Coronary Embolism...

Ever experience a week where there just isn't enough time to do everything you need to do, and yet your body thinks it ALSO has time to oversleep and decide to get sick? Yea, that was pretty much two weeks ago. I have classes four days a week, for about three or four hours a day. Not bad, right? Agreed, until you throw in the group projects.

Remember, four days; I had two tests, three projects, and a major presentation. The week prior? Two tests, two projects, and a major presentation. And that isn't even bad compared to my other group members, especially the Accounting and Finance majors. Holy cow, don't even get me started. Four tests in three days... I don't envy them one bit.

Anyways, enough ranting. Last week was Spring Break here at UA, so I was able to finally finish up the Bradleys I had been promising for over a month. They came out fantastic, and my buddy who commissioned them loved the paint job. The only downside is I still need to upload pictures, so expect another post sometime this weekend.

You may recall though from a previous post I made mention of Vallejo's often confusing and counterproductive product naming policies. I present Exhibit A below to justify my point.

One is Blue Grey Pale. The other, Pale Greyblue. Please, someone, explain to me how any individual with even mild dyslexia can keep these two straight? Outside of the barely noticeable (in the picture, not in real life) difference in hue between the two bottles, I have mistaken both rather frequently for one another. Ultimately, it came down to writing their respective GW/Citadel names on the labels to help me keep them straight... of which you can vaguely see underneath my gigantic thumbs.

Granted, I don't frequently paint with colors this light. From experience, really I'd only need these two when adding super-highlights to models or possibly doing winter schemes and/or camouflage. Often they sit in my shoebox, where I keep most of my paints when I'm not using them. Also makes for a nice carry-case when I travel back home for breaks.

Now, consider this case study...

"I've seen this picture before Hands." Great, you're gonna see it again. The motorcycle driver is a prime example of my gripe with these two paint names. I basecoated the figure with Vallejo Blue Grey Pale, better know to me as Citadel Celestra Grey,. At the time, I hadn't labelled them yet under the ultimately false assumption that my clearly superior painting skills might be able to piece them, apart. WRONG! I ended up basecoating half the model in Blue Grey Pale, and the other in Pale Greyblue. Needless to say, I didn't realize this until I began washing the figure... and had to stop myself before any damage was done beyond my scope of repair.

Once I fixed my mistake, I highlighted the model with the lighter of the two colors, namely the same Vallejo Pale Bluegrey... also known to be better as Citadel Space Wolves Grey. So much easier to remember, don't you agree? Only this time I couldn't understand why my highlights weren't showing up. Guess what I did? I went full dumbass and applied highlights of the basecoat color, and didn't realize it until after an hour of work. Suffice to say, things weren't nearly as labor intensive as my initial blunder, but it does validate my point.

Please Vallejo, for my sake and the sake of painters' sanity everywhere, invent a more unique name instead of reordering the words around. Even Blue Grey and Pale Blue Grey will make it easier to differentiate!

-Hands