Disaster.....

[Eliseu Gouveia]

I had finished pencilling a perfectly fine page.

Only one thing remained before I could scan and send it.

I needed to erase a couple lines.

So, I reached for the eraser and started furiously erasing it.

That was the plan, at least.



See, I like to keep pieces of plasticine handy, you never know when you are gonna need to visualise something.



Maybe it was exhaustion from a 4 hours sleep, but my brain only managed to shout to my muscles the order to -STOP! by the 2rd erasing motion.



I shared mine, now share yours.

What´s the last worst tragedy/disaster that has happened to your work?

[dfacto]

Grabbed my trusty eraser to nuke some lines and all of the sudden it wasn't as trusty anymore, with everything smeared to shit in that "this will NEVER be erased" way. I'd left it sitting too long and it degraded, I suppose.

[darth massacre]

Whenever you want to scan a page but feel you should erase a couple of lines before scanning.....scan the damn page and erase the lines digitally. That's why we have photoshop.

[Snarfevs]

Two types of disaster crop up most commonly:

PS: colour -> colour -> colour -> colour -> note that I've just been colouring in my linework layer for the last hour.

PS: I think I'll send a WIP to a friend before I go to bed -> flatten image -> save (instead of save for web) -> close PS -> go to bed.

[Interceptor]

"I think I'll add a liiiiittle more ink and OH MY GOD I SPILLED THE BOTTLE!"

[Steinmetz]

when you erase a mistake and then the paper tears, but you still have to keep rubbing and the paper still keeps tearing..

[cotron]

"I think I'll add a liiiiittle more ink and OH MY GOD I SPILLED THE BOTTLE!"

haha been there, I spilled a bottle of sumi ink on my lap in class... hey ladies!

oil washes on pencil drawings, spend hours rendering this thing and you forget to spray crystal clear on it... then whoosh! your drawing is gone, eaten by the turp.

[DavePalumbo]

in my 4th year at school, I decided to put my ass into it and do a 6 1/2 by 7 foot multi-figure painting for end of the year student show. From start to finish it was full of frustrations, mainly in the costruction of a stretcher frame (made of 2x4's with the help of a carpenter friend to minimize the chances of warping) and then in the subsequent warping that happened inevitably.

Anyhow, day of the show, I'm scrambling to get my frame strips attached so I can haul it over (weighed at least 100 lbs. with it's 2x4 skeleton). I'm pissed the fuck off, standing on a ladder nailing the heavy 7 foot oak strip on, when I loose my grip somehow and the strip sliiiiiiiiides down the painted surface and clatters to the floor as I'm shouting "oh fuuuuuuck!". In the wake of the strip, there was a nice set of scratches and a hole in the painting about the size of a dime when it banged against an inner support 2x4 edge. Managed to get it patched and camoflauged in time to hang it, but oh my god was I a wreck.

I spent a good part of the night asking friends at the show "can you see the patch? can you see the patch?"

[DSillustration]

i used spray-glue instead of spray-fix once.
i now check the can obssesively before using it.

[fukifino]

Two types of disaster crop up most commonly:

PS: colour -> colour -> colour -> colour -> note that I've just been colouring in my linework layer for the last hour.

PS: I think I'll send a WIP to a friend before I go to bed -> flatten image -> save (instead of save for web) -> close PS -> go to bed.

I've done variations of both. Especially the second one, I was working on a piece for my friends book and was posting WIPs up on the web. Turns out the very LAST one I worked on, where I pretty much added all the details, I saved the flattend, resized for web display jpeg. Didn't realize it until a few weeks later when I went to turn all the pictures in. Suck!

[VirusArtist]

one word: "ACHOO!!" the result: 14 hours of pencil and inkwork covered in an interesting patina of slime and saliva...

i have sneezed towards my right shoulder ever since...

[darth massacre]

Either I haven't had many major disasters or I have selective memory loss.

[timpaatkins]

Ok, for my graduation project I had HUGE ambitions. And I mean HUGE. My mentor told me when I told him what I wanted to do: You just described a project that woill take 6 people 6 months to do. (i wanted to make a trailer for this idea i had) And you wanna do it alone in 12 weeks. And you have no money. But I did it damn it.

It wasnt polished and perfect but I did it, by living in the school basement for the last 3 weeks, sleeping 3 hours every second day to try and get it done. NO sleep 4 days before the show, I still hadnt gotten a TV to show my little movie on.

ON THE OPENINING DAY, my friends managed to borrow a 42" plasma TV from a bank! I jumped in a taxi to get it, the show had alreday opened, my parents were up to see what I had spent so much time on, everything is coming together, I had never ever been so stressed for such a long period of my life before. I lean the tv against a wodden "room separator" so I could pull cables to my computer. As I look around I see how the TV slowly falls over and lands on the floor.

The feeling was indescribable. My heart stopped, and I couldnt believe it. I start screaming NONONON (I couldnt stop), lift the screen slowly...

Cracked and broken. I can actually still almost hear the moment my mind just snapped. Tears roll down my face uncontrolably as I slide out to my smiling parents who quickly realize something is wrong.

I was a wreck, never felt so low before. But the guy in charge of the exhibiton also happened t be my classmate, so he just said to me- Well take care of it" and managed to fix a new screen in 30 min, plus insurance for the old one. Turn out the exhibiton group all decided to take mone out of their celebratory dinner to rent an overpriced panasonic just for me.

Best and Worst of 2005

[Quicksilver]

...I was a wreck, never felt so low before. But the guy in charge of the exhibiton also happened t be my classmate, so he just said to me- Well take care of it" and managed to fix a new screen in 30 min, plus insurance for the old one. Turn out the exhibiton group all decided to take mone out of their celebratory dinner to rent an overpriced panasonic just for me.

Best and Worst of 2005

Awww bless, that was so sweet of them! Glad it turned out for the better, tim.

I can't think of anything really......exept white-lying to a load of Graphic Designers (including my teacher) and people who worked for the Council at the Inter-school Technology Awards.....They think I took 2 years to complete my project - prototypes and final products and all - when really it took me 2 1/2 weeks with minimal sleep before the deadline.

Won first prize though. Booyah. 8)

That kinda makes me look bad, hehe. Seriously, my teacher was more stressed out than me - he would've broken down if I told him the truth =/

[Magic Man]

Spent a whole working day on a concept design, did not save once - stupid - came home time I printed out a single and closed the work without saving. PWN3d.

[Magic Man]

Ok, for my graduation project I had HUGE ambitions. And I mean HUGE. My mentor told me when I told him what I wanted to do: You just described a project that woill take 6 people 6 months to do. (i wanted to make a trailer for this idea i had) And you wanna do it alone in 12 weeks. And you have no money. But I did it damn it.

It wasnt polished and perfect but I did it, by living in the school basement for the last 3 weeks, sleeping 3 hours every second day to try and get it done. NO sleep 4 days before the show, I still hadnt gotten a TV to show my little movie on.

ON THE OPENINING DAY, my friends managed to borrow a 42" plasma TV from a bank! I jumped in a taxi to get it, the show had alreday opened, my parents were up to see what I had spent so much time on, everything is coming together, I had never ever been so stressed for such a long period of my life before. I lean the tv against a wodden "room separator" so I could pull cables to my computer. As I look around I see how the TV slowly falls over and lands on the floor.

The feeling was indescribable. My heart stopped, and I couldnt believe it. I start screaming NONONON (I couldnt stop), lift the screen slowly...

Cracked and broken. I can actually still almost hear the moment my mind just snapped. Tears roll down my face uncontrolably as I slide out to my smiling parents who quickly realize something is wrong.

I was a wreck, never felt so low before. But the guy in charge of the exhibiton also happened t be my classmate, so he just said to me- Well take care of it" and managed to fix a new screen in 30 min, plus insurance for the old one. Turn out the exhibiton group all decided to take mone out of their celebratory dinner to rent an overpriced panasonic just for me.

Best and Worst of 2005

aw you poor guy, I woulda chipped in for you too!

[Waffle_King]

My sophemore year in College--

Final Project in a painting class. Most poeple do stupid crap but I decide to blow them away with an awesome painting; a 9 foot high by 4 foot wide monster of a canvas of a character of my own design: 'Lawrence the Barbarian.' The layout was modeled after a couple frazetta paintings, classic "warrior on pile of dead bodies" pose... I did tons of sketches and prep, but once it came to the actual painting it was fraught with problems.

First off, the stretchers did *not* work. Personally I blame my education that taught us how to Use Derridean Deconstrcution on paintings but not how to make stretchers.
Second, I had nowhere to paint the thing since the studio allotted to us was a joke, so out of desperation I staple the canvas to my apartment wall only to find out that my apartment ceilings are only 8 feet high... so the bottom foot of the painting was painted rolled out on the floor.
After that, transfering the image from a 9x11 sketch to a 9x4 canvas... well, lets just say I've never used the "grid method" again. I finally get the thing on there and get going. Painting is going well, except I'm pressed for time, so I stay up for TWO CONCURRENT DAYS with no sleep, missing all of my other classes to work on this thing. I finally finish it a few hours before it's due- I string it up on some impromptu stretchers (It was suspended between them, like when you strecth a skin on stretchers... I figured it was more "barbarian like") and start carrying the thing to our studio. On the way it catches the wind and, acting like a sail, almost takes off a few times... theres still some little bits of stuff in the paint from those gusts of wind. I finally get it there to see most of the class hurriedly finishing their puny still lifes and self portraits... They are all wowed, both at the painting and my haggard appearance.

Since there was like 3 or 4 hours until class and I had nothing better to do, I go back to my apartment and decide to sleep for just few hourse to prep myself for the big final crit.

I woke up half an hour after my class ended to one of my classmates that had come to my apartment after class, wondering why i had missed the final crit.

*sigh*

-Andrew


edit: I thought I should include a pic of the masterpiece. Here's the fella himself, four years old and still going strong! I remember being pretty proud of him at the time... now it's just a pile of errors but fun all the same!

Lawrence the Barbarian!

[Qitsune]

I've had my share of flattened layers. Now I number my files, work a few hours: pieceofcrap1, work on it 3 more hours, save it as pieceofcrap2, I sometimes have 8-9 versions. But at least, If I mess one up, I have just lost 2 hours instead of everything.