I see trouble on the horizon! (Patreon)

My friends, this is NOT turning out to be one of those chill projects where everything goes smoothly from the beginning. The resin REFUSES to cure!

It's been more than 24 hours since I did the pour, and there are spots where it feels tacky, and like a jello. Also, if I push against the tape, the edges shrivel up. Now, gotta say, it feels much more solid than it did yesterday, so I'm hoping it will eventually cure (tomorrow, I hope!), and here's what I think went wrong. So far I always mixed the resin + hardener, and then added some paint. This time, I decided to try a different method described in one of the AK books, and that is tinting component 1 (resin) and then adding component 2 (hardener). Frankly, I don't see any benefit to this, as the tinting process felt exactly the same. But it's the proper mixing where I messed up. With clear resin, you can see if the two components have been thoroughly mixed or not, with tinted resin? Not so much. So my guess is that the soft spots are badly mixed resin. Luckily, they are solidifying slowly, but man, it's not a great feeling! When you mix it thoroughly, it's pretty much safe to remove the tape after just 12 hours, although 24 hours are recommended. Right now it's been roughly 30 hours... but I will be patient!

Another mishap happened with the perch fish. I decided to 3D print some I found on Thingiverse, and the way I painted them was influenced by two things: 1, the print quality isn't that great when the object is so small and organic, and 2, because they were going to swim in murky water, I kept the paint job rather basic yet vivid. Well, they're much more visible than I intended, and they don't look that great! But I expect that to change when some water ripples are added, those always distort the surface a little.

Anyhoo, in the meantime I'm painting the Soviet comrade, at least that's going well! Finished the uniform yesterday, just about to start painting the details now.