What am I doing wrong?

[Azmaria Dei]

yep - pulled and melted traces, rippling, and likely chip heat damage. totally toast. toss some cinnamon and butter on them and chow down.

what soldering iron/settings are you using?

[Jedi-Elf]

I have a radio shack soldering iron which has variable settings from 20 to 50 watts. I usually use it on the 40 W setting.

[Azmaria Dei]

and how long are you leaving it on the board when you're soldering?

[Sunrider]

That board is still usable. Follow the traces to the resistor pads and quickly solder very small wires directly to the smt components. Then glue the wires to the board.

[Jedi-Elf]

Az: I try not to leave the iron on the board for more than a couple of seconds, but I may have gone over that on the Obi-wan board.

Sunrider: Which board do you mean?

[Sunrider]

The Obi idk that looks bad. The Anakin looks totally savable tho.

[Skottsaber]

I'm not so sure that soldering to the SMDs is a very good idea.
They are around 0402 size, and therefore heat up the solerpads on both sides of the component very easily with a 40w iron like Jedi-Elf's.
So he might end up bridging, moving, burning the component, not to mention putting stress on the small pads/components themselves.

However, you could always try. If it saves your board it saves your board, but definitelyglue the wires after you solder them to the components for support.

[Takanis]

I agree with the glue suggestion. It helps A LOT! I would bump down your iron a little if I were you, too.