MG Psycho Zaku WIP 5

Ok, this is gonna be rough. I’m shelving this project for a couple months. I’ve hit point where this project is more frustrating than enjoyable.

 I masked all 3 fuel tanks, painted, and when I took the masking off, huge chunks of paint chipped off.

As I was peeling the masking tape back and watching big chips of black paint come off, I just wanted to cry. I didn’t feel angry or frustrated, just absolutely defeated. I thought a lot about why it happened, and asked a few fellow modelers, and I still don’t understand what went wrong. Maybe the adhesive on the tape bonded to the paint, maybe something I did made the paint brittle, who knows. I’ve used the same masking process before and have never encountered anything like this. In some spots the paint didn’t chip, but it became tacky like it hadn’t dried.

So, faced with the prospect of stripping and painting the fuel tanks all over again or trying to fix each spot by either sanding or straight up painting over the chips, I chose to set it all on the shelf and come back to it at some point. Right now, I just need to have a few projects that I can execute and feel a sense of accomplishment again. I’ve been working on this kit since December 2018, and it’s just time to move on and get my confidence back up. I feel disappointed in myself (especially since the project before this was something I gave up on too), but I’ve been putting off a lot of models I want to paint, and I just need to move on. I haven’t finished a painted kit since October 2017 and that’s just WAY too long to go without the feeling of finishing something (except the Crossbone Ver Logic, but that was really done as more of a joke).

So for now, I’m kind of giving up, for the second time in a row. I did the same thing with the HG Kamaris a while back. I feel defeated, but I’m not giving up altogether. I’m not quitting, and I’m not giving myself room to give up. What I am doing is  starting 2 smaller projects. Today I started painting an Exceed Zaku head, and also started working on an HG Blue Destiny Unit 2 Exam kit I snapped together a while ago. It was important for me not to leave any room between shelving the Psycho Zaku and starting something new, because I don’t want to give myself an opportunity to let a few months go by without doing anything model related.  More on those projects soon!