I have had a good sort out and tidy up of my painting desk over the last few days, the drawers were becoming rather cluttered and untidy and I find the need for order with an 'everything in it's place' mentality. One thing I have done is to go through my Vallejo paints and try to arrange them in colour batches. I always keep my paints in the same place in my box, so I know where the main shades are without needing to go through them, although the greys were becoming a bit of an issue as I have so many. I glued in a few dividers and replaced the paints upside down so at a glance I can see every shade, this also has the advantage of keeping the thicker pigment towards the top of each bottle, this is working really well and the neatness is also very appealing. I also have an overflow draw of around another 50 pots, replacements/spares/rarely used colours, kept correct way up. I have a draw for my modelling tools, drills, wire, cutters, files etc and another draw for my scenic/basing materials. All very good.
I had a few mounted officers left in my 'Sash & sabre' draw, plus some foot figures. all were painted and it seemed a shame not to use them in some way, so I made the four command bases you see below from them. These are aside from the main circular command bases already in the collection, and will prove useful and more practical for smaller games. I'm not sure what make the British officer with shako on sword is, he came from Andy and is a lovely character, I think he's a bit of a conversion, I do love that large head and that face. All got a bit of a touch up here and there.
So that's every 40mm figure used now, save for the few you see behind that I'm finishing off. Time to get an order in but I'm just waiting for a pension transfer to come through then it's more Sash & Sabres, the Perry British Light infantry and some of those wonderful buildings.
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| A place for everything, and everything in it's place! |
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| The newly organised upside down paint pots. |
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| My favourite is the young British officer, full of enthusiasm for battle. |
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| I had to use those two spare Grenadiers somewhere. |
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| Somewhat toothy French officer, but I really like him! |
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| The spares drawer. |
Every now and then, I go through my Vallejo, take the top off each bottle and put in a few drops of acrylic artists Flow Improver and then give a good shake. For those bottles that become stubborn and won't mix back to an even consistency, I attach a few to the blade of my Jig-Saw and give them a ten second shake with that, by just gently squeezing the trigger on an off, so that the blade gets a 'revving up' effect - it was a tip that I saw somewhere on the internet, a sort of poor mans paint shaker.
ReplyDeleteYour figures just look lovely, with a ton of presence.
Blimey Norm that's a good idea... I'll have a go at that...
DeleteLee - like your idea of the upside down bottles as well...
Ah Norm, I really like that idea! I'll be giving that a try for sure, I hate shaking the damned things up.I have also heard of those who put a metal ball bearing in each pot as an agitator.And I can see how the Flow Improver would help those that have thickened up to a paste like consistency, will try that idea too, cheers.
DeleteThat is very neat Lee, my own painting desk is very disorganised and I like your upside down solution! Great work with the figures too.
ReplyDeleteThe upside down pots seem to be working well so far Ian.
DeleteNice upside down paint drawer and lovely figures!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thank you very much Iain :)
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