Paint OCD

[LL3 Model Worx]

I think I may have a touch or OCD when it comes to paints.

I can't really explain it, but for some reason I have an issue with having paint.

When I started heavily back into modeling about 9 or so years ago, I started buying up everything I thought I might need for building/painting etc... at this time I was mainly doing figures and armor.

I became pretty obsessive over Vallejo paint... as In even if didn't see a need for a certain color I had to have it anyway or else I felt "incomplete" and unprepared...

So I amassed every color in the model color range that could find... most have never been opened.

Later I stumbled onto a HUGE lot of Model master enamels both bottles and cans... enough paint to literally last me a lifetime...

So why am I still buying more... why am I still collecting more obscure colors for no apparent reason?

I think I have become a "paint collector"... is that even a thing?

Even though I KNOW they are excellent paints I'll not even try Tamiya acrylics, because they are more difficult to come by where I'm at, and I can't buy a few bottles if can't buy them all... or else I feel I don't have "enough".

Is this some weird compulsion?

Anyone else suffer from this?

It really drives me crazy sometimes, because I would like to use some of this stuff but can't get past the psychological barrier that I have seemingly self imposed.

Maybe I'm insane...

[Flat32]

OCD is a label with somewhat negative connotations often applied by folks that have no knowledge or understanding of perfectly logical behavior often encountered when a real passion exists.

I've noticed many of the great modellers on this forum have extensive racks of paints in their build bench photos.

BTW, even thinking you might be insane is a proof that you are not.

[LL3 Model Worx]

4 minutes ago, Flat32 said:

OCD is a label with somewhat negative connotations often applied by folks that have no knowledge or understanding of perfectly logical behavior often encountered when a real passion exists.

I've noticed many of the great modellers on this forum have extensive racks of paints in their build bench photos.

BTW, even thinking you might be insane is a proof that you are not.

I appreciate the reassurance!

But do those guys have that stuff because they use it or because they had to have it to fill some "void"?

It irritates me so bad, because their are products I would love to try but I refuse to let myself because I can't just have 3 colors... I have to have 300!

It feels totally irrational but I can't seem overcome it.

I'm sitting on somewhere north of 2000 bottles of paint and I catch myself buying 2 jars the other day at Hobby Lobby with no real rhyme or reason, probably already have 20 jars of that color... but now I have 2 more!

Makes no sense to me.

I'm just curious if others are like this?

 

[slusher]

2 hours ago, LL3 Model Worx said:

I appreciate the reassurance!

But do those guys have that stuff because they use it or because they had to have it to fill some "void"?

It irritates me so bad, because their are products I would love to try but I refuse to let myself because I can't just have 3 colors... I have to have 300!

It feels totally irrational but I can't seem overcome it.

I'm sitting on somewhere north of 2000 bottles of paint and I catch myself buying 2 jars the other day at Hobby Lobby with no real rhyme or reason, probably already have 20 jars of that color... but now I have 2 more!

Makes no sense to me.

I'm just curious if others are like this?

 

Take an inventory of the colors you have and keep it with you so you don’t buy the same color. That would be a start.

[GeeBee]

I've got more lacquer paints than I'll ever use, but strangely i still buy more, mainly for future projects, I do end up buying other modelling paints mainly Testors, because i think they might have a use sometime down the line.

 

[Snake45]

I'm not quite as a bad a Paint Hoarder as you, LL3, but I definitely have the disease. 

I feel no compulsion to have "every color" in a line. But I DO stock up on colors that I commonly use, such as Black Chrome Trim, Glossy Sea Blue, ADC Gray 16473, Dark Gull Gray 36231, Turn Signal Amber, Stop Light Red, the various Model Master engine colors, and so forth. 

[Mark]

I'm the same way, but with tools, paint brushes, and putties.  A couple of weeks ago, I bought another brand of two-part epoxy filler, even though I've already got a couple.  I was using some Bondo two-part glazing putty on a project...while looking for something else, I found an unopened package of that.

Same with tools.  I've sold off duplicate sets of files that I bought by accident, no foul there because I actually resold them for what I had spent.  I've got tons of paint brushes because I'd buy packs of them whenever they turned up at closeout stores.  I'll buy every X-Acto knife I see on the "ten cent pile" with the blade busted off in the handle, then take them home, soak the blade end in penetrating oil, and stick a new blade in.  Can't help it...

[LL3 Model Worx]

31 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

I'm not quite as a bad a Paint Hoarder as you, LL3, but I definitely have the disease. 

I feel no compulsion to have "every color" in a line. But I DO stock up on colors that I commonly use, such as Black Chrome Trim, Glossy Sea Blue, ADC Gray 16473, Dark Gull Gray 36231, Turn Signal Amber, Stop Light Red, the various Model Master engine colors, and so forth. 

Well if you ever need add one model master paints I'm sitting on thousands of bottles...

[LL3 Model Worx]

6 hours ago, GeeBee said:

I've got more lacquer paints than I'll ever use, but strangely i still buy more, mainly for future projects, I do end up buying other modelling paints mainly Testors, because i think they might have a use sometime down the line.

 

Testors is great stuff. I have a few thousand jars and just as many spray cans... and counting...

[LL3 Model Worx]

23 minutes ago, Mark said:

I'm the same way, but with tools, paint brushes, and putties.  A couple of weeks ago, I bought another brand of two-part epoxy filler, even though I've already got a couple.  I was using some Bondo two-part glazing putty on a project...while looking for something else, I found an unopened package of that.

Same with tools.  I've sold off duplicate sets of files that I bought by accident, no foul there because I actually resold them for what I had spent.  I've got tons of paint brushes because I'd buy packs of them whenever they turned up at closeout stores.  I'll buy every X-Acto knife I see on the "ten cent pile" with the blade busted off in the handle, then take them home, soak the blade end in penetrating oil, and stick a new blade in.  Can't help it...

If I showed you my bench, you would think we were related lol

[espo]

I have been known to gaze at the paint display in a hobby shop and see a color that I think I would have to have for some future build,  only to get home and place it on my storage shelf with a couple of other spray/bottled paints the exact same color. Seems to be a lot of this going around, kind of like the Flu, just more expensive. 

[Mark]

All of us have pretty much the same work bench...it could be 50' x 100', and we're working in the only clear space which is about 6 square inches....

[Anglia105E]

13 minutes ago, LL3 Model Worx said:

If I showed you my bench, you would think we were related lol

My theory is that MOST people have some form of OCD, myself included, and those that do not have OCD are actually in the minority.... that suggests to me that OCD is NORMAL behaviour !!!

David

[Mark]

OCD should be called CDO.  Put the letters in alphabetical order as they ought to be!

[LL3 Model Worx]

9 minutes ago, espo said:

I have been known to gaze at the paint display in a hobby shop and see a color that I think I would have to have for some future build,  only to get home and place it on my storage shelf with a couple of other spray/bottled paints the exact same color. Seems to be a lot of this going around, kind of like the Flu, just more expensive. 

Yea, must be in the air!

[LL3 Model Worx]

8 minutes ago, Mark said:

All of us have pretty much the same work bench...it could be 50' x 100', and we're working in the only clear space which is about 6 square inches....

Oh but each new build I start with a freshly organized and cleaned bench... to have it revert back to the same 6x6 area in the matter of an hour!

But I try!

[Brudda]

It’s ok, we are all crazy about styrene and the things associated with it. Some of my friends collect models and do not build. On of my friends have over 7000 car models and even built a building just for them. And the paint! Wow. So it is quite  normal to be crazy about paint and plastic. ? I guess 

[Spex84]

I do this kind of thing, to a lesser degree. I have a pile of paints that I have not used, ever. I bought them with future projects in mind, but it takes me so long to get a project paint-worthy that some of the paints have gone bad, just sitting there waiting.

At a certain point, I have to look at my current stock of paint/kits/tools/whatever and ask myself "Did I use the last thing I purchased? Or did it just get added to the pile, and sit unused for months or years? What will I do with the new thing if I buy it?"  And if the honest answer is "It will sit on the shelf, gather dust, age until it's unusable because I'm afraid to use it"....then I try not to buy it in the first place.  Saves me the self-recrimination later :D

 

 

[peteski]

I have few hundreds of various bottle and spray paints. Never counted them all (I would likely be surprised).

[Bill Eh?]

I have a variety of paints from many mfgs. Most of my spray cans are from Tamiya. Bottles from Tamiya, Gunze, Humbrol, Testor, Bob's, Splash and others. Lately I have been buying a lot of artist's acrylics, mostly Golden brand. It is interesting that the pricing structure for these acrylics is based somewhat on the cost of the pigment itself. I do not know this for a fact, but it seems that the quality of the pigment in artist's acrylics is better than those found in hobby specific acrylics. Thinning them is to the same consistency that you would for any acrylic in order to spray through an airbrush.

[LL3 Model Worx]

7 minutes ago, Bill Eh? said:

I have a variety of paints from many mfgs. Most of my spray cans are from Tamiya. Bottles from Tamiya, Gunze, Humbrol, Testor, Bob's, Splash and others. Lately I have been buying a lot of artist's acrylics, mostly Golden brand. It is interesting that the pricing structure for these acrylics is based somewhat on the cost of the pigment itself. I do not know this for a fact, but it seems that the quality of the pigment in artist's acrylics is better than those found in hobby specific acrylics. Thinning them is to the same consistency that you would for any acrylic in order to spray through an airbrush.

Pigment is usually the biggest expense in ALL paint.

Actually acquiring and processing  it can be an extremely expensive and difficult operation.

Certain natural pigments are practically extinct from the planet as far as we know, and have to be made by synthetic means.

Colors such as Ultra marine blue were processed from lapis lazuli... extremely hard to come by, as most comes from mines in the middle east... wich can present a variety of challenges on it's own making it an extremely expensive material, so most you see is synthetic.

 

 

 

 

[Cool Hand]

I think I can relate.

My Tamiya TS black stash.

[Snake45]

29 minutes ago, Cool Hand said:

I think I can relate.

My Tamiya TS black stash.

You win. 

[Rocking Rodney Rat]

On 12/1/2019 at 12:36 PM, Mark said:

OCD should be called CDO.  Put the letters in alphabetical order as they ought to be!

?