Workspace, Storage and DIY Foamcore Paint Rack

I don't have the luxury of a dedicated hobby desk, so I need what might be called a "high mobility/low storage intensity" solution for my paint desk.

The workstation itself is easy, as I still have this sturdy Games Workshop Painstation from way back when kicking around:



(This one's been out of production for years, I believe, but you'll find other options, for example at Warlord Games or Hobbyzone)

It's great to just be able to put your workspace up on top of a shelf and have it out of the way, then get it back down and start working almost immediately!

Paint storage, on the other hand, was a bit tougher. With over a hundred pots of paint from various manufacturers and the aforementioned limitations in terms of work and storage space, many, many awesome options offered either too little room for paints, or were themselves too large.
Since I often have 30-50 pots of paint standing around during one project, my desk gets cluttered up bad, making preparation before and cleanup after a painting session more of a hassle than I'm happy with. I needed a solution!

One thing I found was the amazing "Ultimate Paint Rack" by fellow German bloggers Massive Voodo. It had it all: small footprint (that drawer system is so great!), tons of space for paints, compatibility with multiple different pots at the same time, even a transport option for those painting nights at friends' places!
Sadly, that is not currently available as the indiegogo campaign is through and they're looking for a way to produce more of them.

In the end it was this "3 Drawer Storage Cube" by Sphere Products that gave me the idea I needed: There's no reason to put all of my paints into an accessible rack, just the ones I'm currently using! So why not store all the paints in some kind of space-efficient drawer system and use a small, self-made paint rack for the 30-50 of them I need at any given time? You'd think that would have been an obvious solution from the start, right?

Using some Foamcore I had left over from a papercraft project, I cobbled together this little beauty, and learned quite a bit about hot glue guns in the process! ;)



So how does all this look on the shelf, now? Pretty good, I'd say!



That's your standard, 80cm wide IKEA BILLY shelf there, housing two TJENA boxes for tools and materials, as well as the PALLRA "mini chest with 3 drawers" which, incidentally, are the perfect height for Vallejo type dropper bottles. Don't throw away that cardboard stabilizer thing inside the drawers, you can cut it into smaller strips to act as separators for your rows of paint, to keep them in the correct order!



Yes, the TJENA and PALLRA are available in boring colors, too.

Operation:Icestorm - PanOceania Fusilier

This is my first painted Infinity miniature, a PanOceania Fusilier from the Operation:Icestorm box.
The base is from the Antenocitis "Hex" bases set, which I'll be using for all my PanOs.

I always do a test model first, to try out what colors I want, before painting a larger batch in one go. This lucky Fusilier got to be my guinea pig:



I'm pretty happy with him. Still, there's a few things I'd like to do differently:

• The eyes. Seriously, I used to know how to do that!
• The white highlights at the edges. I can't be asked to redo the whole thing, but I'm wondering whether a very bright blue wouldn't look better than the white. It's kinda... snowy... this way, and they're not supposed to be on a snow world (as the base should demonstrate)
• The gun. That is definitely getting changed. I'll try another way of painting it on the next few models, then redo them in the style I like best.
• The lips. I just don't like how they turned out.

All in all, it's nowhere near the masterpieces you see on many of the blogs and forums, but it's decent tabletop standard and the exaggerated highlights make the model POP like crazy at a tabletop gaming distance.

Next up: The rest of the O:I PanOs, along with gorgeous Jeanne d'Arc from the Giraldez Painting book. Let's see how long this takes.