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During your time as a model painter what moments made you go "oops".

This can be just an overall bad day you had painting where at the end of it your model looks nothing like what you wanted or it could be that everything went right but there was just one slip of the hand when you were doing some touch ups and...

For me I have had times where I thought the model was gonna look ok after shading and highlighting, but it didn't. However, my biggest "oops moment was after I had just finished one of my sorcerors and was admiring my work when my fingers slipped. It would have been fine, no damage was taken from the fall, but I did manage to drop the model into a blob of gold paint which I had used to highlight him, this left my sorceror with a golden streak up the front of his chest and his helmet. Oops.

What are your biggest "oops" moments?

My paint pot was leaking, and I accidentally put my finger in the leaky bit without noticing. I used that hand to hold my Onager's cabin up. When I removed my hand, I noticed the horrific massive blobs of silver where my finger had touched.

 Verviedi wrote:
My paint pot was leaking, and I accidentally put my finger in the leaky bit without noticing. I used that hand to hold my Onager's cabin up. When I removed my hand, I noticed the horrific massive blobs of silver where my finger had touched.

I am sure that is a form of camouflage in the Imperium.

The one who'll trump us all is the one who accidentally grabbed the primer when he was varnishing his minis.

 Vulcan wrote:
The one who'll trump us all is the one who accidentally grabbed the primer when he was varnishing his minis.

Yes hello you called? Blood Angels Tactical Squad was half white and needed to be stripped and repainted.

Another good one was knocking over my open Abbaddon Black all over two of my new Stormcast Vanguard.

Back in high school we had a conspiracy theory started when three of the five of us accidentally knocked over our "Chaos Black" paint pots in the span of a month or two.

More recently I painted/dipped a cowboy figure...was shaking off the dip when he flew off the pliars and bounced into the air. Found him, painstakingly repaired him...painted/dipped...and then he fell off the drying bench. He gained the nickname "The Flying Dutchman". Recently I stripped and repainted him after he served for four years on the game table at conventions.

Every time I used Vallejo PU Primer...

Now seriously, here is the order of "oops":
- Spilled Mr. Hobby cobalt blue on the table. Had to clean it it was a mess.
- Spilled Mig Jimenez Wash.... it was one huge mess.
- When I applied Lifecolor Varnish on my mini the thing stripped the paint instead of preserving it
- Couple of months later I spilled 2/3 of my Nuln Oil... a lot of good wash lost that day.
- Some minor spills of Ironbreaker and other acrlyics.
- Accidentally poured some blue acrylic paint into my vallejo airbrush cleaner.
- When I started no one told me how to use primer. Bought Alclad 2, applied with brush on to my first mini and destroyed its details.... Then I decided to thin it with water and failed again.
- Didn't know how to thin Mr. Hobby primers for airbrush and when the paint hit the rhino it resulted into spider webs all over the place.
- Tried to re base some models and cut my hand with the hobby knife violently. The blood was all over, had to visit a doctor.
- Clouding when using varnish cans? Not sure if counts as an "oops", but it happens all the time and is annoying as feth.
- Decided to make my own home brew thinner from ISO and other stuff... I don't want to speak about that...

Also I cannot remember how many times I glued my fingers with super glue.

I haven't had anything to crazy. Recently I was working on some guys, and I had accidentally gotten some Runefang Steel all over my thumb, and then picked up some of my Dark Angel's. I smeared the runefang all over them, requiring I go back and repaint a lot of them. Kinda sucked.

I don't know how, but all my incidents involve spilling paint:

-Spilled a lot Nuln oil in my paint box
-Spilled half a pot of Eshin gray on a table
-Spilled the entire pot of typhus corrosion on my pants and floor (PS it stains blood red)
-Spilled a lot of Mephiston Red on a UM Terminator Sergeant. Covered the left half the model completely.

That's all on my mind right now.

I've had a few spilled paint pots over the last couple of years. One of them was basically a whole pot of Screaming Bell all over my card table that does duty as my painting space. Fortunately that one cleaned up easy. Another one more recently was when I bobbled a pot of Mournfang Brown. The whole thing didn't spill, but it left a brown streak on my carpet that still hasn't come out completely.

Another bad one was my own stupid fault. I couldn't wait for the weather to get better for priming, so I laid down some newspaper on my kitchen floor and spray primed right there. KIDS, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! My apartment smelled like spraypaint for days. Only good news is that thanks to my precautions no overspray got on any of the walls or floor.

Other than these I've been lucky. I've accidentally thinned my paints too much and ended up with washes instead of basecoats, but those are easily fixed. I've also gotten paint on my fingers and then touched models and had to fix them before.

A little spray varnish is good, more must be better! Yeah, no.

There is a significant difference between “Blue Ink” and "Black Ink” even though the pots and labels are pretty close looking.

This is going to sound cliché.

I was trying to write something on one of my tanks with a tiny little brush and black paint (at the time I didn't have pens that would work on the models). I sneezed suddenly and a giant black streak obliderated a lot of the writing. I had to get another brush and "erase" the giant mistake using the color that was supposed to be under the writing (leadbeltcher if I remember right).


I can't think of anything more major than that aside from the occasional tipping over paint pot making a mess.

 TheManWithNoPlan wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
The one who'll trump us all is the one who accidentally grabbed the primer when he was varnishing his minis.

Yes hello you called? Blood Angels Tactical Squad was half white and needed to be stripped and repainted.

Another good one was knocking over my open Abbaddon Black all over two of my new Stormcast Vanguard.

I've done this as well but fortunately recognized the issue fairly quickly. I was able to touch up an ork wagon without too much issue except for the cussing.

My buddy had a good one: he's very skilled and was painstakingly putting serious detail on a marine's separate head. He was nearly finished with the actual irises and 5 o'clock shadow when he promptly dropped the head into his paint pot. By the time he fished out the head he couldn't rinse off most of the blue he'd been using.

I painted up three-quarters of a Kings of War army before realizing I hated the color scheme.

Also came very close to using Testors frosted mirror effect spray instead of their dullcote varnish.

Not paying attention and forgetting to clean off my brush after I put it in water, and apply a watery streak of silver to my just finished yellow

GW paint pots sometimes drip paint into the hinge, when I shut them they splatter and drip

Tipping over washes

Also I applied flock grass to the bases of models I planned on hitting with some purity seal varnish. I am a very clumsy individual. It runs in my family. Errr, more like....stumbles in my family.

I've stabbed myself with the sharp ends of broken paintbrushes twice.

Spilled 3/4 of a pot of thousand sons blue on my favorite tie dye shirt...quick lesson to only ever paint in old clothes I don't care much about.

Stabbed myself in the foot with an exacto when it rolled off the table and impaled my foot. That was a fun one.

Glued a grey knight terminator into his base and the drilled out hole filled with a bunch of glue and I set him down to dry directly on my work table not knowing this, went to pick him up to paint and he was completely superglued to the table. That was horrid.

 Drummernathan wrote:

Stabbed myself in the foot with an exacto when it rolled off the table and impaled my foot. That was a fun one.

Dang that gave me sympathy pains.

 amazingturtles wrote:

 Drummernathan wrote:

Stabbed myself in the foot with an exacto when it rolled off the table and impaled my foot. That was a fun one.

Dang that gave me sympathy pains.

It still gives me a jolt of pain every once in a while when it's real cold. Have a cluster of dead nerves where it impaled that I literally have no sensation in that one tiny spot.

Being clumsy with a freshly painted Space Marine and then accidently dropping it in my pot of paint thinner!

Seconded by knocking over my pot a black ink and staining the carpet indefinitely

Thirdly prepping a bunch of retro Khorne Bersekers they first needed stripping. Dunked them in paint thinner to remove paint, last one put in the tub and got distracted. 12 hours later remembered I should have pulled him out in 2 minutes! What was left was a faceless, warped, melted abomination of Nurgle rather than Khorne

Not mine, but one of my buddies collected Space Marines, and he was painstakingly painting the old metal librarian (the one with a force sword held up and cloak that weighed a ton).

Dropped it on his foot. Sword down. Ouch.

I dropped my airbrush and sprayed a lovely layer of orange over my Royal Court. Horray.

Had a matte varnish coat go terribly frosty over my beautiful Hellpit Abom - I still can't stand to look at him, thinking about having to fix him.

Spilled many pots of washes.

Spilled my plastic melt glue all over my Plague Monks. On the other hand, they are plague monks... and it ended up making for some ok horrific wounds/pustules with some Greenstuffing.

My worst imo was dipping my brush in super glue. :( Was just grateful it wasn't on of my W&Ns but just a fairly cheap brush I use for priming/basecoating.

I spilled a pot of Nuln oil all over my desk, my favourite shirt, and my laptop. Thankfully, the paint washed off the shirt, and it didn't go inside the computer.

 Guildenstern wrote:
Had a matte varnish coat go terribly frosty over my beautiful Hellpit Abom - I still can't stand to look at him, thinking about having to fix him.

There's a method of fixing the frosty effect by dipping a cotton ball in olive oil, letting it sit, then washing it off with soap and water, and it'll take the frosty effect away while not touching the paint. I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard it works.

I seem to be unable to see where hair finishes and cloaks start. Until the model is complete however and then it stands out a country mile.

Had a vallejo bottle with a clogged nozzle. Typical. I shook it for a good while, and squeezed again. Still clogged. I squeezed a bit harder, a bit harder...

It was like a cork brown grenade going off. Blast radius of at least a couple of metres.

Haven't had much that was too messed up happening that wasn't easily fixable. But one unfixable mess cost me 's model. I normally use regular elmers white glue when putting slate pieces and grass tufts on my bases. Ran out and instead of just going to get more I grabbed original all purpose gorilla glue. Not sure of it reacted wit the particulates in the texture paint, or the slate or the fake grass but it certainly reacted. It bubbled and froth ed and then hardened in its weird bubbly state. I'm back to using elmers for finishing up the bases.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
Haven't had much that was too messed up happening that wasn't easily fixable. But one unfixable mess cost me 's model. I normally use regular elmers white glue when putting slate pieces and grass tufts on my bases. Ran out and instead of just going to get more I grabbed original all purpose gorilla glue. Not sure of it reacted wit the particulates in the texture paint, or the slate or the fake grass but it certainly reacted. It bubbled and froth ed and then hardened in its weird bubbly state. I'm back to using elmers for finishing up the bases.

Sounds cool, got a pic?

My 8 year old daughter recently got into model painting. I'm not sure how she did it, but she went to open a bottle of Waaagh! Flesh and managed to empty half of it all over her face, in her hair, in her mouth, over her clothes, over the dining table, over the floor... It was a Waaagh! Flesh explosion!

She just burst out crying. I'd have taken a photo but her mother rushed her to the shower to get cleaned up as apparently if you let acrylic dry in hair it's never coming out.