Your painting & modelling etc errors
2 kinds of mistake Just a thought that occured to me after basing some Austrian grenadiers last week - I looked at the finished unit and could see that I'd forgotten to paint the shoulder straps. :doh: This got me thinking about the stupid errors I've made over the years while painting and prepping figures, like when I started wargaming for the first time and cut off the forage caps and bayonet scabbards of some French infantry because I mistook them for flash! I'm sure there must be loads of others - examples include- I only realised a short time ago that British Nap officers turnbacks were white not the regiment's facing colour and I've been painting the sods for years, I'm sure i've also displayed the King's colour on the wrong side, maybe flags upside down in other armies etc - I'd always painted cavalry scabbards brown or black rather than steel, also painting WW2 infantry rifles quie recently in gunmetal, not realising what a sabre knot was and so ad infinitum So what painting mistakes have others made through lack of "knowledge"? There is of course the other sort of mistake - that somebody else points out that you didn't spot For example these can sometimes be pointed out by passer by at conventions - some years ago I got pulled up by a guy about what I'd written in some blurb next to a demonstration game - he took exception to the status I'd afforded the French army at a Waterloo refight Ever happened to you? .....You know being told that your OOB or something is wrong - like depicting the wrong regiment/clothing etc - ......... "you do know that really the Queen's Own Clitorians weren't present at the battle of Myopia in 1833 because they were wiped out a year earlier at the little known skirmish of Mrs Miggins Knocking Shop, yes did you know they were ambushed by the 2nd Battalion of the Duchy of Fukkwittian Gentleman's Volunteer Rifles whom I may add your opponent is incorrectly depicting wearing Lobster pots rather than their traditional Chamber pots, no you don't? oh" C'mon spill the beans, what cock ups have the rest of you made?

I have lots of AWI mistakes: - Painted the cuffs of the Knyphausen Fusiliers red intead of black. - Forgot that the 40th Foot had buff facings and did all the belts etc in white instead of buff. - It was a while before I realised that the colour of officers' hat lace and sword knots etc followed the colour of the buttons - I had assumed these things were always gold. - I still confused about which figures in the Perry range are supposed to be officers and which are sergeants. - It was only the fact that the 42nd was a royal regiment that saved me from the "mistake" of not realising that musicians had reversed coats. - A couple of my earlier regiments show a dire lack of awareness for the Royal Warrant (particularly no red waistcoats and breeches on white-faced regiments). So big tip for anyone starting out on the AWI - read the 1768 Royal Warrant very carefully... :doh: Other notable errors: - My 1815 French line infantry have red piping on their coat turnbacks, which I recall John Baxter saying was stopped in 1812 or something. - Far too many light blue trousers in my ACW reb units.

If I thought too hard about this, I wouldn`t sleep at nights :-) I paint and build my wargames forces for ma and F**k everyone else. Sorry, a bit scratchy this morning.........

I don't think this forum has enough bandwidth for my list, but I still sleep well at night.

I've just sprayed a dozen British dragoons with primer in the garage...and then dropped the buggers on the floor. They're now soaking in paint stripper. Does that count? :grr:

1) Clipped off the bottom of the sword on a GW Bretonnian model that was sticking out from beneath the shield because I thought it was flash. 2) Left freshly basecoated figs on the table, which the cat promptly strolled through and covered with fur. 3) Painted four sixteen man units of 15mm Brits in red coats with French facings for SYW (Somebody MIGHT have mentioned that the French also had red-coated troopers, which was the picture I was looking at). I could provide others, but those three irritate me the most.

I think you'll find they were probably Swiss.

The first mistake I ever made was picking up a paint brush. It all went downhill from there. donald

I realised that I should stop pointing out the errors in other people's paint jobs when the local A&E gave me a gold card.

I always get it right first time...... :D

Seriously though we're all obsessive to some degree & we like to get it right. Human nature being what it is, we like to classify & order things. That is relatively easy if there are readily available references & provided that they're accurate! If they either aren't available, don't exist, or are contradicted by other sources then you have a problem. Here's a simple research question - how long is a Tiger tank? The real thing still exists & is reasonably accessible in museums in Europe & the US. Sounds simple - then try looking on the internet or in books. There are a number of differing measurements cited in various places and they can't all be right, can they? (I know because I've run this very search in the past!) Sometimes they're the results of inaccuracy in measuring, recording, copying or converting from metric to imperial (& vice versa - NASA had a very expensive problem with this a few years ago). Sometimes because they're measuring different lengths without specifying just what they're measuring (hull length Vs length including gun barrel being the one that causes most of the confusion in this case). And sometimes they just got it wrong. It always amuses me when people get too dogmatic about particular uniform & paint colours. There are so many variables implicit in any description that we're talking 'best guess' here. I can (& do) build models to milimetric accuracy but to be honest, for wargaming purposes if it looks right then it probably is. To take the Tiger tank again - it actually has a slightly asymmetric turret shape when seen from above - it's not very noticeable but once you know it's there you'll see it. Does it matter? In 1/35 modelling it does, because it's significant enough to show up (& most kits get it wrong BTW) but in 1/100 wargaming it's entirely irrelevant. I do try to get things right as best I can but I don't sweat about small inaccuracies too much, at least in this context. Great big howlers I try to avoid, or to correct.

Last night, I was boxing up some Foundry mounted vikings (for when regular vikings just aren't Death-Metal album-cover enough) to take to today's game and I tripped over the clothes horse. The whole lot get hurled across the kitchen like shrapnel. My favourite unit, from my favourite army. Cheers gravity, you cunt, why don't you just crash a fucking plane on me an'all? After a forensic fingertip search, all are accounted for. There's a long list of paint dings to put right, but only one is truly mangled. Even he is salvageable... it's going to be as much work as painting a replacement, but what the hell, it's the principle of the thing.

How did the game go today? Anyone take any pictures? I'd hoped to pop in for a while but wife and kids said otherwise! Andy