A Guided Tour: the painting table and it's contents

so now that i've told you all a little about myself, i guess i'd better get on to the topic which this blog is all about.
i shall start with a guided tour around my painting table.

well, this is my painting table (sorry about the mess, i am in the middle of a project). 

as you can see, it is very small (its the only table that i can work at though).  i have positioned it next to my bedroom window, and my bedroom has very pale walls, so the light bounces
around and eliminates shadows.  i store my paints in the basket you can see in the right corner.  on the slide out tray you can see a tile and paper towel.  tiles and old porcilen plates make for excellent palettes, but i have found that the white ones give the best colour.  the paper towel... i do not think i need to say what that is for.  it should be fairly obvious from the paint marks on it.  on top you can see a variety of paints (i use games workshop paints, but am looking at expanding into other brands), my lights, clear palette, and the variety of tools and brushes i use to create my minis.  the table tends to get messier as i work through a project, and then tidied up for the next one.  if you look closely you can see the current project i am working on (a minor competition piece) sitting somewhere in the mess.   

now that i've given you a brief overview, let's have a closer look at the various objects on and around the table, shall we?

first up is the chair.  i don't have a full picture of it, but it is a simple and comfortable one, with a back that promotes good posture (when you sit painting for hours you it helps a lot).  it also has a cushion on the base for extra comfort, though that does cause some problems, as often i wake up ready to paint and find my chair is already taken.

      

but he is very good at warming it up for me :)

next we look at the bedroom window and the surface of the desk itself.  my bedroom window is huge, standing at over metre tall and at least two metres wide.  it lets in a lot of light, and that helps greatly to brighten the room, and with the aid of the pale walls, makes the shadows recede.  but because it faces west, it often gets far too hot to paint in the afternoons, and can also be a bit of a distraction, for where we live often gives us vistas to view upon like this (and i did NOT edit the colours of this in any way)

   

the painting desk itself is hardy wood and metal, and has withstood a great many painting projects.(both minis and other art).  it's surface is splashed with countless colours and mixes of paint (i think i even used it as a palette once),  has scratches and chunks missing in some places from cutting with both hobby knife and jeweler's hacksaw, and also has a friendly reminder or two painted onto it:

the soap mentioned is brush soap (avaible from art stores) and is good for cleaning and maintaining brushes

and here is one of the reasons it gets so paint splattered:

it can be quite messy mixing paint (i have a tendency to get it all over myself), and that's not blood, it's just scab red.  i use the (blunted) scalpel to stir the paints

next up is the lights.  as you can see, i use them to help brighten the painting area even further (this is vital because the main colour of my desk absorbs light).

as you can see i use two lamps, and hold the minis quite close to them when painting.  what you can't see so well is that they are different colours.  the grey one on the left holds a normal halogen bulb, which gives off a yellow light. This is good for looking at warm tones, but the light will affect the colour, so tones that look great under that light will often look strange under natural/other light.  the black lamp on the right has a special fluro light called a "daylight bulb".  this bulb is quite blue, as it simulates daylight.  this has less of a a colour changing effect than the other bulb (it is slightly blue though), but makes the mistakes and inconsistencies in the paint job really stand out (however this is really good for doing things like competition minis).  i use the two lights together(along with natural light/ whatever bulb is in my room) to paint my minis.  i find that the blend of the two lights is really nice to paint under, and i can also move the mini to either light to check it under different light sources.  a slight annoyance is that the halogen light tends to sit too high for my tastes, but that is easily fixed by a more creative use of Liquid Green Stuff:

  

and you'd be surprised how well balanced the pot is up there

i made a big section on the lamps, as they are a really important part of the painting table.  right then, onto the next items, which would be the palette and brushes/sculpting tool/other hobby essentials area.

i do have a preference for painting on tiles/ old plates, but the clear take-away lids make cheap disposable palettes, (no washing yay!) and because they are clear, you can hold the paint up to the mini to see the effect before you actually put paint on it. also, if you get one with deep enough ridges (or maybe the container itself), you can make what is called a "wet palette" as well.

  

in the area where the desk meets the wall between the two lights is where i store my brushes, tools, and some other hobby essentials when not immediately in use.  pictured in front is some blu-tack, various glues, and one of my favorite tools, the superglue activator (you will probably hear a lot about this at a later date).  behind them you can see (from left) the sculpting/ hobby tools jar, the brushes jar and a small vice designed for holding miniatures.  i won't go into any detail about what each tool is used for (for this is getting really long), but i  will tell you briefly about my brushes.  most of my collection is games workshop, which make great starter brushes, but i have begun to amass other, higher quality brands as well now. 

i will cover how i hold my brushes and paint at a later post.  

one of my more vital yet obscure tools for painting is the foam.  it is just a piece of foam that comes with most metal minis, and it is something that i have only recently begun to use.  i like to paint using some very intricate techniques, but discovered that slight hand shakes make that extremely hard to achieve.  to combat this, i am trying out a technique that uses two hands for painting the smaller areas of the mini, and the foam is there to protect the paint job from being scratched when i lay it down on the table.

my final tool i am going to explain today (even though it does not sit on or near the table) is my photo box.

this is one of the best tools that anybody wanting to take photos of minis/ various small object should have.  they are simple (and very cheap) to make, and provided you use good lighting, will produce almost professional quality photos without needing to buy an expensive DSLR camera or do extensive photo manipulation.  here is an example of the photo box in action.

pretty nice right?

so, that's it for my guided tour of my painting table.  consider me amazed if you read this far.  i will hopefully post some WIPs, and more on my tools etc and how i use them soon.

until next post, i bid you farewell

   -Claire