We are really back this time. Apologies for the long absence we are just
awakening from our great sleep. Well it
was a sleep in terms of the hobby but not life.
In that time away a few things have happened. New job and new house are the biggest
changes. Life changes like that tend to
be consuming so not too much time to tinker around when those things are on
your plate. With that said those things
are now settled so now we get to ease back into to some old habits. Having learned from my experience and wanting
to put some real effort into this blog here is the new plan
MY PLEDGE
At least one post per month
I feel this is a much more realistic goal and one we can
meet. I feel making a pledge is
necessary because while this blog was inactive we actually picked up a few
followers. So making a pledge makes me
feel a little less guilty for teasing people with the content here.
So for this first full entry I am going to introduce you to
our new and improved hobby space/studio!
Before we had a space in an apartment.
With a house we now have a dedicated room (thanks to the generosity of
my lovely wife). Without further ado I
introduce you to the Brush and Bolter studio.
Here the view doesn’t look too different than the original
space we had in the apartment. However
you can see on the side of the model shelf I was able to add bin system to hold
assorted paints, pigments, and flock.
I really like these
bins because they can be removed from these hooks without any trouble and the
hooks can accommodate larger bins if you want to mix and match sizes. I get these bins from the Container Store.
With the additional space of the studio I was able to add a small
table to hold more paints, you can see an array wide array of P3 paints. This also holds my larger Golden Acrylic
paints I use for scenery and my texture mediums. I also store my airbrush and its materials
here as well.
This is a big improvement over the old space where a lot of
this stuff was stacked under my paint station speaking of which here is what
the space looks like now.
The first big difference is the view! If I so desire I can set and paint and enjoy
some natural light. And if I want to
linger in the shadows not a problem as I got some thick thermal drapes to keep
out the light and the cold. You’ll also
see I added some extra spot lighting.
The lights in the picture are LEDs that have three settings and provide
some extra brightness when needed. With
the additional space provided by the bins and the small table I have more space
at the painting station. So I stretched
out some of my paints and rearranged the model I am working on to take
advantage of the extra real estate.
That’s my Ork Battlewagon I’m still working on; my hobby life literally
went into a deep sleep.
Another
new feature I was able to add with the additional space is an assembly
station. Here you see the table with the
models I am currently assembling. I also
have a bin on the side to collect parts as I cut them from sprues. My plan is to add a few bins to handle a
larger volume of models. I have a
cutting mat and a plank I use as a work space since I don’t want to destroy the
surface of the table I just restored.
The plank has a stain on it to keep the nice warm wood tones
consistent. Instead of a standard finish
the plank has a wax finish. This allows
me to keep the natural wood texture while providing some protection. The photos below give you an idea of what the
plank looks like.
The drawer on the table stores some related hobby papers, info on pants,
art invoices (so I remember where and how much I paid for a particular paint,
brush, etc.)
This particular table was sitting in a storage space for about two
years. In conversation with a co-worker
who does general maintenance he thought my hobby would give me some transferable
skills I could apply to wood work. Turns
out that was true this table was being thrown out when he dropped it off to
me. I don’t have a per say before
picture of what this table looked like.
It had a two layers of paint the outermost being an odd pale pink. Here is the table after sanding in a before and after comparison with another shot of the finished table .
The finishing touches on the space are two storage racks
that hold boxed models, dice, old RPG collectables and other assorted gaming
items.
The additional space also allowed me to bring in two book
shelves to hold rulebooks, fiction and magazines. All in all the space makes for a great
studio/hobby hole. For the next post I’ll
be going into some techniques I’m using to get the most out of my hobby time and
keeping my projects organized.
