 Hello everybody and welcome to another hobby-cheating video and today we're gonna talk about something Maybe a little tougher. Maybe this is a little more philosophical of a video today. We're gonna talk about failure Feedback and obviously how to fix those things. Let's get into it The strict techno man sir that is Vincy V. Let us get to the technique and learn it Vincy V some time back You may have seen the figure that I was working on in my non metallic gold video Now this is a really awesome miniature from hardcore miniatures and I'll include the link below in case you're curious about the figure But in that video, I took you through sort of my recipe for non metallic gold And I thought what a great thing I get to share this with everybody and it's how I normally do gold There was just one problem. It was completely the wrong gold color for this miniature After I finished up that video and continued painting on the miniature It just wasn't sitting with me and as I looked at it and looked at it It was just wrong and I couldn't figure out why Sometimes we're so many hours deep into a project that it just becomes impossible for us to have a clear vision of it anymore Even though we're looking at it. We can't see it and So I did you know what I think and encourage most people to do what I think you should do And that's I reached out to other people to friends and said I can't figure this out Something is wrong here what I want to take you through is the two stages I went through with this figure of failure of getting things wrong Getting the feedback and then ultimately fixing it Because I think it can be really hard Especially as we start to gain knowledge in miniature painting as we start to kind of figure out what we're doing To still find out we have so much to learn. You know, I've been doing this for 25 years I've been doing it professionally or whatever the heck that means for 10 and Yet still I'll have figures where I get into something and I just I need a second set of eyes I need someone to give me feedback because I can't quite figure it out So let's take a closer look at this figure and I'll show you exactly where I went wrong Okay, so here's the figure as it existed basically at the end of that video I did a little more touch up on it or whatever, but this is basically where we were and the Problems with this miniature are actually pretty numerous. So at this stage But let's get into the primary one and this is sort of the first point where I think people often fail It's where I often fail and have to stop myself. Maybe it happens to you too and That is the gold is all wrong Now why it's wrong is because it is heavily rich saturated gold. So it's very yellow It's not evenly dispersed around the miniature and it's a poor contrast to the otherwise incredibly desaturated figure the marine itself that the sister of battle is or sorry the nergal sister she has this really Desaturated green armor, which I like I think that came out really well and for the most part I think it was something I got pretty much right but the The challenge is is that everything else on her her face her skin the you know, the other steel The bone the armor everything's desaturated and it's with this wonderful color palette and all of a sudden you get to the gold and it just punches you in the face and Not a good way in a way that makes it so it's not harmonious with the rest of the piece and I just couldn't put it together. I was like well. I executed on my gold recipe. I did the thing This is non-metallic gold like I did it. Why doesn't it work? It doesn't work because often times when we're dealing with these more complicated paint jobs and especially in lighting schemes You have to make sure that the figures harmonious with each other that the various elements are working together All these desaturated elements can't suddenly have a hyper saturated element in them. It just doesn't work It's not a good contrast as it were So that's one place where I went wrong The next thing was isn't this supposed to be a nergal sister a battle? What's with this perfect armor? Why is this armor so clean? You know, it's one of those things where I'd spent so much time Working on the armor and getting it to a nice place and like being pretty proud of what I had had accomplished with it. I Was too scared to weather it That's it fear. I let fear rule me You can't do that Okay, maybe I'll mess up my work. Maybe I won't but I painted it once I can paint it again and darn it I know that I've given people that advice. I've said that in videos before and yet still here I am falling victim to the exact same thing and gosh darn it if it doesn't just kill me But it was there and what it took was somebody else telling me that To break me out of the fear cycle because it made me realize no no Vince. You're not saving anything Having this really nice armor, but having it be wrong for the figure. You're not doing right by anyone That's not making the figure better. It's making it actively worse so I had to lose the fear and Scuff up that armor get it that you know dented hashed scratch dotted rusted pitted All the appropriate things for a nergal armor. That doesn't mean I needed to go over the top Right and in fact, I think it's better not to but I wanted it to show some signs of wear some scratches some scratches some dots This that's the fact that this is in fact a nergal sister And so the armor is not kept in perfect condition as would be fit a follower of the great-grandfather The next thing it was wrong was the steel non-metallic metal. So these are some little things It wasn't bright enough. It didn't come up high enough I had to correct that to bring it more in line with the light and then finally the purple in between her was way too Strong too saturated all the way down kind of like what happened with the gold, but not quite as much I didn't really go as far as over the top. This isn't like a rich purple. It's already a fairly high tinge Desaturated purple the real problem was it didn't work with the lighting scheme if the orange fire is meant to be coming up from the Bottom right. She's kind of lit from hell, which is what you call just kind of a light from below in this case It's probably true because it's orange, but the That purple still too much of it was showing I didn't have enough of like a terminator shadow there between the two not enough occlusion shadow between the two elements the light sources and So I had to fix that Now I got a lot of good feedback and so what did I do? Well, I set about to work on it, but I'll be honest. I was kind of slow with it I got the feedback and I agreed with every single thing that I had been told and it was so helpful many people gave me like I reached out to several artist friends and they all gave me basically different versions of that feedback, you know in different ways and The issue was it was very demoralizing That's what it is not that I got the feedback I was happy for it, but that I had went so wrong and so to be honest. I set the figure aside I barely touched it for I don't know probably a month and it just sat here on my desk and Then finally one day. I was like, you know what enough of this this thing is sat here I don't want to hear anymore. I know I can do this and I'm gonna do it So I sat down and it took me another week another probably 40 to 60 hours into this thing We can have actually at least and I kept working on it and I kept working on it and I kept working on it more and more hours a couple weekends of like basically 12 14 hours a day and I Got it to a better place. So let me show you what it looked like then after that work So here's how the thing looked After all of those touch-ups also with now the background at it as well I'd always planned to have the background that wasn't something I left out That was just something I did because I was like, I'm I'm finishing this God darn it and once I had Once I started working It became easier to get up and work the next day and there was easier the next day and it was easier the next day after that Because the more I started working with it and changing my colors and switching the scheme going with the more Desaturated almost chartreuse gold the pistachio influenced gold Taking down the shadows working like sapping the life out of things bringing up the shadow in the purple The more I started working with all of these things the more and it started coming together The more excited I got the more ready. I was to keep putting paint to brush Just another proof point that that first step is the hardest when you know, you've got to walk very far Taking that first step out of your house is always gonna be the hardest one But I promise you that once you start actually walking each step after that gets easier and easier and easier So this is how it looked and all in all honestly, I'm yeah, I thought okay. We got somewhere We got somewhere like I thought this was a fast improvement over where it was The colors were much more harmonious now. I had taken sort of the life out of some things everything was working and Together much better the individual elements, but I thought just wait We're not done yet So I sent this one out for some feedback to the same people who had helped me before and They gave me some great feedback. So let's talk about this one. What's wrong here? Well one my non metallic is a little too especially on the larger things is a little too regular too smooth Too even of a gradient the reality is although all of that light situation is correct And what I explained in that video is not wrong Real NMM can be a little more credible when it's kind of broken up and isn't really exactly what science would say When there's a little bit of more diffusion and the sort of the reflections are a little more broken And there's more small bounce lights and slight changes in value I don't know how to teach that in a in a thing It's a thing I've done in other figures and just forgot here because I was mainly focused on just the exact science of the light And this is where kind of the art comes into it in reality things aren't perfectly shaped There's inconsistencies. There's you know a lot of things, especially we paint aren't manufactured You know if you're painting fantasy goods, these were handmade So it's gonna be small inconsistencies and imperfections and that will cause the light to sometimes move and scatter in unusual ways Side to fix that I had to bring the purple down further didn't go far enough, right and the most importantly the light was wrong so Her light up on her top right is not equally bright The light on her sort of breast and on her backpack was nice and bright But then it wasn't reflected in the other breast and the shoulder and that's a problem Because you want that spotlight effect. I was clearly trying to draw attention there And yet I was showing an unequal lighting scheme And at the same time I had this other motivated light up in the background But the problem is I've got so much warmth down at the bottom all this rich oranges and red tones and stuff down at the bottom Of the miniature and that's gonna draw the eye now so I've got to bring that brightness at the top of the miniature way up and I got some really good advice to sort of darken the background up there so that it would actually show even brighter and This is one of those things never does a light shine as bright as when it's against darkness, right? You light a lighter outside on a sunny day It basically looks like nothing if you're alone in a dark room with no lights on and you turn a lighter on it's whoa, hey so much light is cast over the whole room, right and So by blackening out the background effectively darkening it down not just like I made it a sheet of black You'll see in a second The It makes it so she looks even brighter So those built-in highlights that I put there and built up and reinforced in the next step got even brighter I also brought some of the fire needed to bring some of the fire up higher. I had fire up under her Sort of breasts and on down by her leg There's kind of a middle area there where I really wasn't catching any of that tone And it's like if it made its way all the way up to her chest Then it needs to be somewhere else So I had to introduce some more orange elements into the middle of it to show that that light has traveled that distance up and You know so ultimately what did I do? Well this time I wasn't gonna make the same mistake This time I went I got feedback right away and then I sat down that night and the next night and the next night and I started painting and Made those changes worked on it wall. It was fresh in my mind while I was hot All right, and I got now to what I think is a really good place So let me show you where it all ended up This is where we are on the journey after those two rounds of revisions Is there still more to do? Yeah undoubtedly and just as a note She's not actually attached into the background into the base yet so I can pull her off and do more work if I need to and I've got to let it sit for a minute and cool Maybe I'll go back for feedback again Maybe I'll give it a day and to look at it with fresh eyes all of those things can be valuable in helping to locate The challenges you have with a miniature that you're very close to The reason I wanted to share this story with you is is myriad the reasons is myriad Firstly to tell you that if you ever run into problems with a figure and you're not sure what's wrong first Don't feel bad. I've been doing this for years and I still have it happen It's always going to be a part of your journey. It's art. It will sometimes frustrate us because it's not a It's not math. It's not just two plus two equals four and So because of that there's always going to be things we're uncomfortable with and ways that of where we're unsure to go forward Sometimes that just means waiting a day or two and you know clearing the mental block But oftentimes it means we need to go out and get feedback from other people That's why I have a patreon focused on review and feedback Because I want to be that person who can help others find that next step You can find that in the link below if you're interested but the that feedback is invaluable and so Finding people even if you don't think they're necessarily like amazing painters or that much better than you as long as they know Their way around they will often come with completely fresh eyes and spot things you didn't and That can be super helpful and When you're dealing with that failure feedback cycle the important thing is to not become defeated and That can be hard. I know I went through that period with this figure and I'd like to think I'm over that. I mean like again. I wasn't angry about the feedback I was welcoming the feedback. I was so thrilled when I got it. It was beyond helpful I want to be clear about that like properly taking feedback is I think something I can do at this point It's been years and years and years of be getting feedback and I love getting feedback at this point I love when people rip into my managers and just tell me everything they see that's wrong It's so helpful because it gives me a better eye going forward But it can still be hard to then make that turn of the corner from Feedback to action. My advice is don't let that stop you. Don't be demoralized Because where you go after you do that work is going to be so much more rewarding Right now as I sit here I feel a hundred times better than I did when this was just sitting on my desk staring at me I feel a sense of fulfillment that I went in and tackled this that really I've been missing For for a while like since I set this fig aside And that makes me really excited to go to the next project and to see what I can do there Winning succeeding pushing yourself and accomplishing All that does is light the fire to want to do it again and again and So fixing those models after the feedback that you got when you failed And I know failure is a hard word to hear you could say like well there's challenges We could soften it, but I failed That's what happened and it's okay Because in the end I think this was totally worth it And I'm happy I got the figure painted I'm happy it is where it is and Ultimately, it was a very fun project. I hope you like it too Tell me if you spot anything else or if you've got any feedback for me drop it down in the comments I want to know I welcome your thoughts your feedback on the figure Don't hold back All right, so at any rate. Thank you so much for watching this one I really appreciate you doing so. I hope this was informative and helpful for you Especially as you run into your own challenges If you liked this give it a like subscribe for additional hobby cheating in the future If you've got any questions drop those down in the comments I always read every comment including all your feedback as I mentioned if you want to support the channel There's lots of ways you can do so you can share this video You can also join our patreon. That's linked down below as I mentioned focused on review and feedback We've also got merch down there and the games that uncle Adam and I make if you want to pick up a new cool fun game for your For your play group this weekend. You can find all those linked down there or if you're just picking up your newest hobby supplies I've got Amazon links down there as well It doesn't cost you anything extra and certainly helps out the channel and helps us keep the lights on as Always though. I thank you so much for watching this one and we'll see you next time