done some infantry and am really, really happy with them, so I really don't want to let them down with rubbish vehicles! I've got a basilisk with stowage, etc that I really want to get started on. But whats the colour scheme? Marking stripes or no marking stripes? Camo or no camo? attempt at barracuda netting or not? To try and use weathering powders, or just use paints? Light or heavy weathering? Undercoat, wash and drybrush, or, or... what?!?

Argh! <Paint stress>

I dunno if I'd call it "nervousness" (i usually don't try anything on models I actually give a damn about until I'm pretty confident with it) but I do notice that I often need to overcome a little friction when I start painting after a while. I may sit down, wet a brush, look at my table, and decide to go do something else three or four times before i get going. But once I'm in the proccess I can go for hours before I lose steam.

The one thing I've found in years of painting and modeling is that almost any screwup, during almost any stage of painting, gets lost in the big picture. Seriously.

Are you going to freak out about one guy's eyeball being painted funny, or are you going to get started and have a nicely painted army to play with?


FWIW I do find that having a couple drinks before and during painting helps to steady my hand.

Not nervous, but apprehensive may be. Especially if you're about to take a knife to a model that cost a bomb.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Not nervous, but apprehensive may be. Especially if you're about to take a knife to a model that cost a bomb.

Probably this. At the end of the day, a model can be repainted or stripped if need be but you can end up causing fairly dramatic damage if you cut it wrong.

I get nervous when I'm putting on the finishing touches and grabbing the can of spray varnish. That's the part that matters most. Anything earlier, I can just strip and repaint without time lost. More nervous about trying to take models apart or do some heavy cutting. I've acquired stitches before over a slipped blade, and that's never good times.

By the way, your real time isn't e.e. cummings is it?

Why is this in the tutorials section?!
If you're getting nervous about painting something specific (I've worried "Am I just going to mess this expensive mini up" loads in the past) then go back to painting basic troops or something until you have enough confidence in your ability. If its a metal fig then you have nothing at all to worry about, they are really easy to strip down.

Yep nerves are part of the fun of the hobby, especially when you have this AWESOME new idea for an army and all you can think,sleep and breathe is the scheme and how it will look! then when it comes down to the painting, you know if it doesn't look exactly how you imagined it to be then you will lose all energy for the army and sell it off at a loss and start something else....

I am more nervous when beginning a conversion. It takes alot of balls to snip off that arm with the clippers.

Yeah I only really get nervous when I have to paint the really small fine details. Doing base coats eh if you screw up and painted to much, just get out the white after the paint dries, then paint over the botched area and re-paint it how you wanted it in the begining. Now when it comes to conversions oh hell I really get nervous there, one wrong cut sometimes means a lot of GS is going to be used for filling and smoothing and sometimes rescribbing panel lines.

I cant recall ever being nervous about painting...anxious maybe, but not nervous. Its not like im taking my miniature on a date or anything . For whatever reason you might feel nervous....relax and remember that mistakes can be corrected. If you dont like the figure at all you can always mulligan your project with Simple Green. No pressure is on you except your own expectations, which can definatley have an affect on your performance. Best of luck with your future projects!

I'm such a poor painter that when I make mistakes it usually looks better than what I originally had.

Gorechild wrote:Why is this in the tutorials section?!
If you're getting nervous about painting something specific (I've worried "Am I just going to mess this expensive mini up" loads in the past) then go back to painting basic troops or something until you have enough confidence in your ability. If its a metal fig then you have nothing at all to worry about, they are really easy to strip down.

Why is it in the tutorials section?

Well if you open your mind, every single post, that you read if actualy a tutorial of how to calm your nervs, if you read the replys you would realise that maybe!
It's actualy a clever twist on a tutorial made by the response of the people and you did'nt even know it! lol!

VicStaUk wrote:Thats spot on, i dont want to mess it up, i mean some of the things you buy aint just well a £5 job, I like the expensive stuff, some people would say thats just typical me, but its the way it is, the nice stuff is more pricey, the £5 little box set stuff is great for trying new schemes, but my problem at the moment is a Ork WarBoss looking straight at me in his black primer thinking "well get on with it then" lol!

With an unpainted model, , no worries, I can see the detail and I can work out exactly what I'm going to do. The moment the black primer goes on I freak out. I lost all the detail! The black primer just pulls everything together and I can't differentiate. I wear contacts/glasses, so I freak out about whether or not I can see all the tiny bits - can I focus on the brush as I'm doing the eyes or is it going to go everywhere? Have I got enough light?

Case in point actually. I was worried about light when I was painting my marine cappy today, so I grabbed all my gear and painted him half hunched in the flourescent light mounted underneath my kitchen cupboards. That said, the light was fantastic - stick your dayight bulbs up yer bum-bums.

I'm not a worrier, just neurotic, now he's done to a reasonable standard, I don't know what I was worried about.

@ Phayse, what do you think of floodlights? lol! I mite need these, but yeah as these were my first models i primed them in black, but i'm using white now as i find it easier to see the lines.

Nope, never. I have complete and utter confidence in myself every time I pick up the brush.

That might sound like sarcasm, but it's not. Be confident!

When I get in front of a canvas though..... UGH. Total meltdown.

For metals or anything thats readily available no, i can throw the paint on.
for limited edition plastics like the space hulk guys, a little yeah.

however as has been posted generally screw ups are easily corrected and lost in the grand scheme of things.
best thing to do before you start painting any model is have a clear idea about what colour everything is going to be, this should give you alot of confidence in what your painting on the model.