I use a TV tray table I got for about 15 bucks. Nice and portable if need be and I can leave it set up.
Does that really give you enough room to work on? I honestly never thought of that…
Yep, though I need to keep my lamp on a different table nearby since it has a long swing arm and I don’t want to bother buying a new one. Here’s the table I use…
Try to imagine and mini painter instead of a recent release from Arkham Asylum though.
Man, that guy is ready for some serious TV watching. He’s got a soda and a water bottle.
And nice job to everyone who has posted pics in this thread. I’m seriously envious of your talent. I’m getting ready to try my hand at painting a handful of toy army men just to practice on before starting in on some board game miniatures. If they come out half as good as the ones in this thread I’ll be super happy.
TV trays have come a long way from what I had (and had in my head) as a kid. Thanks for the idea.
How the heck do you get off the couch if you have that try hemming you in? I suppose you can push the tray back, but doesn’t that risk spillage (and the inevitable “Thanks Obama!”)?
Dude is thirsty, look he has 2 beverages !
I started out doing some boardgame minis about 3 years ago and that led to a love of minis painting. :) I think painting up a boardgame is a great way to start.
Picked up some Brass Etch at GenCon and I started working with it a bit today. It’s cool stuff, but not easy to work with. I like it, but I definitely need to learn what I can (and can’t) do with it.
Okay, what is brass etch? I assume it is the brass plates on the armor, but is it a way to etch your own designs or such?
Another day, some more circle. These are my shifting stones, I have two sets, one base set themed with greenery, the others more desert style to keep the two sets unique.
There might be places that will etch your own designs onto the brass, but in this case it came etched with Imperial/Crimson Fist iconography. After working with it more I think I am not in love with it and I prefer the resin cast parts instead for customization.
What is everybody’s glue of choice for assembling minis these days. I have always used the Revell Contacta stuff but found drying times really tedious while assembling Dead Zone. Apparently I should have been using a CA glue as the minis are resin… Anyway the Contacta gets annoying with the application needle constantly drying blocked whenever it goes unused for half a day, requiring a quick heat treatment to burn out. So I am over it and something else!
I just use a simple super glue like this [loctite.com]. The head never gets clogged and it’s more than strong enough for most of my applications. It does tend to heat up a bit while setting so you have to be careful not to use too much or you’ll scorch your minis.
I use Super Glue for my resin stuff and thin plastic glue for the plastics. I have been happy with both, though I do pin a lot of my resin stuff.
Did a bit more work with the brass etch this evening (as well as a bit of painting) and despite the etched brass being a bit more limiting than I had hoped, it really does add a little something extra to the models.
Wow, looking at Merryprankster’s pics, I realize a couple things:
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I’m really, really old - I have not been in a GW shop or bought a figure in literally a dog’s age. Those new plastics look absolutely fantastic.
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My figures are really, really old. I think GW has upped the size of a marine to around 32mm, up from their old standard of 30mm back around 2000… and most of my figures are in the REALLY ancient 28mm scale.
I poked around in my storage room and snapped off some shots of a couple of the (very few) figures I have left. Many of these are INCREDIBLY ancient. For example, these are from the very first Eldar Harlequin boxed set, circa 1992:
I think the newer harly figures are ten times as good.
A heavily modded Eldar Exarch that was street-legal back, oh, 1998 or so:
And finally, a bunch of figures from an Eldar ranger-army. I don’t even know if such a thing is possible any more. Oh, and although all the stuff that I still have is Eldar, I really wasn’t a big space-elf player… it’s just that I sold all my other armies long ago.
Yeah, my stuff is REALLY old.
But still looks great. Your Eldar stuff, beyond having a really unfortunate gloss finish on them, look amazing. I find it interesting how little basing has evolved since you painted them – not to mention that they’ve held up amazingly well.
Yeah, that was one of my “play” armies, and the satin finish allow them to hold up to handling a lot better than a matte covering that would photograph better.
So, merry prankster, I saw those centurion miniatures and I though it would be nice to take a break from japanese robots for a while and try my hand at the more difficult skill set of miniature painting. Mainly because models take so long that I would welcome palate cleansers between them.
Then I saw the price those go for…
WTF is going on with GW prices (and forge world seems worse)? For a squad of centurions I can get a 500+ pieces hyper detailed 23cm high model that will get me busy for 2-3 months…
Those centurions do look amazing, though! :P
A lot of the ‘cool’ GW stuff is just brutal on price. That said, you can get much cheaper stuff provided you don’t mind taking a hit on poses. Stuff such as the following are pretty good deals to just paint:
Beyond posing limitations, these models also tend to have a bit less detail. But they’re still a great (cheap) intro to GW minis. Basically just search by low-high price and you’ll find some of the cheaper stuff.