Crappie Paint Stencil

Good evening. I painted my 2nd & 3rd fish today, both black crappie. On the first 2, I painted the spots freehand, and they turned out decent. I wanted to see how the stencil trick worked, so I ordered one a couple weeks ago. I am not going to criticize the stencil, its creator, or anyone who uses them. But I will say that I seriously doubt that I will ever use one again. I had the base color looking very good...I was excited about how this fish was going to turn out. Then made a BIG mess while using the stencil. Had to completely cover the fish white and start over, which hid all the natural spotting. Therefore I had no natural pattern to trace, so I decided to try the stencil again but used a paint pen instead of airbrush. I managed to save the girl, respectably I think, but definitely not the final product I was expecting. And while black crappie vary from place to place and season to season, I don't recall ever seeing them from our local lake with such large spots...ours are a smaller tighter pattern typically.
Anyway, pic is attached for your dart-throwing pleasure...

 

Thanks for your honest input. I had no intention to post the attached photo, but will in response. This is the first fish I mounted, which was only a few weeks ago. I used fish fill on it instead of a form, and didn't even card the fins. I experimented with techniques to fix the fins... there was a huge gap in the tail. I painted it while painting the other one yesterday, and dang if it didn't turn out better. The color and spotting is much more natural, at least relevant to our crappie here in SC.