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An Introduction to My Desk - MoonDuck | |
| This is my desk. There are many like it, but this one is mine. No, wait,
wrong hobby. You are no doubt asking yourself the twin questions of "Why is
this joker introducing his desk to me?" and "What is so interesting about
his desk?"
The first is simple. I needed a topic for an article. No, I mean that every one of us, as modellers and painters, is a repository of odd techniques, strange tools, and arcane methods. Each of us does things just a bit differently, and what someone else is doing might just be interesting, and, if I'm lucky, helpful. The second question is tougher to answer, but will hopefully come clear as we proceed. Heck, I don't even know if my desk is interesting, but I hope you might find it, or something on it, useful in your quest to produce an army that looks cooler than that one across the table from you. Without further ado, here is my desk:  There's a couple of things to note here. First is that I'm messy, and my desk is cluttered. It serves double duty as my work-office for my actual Real World job, and as the foundation upon which my painting dreams are built, and frequently dashed to the ground. It's one of those cool corner design desks with the keyboard tray, yadda yadda. Who cares, right? Well, it brings up a major point. Your desk has to be comfortable for you. I love my desk, the set-up is perfect for me. It provides support where I need it and stays out of my way where I don't want it. More importantly, it allows me to maintain a good posture when working on Real World stuff, and the keyboard tray helps save my wrists. Your wrists are important, by the way. Take care of them. Real tough to paint when your hand goes numb after a while due to nerve damage. Repetitive Stress Injury and Tendonitis are the frequent result of improper positioning. I'm not preaching to you here either, I have wrist issues, and it sucks. Stay away from it, trust me. 1 You'll also note the swing-arm style lamp. More preaching, sorry, but lighting not only helps you see the miniature doo-dad you're painting, but it also saves your eyes. Eyestrain is not your friend. It's takes coals to Newcastle (or whatever that phrase is) but make sure you have good lighting. Lastly, on the topic of desk, or whatever you use for a painting area, try to make sure everything you frequently use is in reach. Turning, twisting, and stretching to grab something may sound like exercise, but all it becomes is an opportunity for injury, and, if you are like me, another chance to spill yet another full pot of Chestnut Ink all over your desk. Oh yeah, you'll note another majorly important tool here - the computer! I cannot count the times when I've needed a bit of inspiration, and I've hit such sites as Portent, CMoN, B&C, etc for inspiration. What's on the monitor? Oh, this site called Moving on, we have the actual painting area:  This is the spot where the magic occurs. Okay, so it's not magic, but it is special. Or something. What you see is my paint board (more on this later), humble foam, my paintbrush and tool rack, and my adhesive (Pro-Weld, and a bottle of CA that is behind them). Obviously you always need your brushes and tools handy, but I also tend to need my adhesives handy as well. This is the core of the area, and all the most important items sit right here. Said important stuff will be covered in detail below, except for adhesives. 3 Next we have the brush and tool rack:  This particular rack was a tool-holder for a leather-working kit I got back in my scouting youth. No idea while I still have the rack and none of the tools, but its such a great piece that I don't mind. I've seen too many people just toss their brushes in a glass jar or something. This hurts my (probably anal/OCD) brain. Not only is it unorganised and messy 4 but it is also taking a chance with your brushes. If you leave them loose to ramble about, you stand a good chance of damaging the tip and making your sweet Winsor & Newton #0 as useful as cotton swab. There's also that irritating fumbling about looking for the right brush. Hate that. No idea where you could get a rack like mine, but I would guess that a crafts store that carries leather-working supplies might be a good start. For that matter, an art supply store probably will have actual official brush racks, but that's pretty boring. 5 You can also make your own, but that is probably a topic for another short article later. Next comes the paint board:    This is a bog-standard 8'x10' artists canvas panel, as you see by the label on the backside in pic #2. You always see the painting technique articles tell you to wipe the excess paint off on a paper towel, or whatnot. I hated that. Not only was I making a mess of my area (years ago) without a drop cloth, I was also making a huge mess of paint-covered paper towels scattered about. 6 I started using a spare piece of plasticard primed white as a place to wipe off excess paint and a way to keep splatters off the desk. One day I happened to be wandering about in an art supplies store, something I heartily suggest, and I saw these artist canvas panels. They're extremely thick and sturdy pressed cardboard, covered in artist-quality canvas that is pre-primed. It positively pulls paint excess paint off the brush, as well as helping to keep spills from spreading due to the texture. 7 It's also pretty darned good as a place to mix small amounts of paint when I don't feel like getting a palette. In the third pic, you see a humble GW blister pack foam. Why is it there, you ask? Well, I frequently find myself laying the mini sideways to get some detail painted. I kept damaging the tops of the mini doing this as they inevitably rested on the tabletop or paint board. Much like every gamer, I had an abundance of blister foam sitting about, grabbed one, and the rest, as they say, is history. They're also handy for sopping up the occasional minor paint run or spill 8, and also good for the occasional textured effect on paint. Foam stipples really well. Let's talk tools now: 9   The first is a pair of specialist pliers. The one at the bottom is a pair of pin-nose pliers, though perhaps you will see them under a different name. Needle-nose pliers we all use, but these have a much more slender cross-section, allowing both better access in tight spots and a great tool to use as a form to wrap wire around. Simply hold the wire in the end of the pliers and wrap it smartly about the body. The tool at the top of that pic is called duckbill pliers over here. It is useful in that, as you can hopefully see in the pic, it has neither teeth nor serrations inside the gripping surface. This means you can use it on minis with less fear of marring the surface. Handy, eh? To the right of that pic, we see a tool that looks suspiciously like GW sprue nippers, right? Nope. Those are "Reed Nippers". Yup, I'm sure you see the difference now. The point is that they are the same tool, same function, but because I bought them at a crafts store that does basket weaving, I paid less than half of what GW or Squadron charges for such a tool. I'm dead cheap, so this is a Good Thing™. 10 Next we come to some non-standard tools:  The first pic shows my favourite non-standard tools. They are, from right to left, a Line Scribing Tool made by Squadron Tools, an eye-dropper, a random Archer Electronics tool, a microline art pen, and a nutshell picker. The nutshell picker is something I swiped from some oddball nutcracker set my family got for Christmas years ago. It was a hideous thing that was probably deported from Germany, it's country of origin, as opposed to exported. The nutshell picker was swiped simply because it is a useful too for mixing paints, cleaning threads on paint-pots, gross sculpting, what have you. I don't present it to suggest you obtain one, but more to show that you should think outside the box when it comes to modeling tools. There's more to this world than GW tools and dental picks. The microline art pen is probably old hat for some, but I include it simply because it's one of the best cheats I use. It works well both for some black-lining tasks, graphics on such things as heraldry, and for actual writing on minis such as in books 11   Next is the Archer electronics tool. One end is a chisel, sharpened and tempered tool steel, it is useful for sculpting as well as heavy clean-up of flash, dried glue, what have you. It's also killer for making heavy cut battle damage. The other end is also tempered tool steel and is an awl point, also useful for sculpting and battle damage. Archer produced a whole of these tools with all sorts of different ends. I bought mine at Radio Shack, but no idea if they're still in production. Again, these are electronics tools, and another example of keeping your eyes open when it comes to modeling tools. Next is an eye-dropper. If you don't have one for measuring out water, inks, and the like, go get one. It produces much more precision in your mixes and blends. Go on, the article will still be here when you get back with your eyedropper.  Saving the best for last, this is a Line Scribing tool by Squadron. The hooked shaped is drawn along plastic panels and scribes a line in its' wake. This is incredibly useful for many purposes. It can produce the look of individual plates in a sheet of plasticard, you can clean up mold lines in hard to handle areas such as hair, it can produce spectacular battle damage, and can be used to run mold lines off in normal areas as well. I cannot say enough good things about this tool when it comes to working with plastics. Look for it at you local scale model shop. Next we have my paint stripping station:  Yup, it's a bottle of "Kleen-Strip Brush Cleaner" and a glass cookie jar. Don't ask about the cookie jar, I can't explain it either. Still, "Kleen-Strip" is killer stuff. Now you probably won't find this brush cleaner in your local DIY unless you live in the States. Still, you can find some sort of brush cleaner designed specifically for latex (house) paints there. In this case, the stuff is non-toxic, smells pleasant, and totally drain-safe. The important thing is that it works too. If you shop about, you can really get better stuff than acetone, nail polish remover, brake fluid etc. Brush cleaner will loosen the paint off your figs in an hour at the most, and then just run it under hot water from the tap and hit it with an old toothbrush. Done, and no smells or toxic chemicals to dispose of. Aha, we finally get to the paints:  "Okay Moonduck, we've all seen paints before". So you say, but notice what you see. Yes, old chum, those aren't all new GW paints. Some are positively ancient. Some aren't even GW. I can say with accuracy, that I have paints older than some of the people reading this website. What's this mean to you, right? Take care of your paints and they will last a good long time. This means watering them occasionally, making sure they're sealed, keeping them in a climate controlled location, etc. Something else you'll note from the pics that I have a lot of paints. I'm a big fan of pre-mixed colours, and tend to buy or produce colours in gradients to both cut down on the time I spend mixing paints for blends, and keep my highlighting to a standard so it is easier to match existing schemes. You'll also note the presence of cheapo craft acrylics in the background. Yup, $0.88 at Wal-Mart, little over a buck at art supply stores. "But that stuff is crap!" you say. Hmm, maybe. I find it perfectly usable for a number of situations. One is touching up primer. Chaos Black is pricey stuff, $0.88 craft paint is cheap. If no one is going to see the paint anyway, who cares if it's cheapo paint? So long as it sticks and doesn't bleed pigment, I don't care. It's also ace for basing and terrain work, as you don't mind using large amounts of a paint you get for almost nothing compared to GW's pigmented-crack-in-a-bottle. 12 As to non-GW paints, I'm picky. If I like a colour in some other line better than GW's version, I see no reason not to use it. GW paint is merely okay, there's a lot of good paint out there (even more bad stuff). Shop around and experiment. I'm personally looking for a local retailer that carries Reaper or Vallejo so I can try their stuff. Next we come to storage:   Here is my primary storage device by my desk. It's obviously a large office-style filing cabinet. Pretty handy one at that. The top is an especially good place for my characteristic clutter. Inside you'd find my collection spray cans, basing materials, my sweet Dremel Rotary tool (buy one, they own), and all the sundry stuff I need that doesn't reside on my desk. The second pic is inside the cabinet, and it my WIP bitz box and mini storage arrangement. I call it the WIP box because it is really a tertiary bitz box 13, and only holds bitz for the various projects I'm currently working with. The bitz here get rotated out whenever I finish a project. Keeps it fresh, y'know. Lastly we visit Paint Buddha:  He sits on top of my monitor and maintains an air of bemused detachment. The bemused part is probably because he's seen how often I spill stuff. 14 He's present in this article for the same reason he's present on my desk. He reminds me that I should not take my painting, or myself, too seriously. So there you have the tour of my desk. I think you've been suitably introduced. I hope that you might find something on my desk that you can relate to. If I'm really lucky, something there might give you an idea. If I'm really, really lucky, other people here at Dysartes.com 15 might just introduce us to their desks, so that I can learn something from you. Always remember, those things that you take for granted, those techniques that you consider old hat, those special tools that you think everybody knows about, they all are going to be new and interesting to someone out here in Internet-land. Well, time to paint some more. -Moonduck NOTE: I realize that I’ve mentioned painting technique a number of times and glossed over it. The Editor, slave-driver that he is, and I have discussed a number of articles. Among them is a piece or two regarding various techniques. Just don’t hold your breath as I’m lazy as well as clumsy. 1: If you do have wrist/hand problems, go to a fabric store and try to find a "Seamstress' Glove". You'll feel silly at first, but you will love how much support it gives your hand and wrist without getting in the way of your painting movements whatsoever. 2: Okay, can I have my five quid now, Nick? (No. You misspelled it and I had to correct the spelling - Ed) 3: Adhesives are rather region-specific. I am thinking about an article on adhesive basics, but given that the readers of this site may not have access to the products I use, it may be of limited use. 4: I know, I'm one to talk about messy, aye? 5: You will also note the Guinness mug, unfortunately empty. Always make sure you have a friendly libation around. Makes the paint flow easier *hic* 6: And frequently getting my elbows into the paint on the paper towels 7: Can you see a pattern forming here regarding me and spills? 8: There's that "spill" word again 9: No Tim Allen jokes, please. 10: It's Martha Stewart's tips for Better Modeling and Conversion. 11: Or a rogue marine's "Litany of Wrongs"! What? Don't look at me like that. I'll post my CSM's when they're more completed and explain what a "Litany of Wrongs" is. 12: Nah, crack's too cheap, this stuff's almost as expensive as printer ink *shudder* 13: Yeah, tertiary. I have two other bitz boxes, and they are similarly set up. I am a nut about my bitz, as any good modeller should be. 14: Especially Chestnut Ink. Damned Chestnut Ink anyway. 15: So do I get more money for mentioning it a second time, Nick? | |
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