"Do You Suffer From Painting OCD?" Topic

OCD means Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

What would that look like in practice?

If painting what is sculpted is OCD then no.

Not that I'm aware…

It would look like me going into my painting area for a necessary 15 minute touch up session and then emerging 90 minutes later. And what I mean by necessary touch up is cleaning up the lines on my muskets where the gun metal touched (or in my mind became uneccesarily intimate) with the brown of the stock. This in turn leads to the dicovery of flesh being either too much or too little. And from there it is a spiral downward. H

Nope, just a bad back !!!

Yes, and it's a curse. While other folks field regiments of beautifully painted miniatures, I field companies with their belt buckles painted just so….

No, my wife keeps complaining that I haven't cleaned or tidied up my painting table, so I must be safe.

Not in the least. I happily skip over details and leave obscured areas as black primer. Goal for me is getting toys on the tabletop.

I thought painting WAS OCD!?!

Yes. Symptoms have included hand-painting the underwing lozenge pattern for German WWI aircraft on 1/300 models that will never have their underside revealed during game play. The general symptom is a regular inability to abide by the 3' rule in terms of detail, leaving me one of the world's slowest painters.

Sometimes – less now than before

I used to do things like paint up parts of the mini that a pack/rider/cape would cover – plus endless touching up

Now I am little less so – washes help

No. I want to get the lads on the table and into the fight!

After painting 800+ Prussians in 28MM, maybe….

I have avoided eyes and buttons for years.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a legitimately recognized mental illness whose proper diagnosis requires amedical doctor, usually a psychiatrist. It is under the umbrella of anxiety disorders.

If being prevented from painting things to your own satisfaction (by, say, family plans, a job, running out of a certain color) can lead to significantly negative reactions, from irritabality to full-on violence, then you might possibly suffer from obsrssive-compulsive disorder.

Another anxiety disorder that wargamers frequently think they suffer from is hoarding. I am less familiar with it, because I have not worked with it professionally o_0. However, symptoms of it run deep in my family. OCD as well.

Now, to answer the question: I used to be very obsessive and compulsive about my painting. As in, I would skip sleep for a night if I was working on something, and have a very bad day at work if things were unfinished at home. I was also a hoarder of things to make terrain from (literally picking up trash from the street saying "this will make a great space station accessory one day!")

Since I have been on anti-anxienty medication for other reasond, both the obsessive compulsion about projects and the hoarding have diminished significantly.

No.

What Extrabio said.
I've done ink wash and three-colour highlighting on 28mm bayonet scabbards.
I'm painfully aware that no trace whatsoever of such OTT detailing is visible at tabletop distances, but it would bother the heck out of me if I skipped a step.

Yep.. I recently bought a bunch of painted 28mm Napoleonic British. I decided that I wanted to redo the facings to be the 33rd regiment of foot so I went to repaint the cuffs and tails red. Well that red didn't match the coats so I had to repaint them. Then the belts needed to be touched up so I rapainted them. Now the cords on the shakos didn't look right so I ended up repainting all the shakos. And now the pants were too weathered for everything else so I redid those. And I noticed the canteens and cartridge pouches had some wear on the corners… so those had to be repainted. And while I was doing it the stocks of the rifles didn't look right so they had to be redone. Then of course eyes and rebasing had to be done and they had to be inked.

In the end the only stuff I didn't repaint was the flesh, hair, shoes, and packs.

Glad I bought those painted.

Yes. I repainted figures bought from a professional painter as the quality (almost invisible in 6mm) was not to my standard.

In the informal sense yes. I find it physically painful to look at something that I've painted if it isn't up to my standards. I've gone over my latest 6mm forces multiple times with touch-ups and additional highlights even after I considered them done.

Last summer I made a DBA army and forced myself to do it quickly and efficiently and I can barely stand to look at it.

C and H is correct. OCD is a mental illness. Attention
to detail is not.

In all seriousness – read C & H post

There is a fine line between a tendency (which we all have to some extent) and an illness which effects your life in general

Hoarding tendency results in large lead pile. I am guilty there

The general symptom is a regular inability to abide by the 3' rule in terms of detail, leaving me one of the world's slowest painters.

+1

John

I'm with you C&H. I've never painted with the 3-foot-rule in mind. Lately I've gotten over the problem of not painting figures because they're too nice and deserve a good paint job (3 shades up/down and all that) but I don't feel up to the task; then get bent out of shape and grumble around because the minis aren't painted.

I don't think I've ever suffered -- from OCD or anything else -- while painting. It's a blissful, meditative, creative experience.

That being said, I mostly paint things for science fiction settings, including figures and vehicles in camouflage, buildings that have been well-used or reduced to ruins, and ground cloths. So I never have to consider whether I have exactly the correct color of kepi or the right shade of brass button.

Nope. Table ready is my standard

I have a mate who is a perfectionist in that cutting back on layering, use of washes and his figures look equally as good but he cant do it as he feels itsnot quite right. He is a cracking painter but his output is slow due to this. I suppose that could count! For me its what i am happy with so dont worry, where i do go wrong is buying tonnes more than needed with an almost compulsion to have the full set, a fully on paper platoon etc

More like ADD

I do for certain periods.

Yes. I'll find some microscopic mistake and spend too much time trying to fix it. Truth is, no one would have notice, not even using a microscope