Alright, if you're an artist you know you've had 'em. Particularly if you're a traditional media artist, I think. It isn't to say doing digital work doesn't have its own set of woes, but most of those are typically computers being a pain in the ass troubles. xD; Still, if you've had some strange ones, shoot 'em out.

So. The prompt to this thread happens to be me today, fussing around. I am a traditional media artist primarily (aka my digital work sucks like you wouldn't believe). Here I am, sittin' on the floor working to finish up one of my many paintings for Survey on my birthday this coming Tuesday and drat it all, the nib to my pen has finally kicked the bucket (FYI, I've been using a crow quill dip pen holder and a crow quill #2 nib ). Nothing atypical, and honestly this one has lasted me about four or five months, which is pretty damn good given the amount of use and the types of uses I have for them. Eventually the tips just kind of get bent and twisted in nearly imperceptible ways. Sometimes you can mess around with a pair of needle nose pliers and fix it, but ultimately they will just go kaput on ya. I'd already fixed this one once and didn't feel like fussing with it again.

Well honestly, fussing might have been easier. Oi vey. So I went and got my pliers (easier to work 'em out and sometimes you need them? XD ) and sat down to tug it out. Generally they fit pretty snug, so it takes a wee little bit of effort. Uh.. yeah. This one had been used so long that it had kind of rusted into my holder xD;;; I wound up completely destroying the nib itself before I finally got the bloody thing out and I slipped so many times that the handle of my pliers rubbed a spot on my finger raw. Ow. I'm just glad I didn't ruin the holder... xD;

So that's just one kind of woe. There are others.. like trimming things with X-acto knives/box cutters and slipping (like I did a few nights ago, I have a nice gouge in my thumb that almost required stitches... x,X; Effin' ow, man). There's the technical difficulties of various mediums, like using inks in so many washes that they turn glossy or smudging of others. Let's hear 'em. After all, sometimes it's easier not to repeat the mistakes of others, no?

Blaaaah~ I love the traditional media but it hates me so much.
Particularly (kinda like you) nibs and holders. I use fairly cheap ones, since you can't get good ones around here. The problem with these is that they tend to be prone to not working when you buy them, working for a few stokes and dieing or deciding to pretend to die and then shatting it's self all over whatever I'm inking.
And the there's the whole 'nib falls out of the holder randomly' problem I have at the moment.


I've also had troubles with inks a lot recently - there's a brand that they sell in Australia. Everywhere sells it 'cause apparently the people who stock the stores don't actually use the inks, but still want to be all 'I BUY LOCAL' and jazz.
The colours are pretty rubbish (red is pink, deep blue makes most power blues look amazing), the lid never go back on properly and...they all smell like cat pee. Really, really bad.
That, and they're thicker then the Windsor and Newton inks I use normally which means inconsistent results and more broken nibs.


AND THEN when everything is nice and inked, and I start to colour. OH NOES.
It turns out the ink I'm using today, they I've always used, has decided to stop being marker proof. I mean, what the hell? I used the same paper, the same inks and the same markers for another picture just the other day.
Why decided to bleed and smudge and go bananas today? You even got to dry over night~!
This makes me cry a lot >_>;

Oh yes. The trimming down the art work thing. I either cut my self and bleed all over what I'm working on, or slip, and cut all wonky and junk. This is why I either wait and use the guillotine at school, or make someone else do it for me. Saves much sad.

There's a lot of other stuff that I have a woe-er-ish problem with, but I'd go on for faaa to much time.

Oh man, tell me about it. V_V Just recently I had to go out and buy some more paper becuase , can you belive it, I RAN OUT. o_O That's never happened to me before when I used to draw on regular compurter paper, but now I greatly dislike that type of paper, and I only use one type/company of sketch paper. I also ran out of lead from my mecanical pencil I use, so I had to scavage around the house for some 0.5 lead. V_V

I also hate it when you lose supplies. I always seem to somehow misplace my pencils, even if i had just used them a few minutes ago. XD

Gah~~ Paper woes!
I get that all the time Linkfreak. I still use A4 computer paper, but only certain colours/shades of white (yes, there's a difference between different brands white). I use them for sketches and rough colour work. But when it comes to 'good' stuff, I only really like to use a certain brand...and the closest place that sells this certain brand is like...2 and a half hours away D: and the running out of lead thing. I ran out a while ago, and no where around sells mech pencils at all, so I'm currently using an inch and a half long regular pencil. Sadness.

I miss places erasers and inking pens like you wouldn't believe. There's a place somewhere that has A LOT of my art junk xD

oh god. thats horrible. the worst thing that happened was probably buying an expensive marker and losing it like in less than half an hour. and my baby cousin ripped a picture i was working on. and killing a picture with a bad eraser that looked like my good one but wasnt. and having my inking pen die on me after inking only two full bodies and a head shot, when usually lasts much much much much longer. DID I MENTION MARKER BLEEDS. and paper that sucks for marker work.
once i saved a pic that i had worked on for at least 2.5+ hours in a temp folder that my retarded computer deletes automatically. WRRRYYYYY. and a spammer on painchat messed up two of my pics. and being my stupid self i forgot to take a screenshot >A<

I used to try to color traditionally but I've stopped now since it's more expensive / harder than digital works. Plus I'd probably make a mess everywhere.
I've had my troubles Photoshop and other programs that I use. Just recently the type tool for Photoshop has been acting up.

However I do draw traditionally. Oh man. e__e;; I'm really picky about pencils, I only use mechanical and a lot of them have bad erasers- so I try to buy regular long erasers and use those but I often end up smudging the paper. I've ruined so many pictures that way. Not to mention my old sketchbooks that I like to keep have been totally trashed because they're all smudged up. D:
Most of the time I draw pretty bad digitally too. I guess it's because I need more practice with my tablet- but I've found that Paint Tool SAI works really well for that kind of thing--- but it's expiring in two days. ._.

Digital Aritistic woes as a whole, I say MAYA 3D. That is all. Anyone that actually uses it knows what I mean.

For live media... paints. Paints DO NOT like me. Water paints don't mind me to much, but Acrylics and oils DESPISE me. They get everywhere they are not supposed to ('I didn't even GO to the bathroom when I was painting! How the $(%&$ did Cobalt Blue end up on the counter!), not mixing properly, drying to fast (acrylics, even with dampeners that slow them down.. but make them translucent) or drying to slow (oils). Never the right shade. Needing several layers of it to actually get it a solid colour instead of see through, even with teh expensive good stuff.

Yes, paints hate me.

Pencils and pens seem to think me alright though. I should stick to those.. and just colour with photo shop.. or not at all. Been having an ongoing love afair with black and white, or black and one other colour type pictures for awhile. Working with deffining shadows makes me happeh!

I inked a small drawing of mine and then let it dry.

After that I got some colored pencils, and it turns out, that even after hours, the ink can still smudge 8D It smudged the character's face a bit, but I went over the smudge really hard and it's less visible now, still. It makes me kinda mad ^^;

Another one of my woes is that: I just can't afford many traditional mediums, and there's no room for it at my house! ;_;

That's mostly why I'm a photoshop junkie.. D8;