Monday 30 July 2018

Miniature Scenery: Painting/Hobbying Workstation Kit

If, like me, you paint on a dining table or shared space - having a paint rack, brush stand, and several other bits of gear can be somewhat annoying to fully pack away between sessions. On the weekend I put together a (new) workstation kit from Miniature Scenery.  



So I *may* have had a couple of paint racks, tool stand, cutting mat, paint pad, lamp and other... stuff... on our dining table for more than 2 months while painting my Death Company squads. They are fiddly as there is so much decoration on them - so rather than just grab a couple of core paints for a session I was swapping between several and just left all my stuff out for weeks... not ideal but without a dedicated workspace, everything is a trade off. 

I recently spotted this kit on Miniature Scenery, and looked like a good idea for relocating a WIP project to the top of a bookcase in a quick step. Good if you want to actually use a dining table for dining (or even a game for that matter). 

I really liked that when buying on site, you can pick what kind of storage you want for the left and right panels at the back. There are 4 types of storage and any combination can be picked for left or right. Since I am a lefty, and wanted this more for painting projects - I opted for brush/stand on the left, and citadel-sized pots on the right. The third option is a denser rack for dropper bottle sizes; the fourth a set of storage bins for bits/parts. End result is you have heaps of options to customise and tweak - so if you want to use it purely for airbrush work, you might pick both the left and right options as dropper bottle racks. Or if using it for model building rather than painting - maybe use the brush rack for tools, and then add a parts storage bin for the other half. 



Stupidly I didn't take any WIP photos (although the whole thing went together in maybe an hour and a half), but I did get a bunch of the finished product (with a few tools and items posed for effect). 


Minor - but having a couple of carry handles helps move stuff around quickly... 


The cutting mat slot takes a standard A4 size, although the kit comes with one (supplied in the colour of your choice), and features a few nice extra markings - such as 45 deg marking guides for various sized bases. Not used in 40k, but a nice touch where fire arcs need to be added to bases. 

They sell the mats separately too - so if (as most people do) - you destroy a mat every year or so... it's a quick replacement. I have one mat for painting and an older one with lots of superglue lumps for model building - both of my old ones are A4 and drop neatly into the same slot in the workstation. 


The brush/tool rack that sits just behind the mat (regardless of which storage options you pick) has a slightly samurai feel :-)


Moveable stands on the brush rack side are designed to hold either a mobile phone or tablet - so you can watch a video or set of instructions (or play music...) while working. Moving these to the wider slots is great for a paper instruction booklet, but not quite study enough for a full book. 


As a nice extra touch - there is also a little storage drawer for the brush rack side - even if you are using this half for painting rather than modelling, there is always something you want to have handy but not front and centre. I'm thinking pot of brush cleaner, cotton buds and pipe cleaners for airbrush. 


I haven't quite worked out what I'll use the front bays for just yet - if assembling models, they would be great for sorting parts or batch work; eg - clipped parts on the left and then move each to the right as they have mold line removed. 


While I need to replace my water pot with something that will fit the hole in this one before I get into it properly; it feels pretty intuitive and well laid out. The guys have obviously put some thought into adding features and options that hobby folk want, but with enough flexibility to adjust to personal needs. I particularly liked being able to pick options that put my brushes for my left hand and pots to the right - as a lefty, it's a minor but unusually helpful option to have. 

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