Workspace Photographs

It seems to be the done thing on Blogspot that when a gamer moves to a new address, he puts up a few photographs of his new workspace. Well, this isn't the finished workspace. It's just a temporary set-up. I'll be placing an order for a custom work-space from http://www.hobbyzone.pl/en/ as soon as we've finished decorating the rest of the house.

Starting from left to right, we have the paint and materials rack. Well, bookshelf really. The top shelf has my remaining supply of Devlan Mud ink (bought in a panic before I realised that Army Painter Strong Tone Ink is both identical and cheaper), a Boots nail file (with multiple grades for removing paint from transparent bases, cockpit windows and the like) disposable gloves and my air-brushes.

Down from that we've got the paints I use fairly infrequently. Games Workshop paints for the odd occasion when a customer requests that I use them, my home-made inks and finally my MP paints. I generally only use MP paints for painting scenery and basing. I used to have a lot more of these paints, but I had to leave a couple of hundred pots behind in Glasgow due to lack of space. I'll bring them down with me next time I'm up visiting.

The next shelf down is where I keep all my most commonly used paints (at a convenient height for when I'm sitting down). Mostly it's a collection of Vallejo Game Colour and Model Colour paints. I'm working round to replacing as many of these as I can with Vallejo Model Air paints.

Second shelf from the bottom is exactly what it looks like: it's where I keep the Aerosol Spray cans and basing materials.

Finally, at the bottom, we've got some boxes of various basing materials ranging from Builders cement mix to chips of actual concrete. There's also a sneaky box of Clan War miniatures and the compressor for my airbrush.

By the way, yes that's a fridge-freezer to the left of the paint rack. What? A guy's gotta keep his running shoes (and the milk for tea and coffee) somewhere accessible, right?

Panning round to the right slightly, you can see the first of the three south facing bay windows that provide light for my painting area. The cardboard box on the window sill contains a couple of hundred plastic and mdf bases in various sizes. The two plastic storage boxes contain scenery for those rare occasions when I can motivate myself enough to take a diorama shot. Actually, it's got less to do with motivation and more to do with the fact I usually end up scrabbling around trying to get photographs just before the sun disappears.

The Corkboard tray is my "pending postage" tray. It's where partially completed orders sit while I finish the rest of the commission.

 

This is the actual painting desk and no, it's never normally this tidy. I've actually had this painting table since I was eight and it's become part of a strange little ritual I have whenever I change address. The very first thing I do in  a new house is set up this table wherever the natural light is best. Then I plug in an audio players of some kind and listen to Depache Mode's single, "Home". It's nuts, but it's  what I do.

Before anyone jumps down my throat about the state of my brushes, don't worry. They're old brushes I use for basing and making scenery. I'd never leave my precious Kolinsky Sable's out on view like that where any old bit of dust or moisture could get at them! 

The spray booth is a collapsible model in theory, but I wouldn't know how easy it is to take it apart and rebuild since it's never come down once since I got it. It's got a fairly powerful (but almost silent) fan at the back for extracting fumes.

Last bit. Pardon the tangle of cables, but they're just there temporarily until we can tuck them behind the bookcases (which we don't actually have yet). These storage boxes here contain most of my miniatures. Or at least, the ones I might need easy access to for a game. The big tubes you can just see are terrain mats, all tightly rolled up in storage. Just behind the storage boxes, you can see the top couple of KR Multi-cases poking out from a stack of a dozen or so. Most of this stuff will be going on the book cases when we actually find the time to sit down and order them.

And that's it. Apart from the one essential gaming item I can't actually find a decent place for at the moment. My bits box:

For the moment it just gets unceremoniously shoved under the painting desk at the end of every working day.

So there it is, very much a temporary set up, but it suits my needs for now.