I'm currently in the midst of UTD prep with about five different projects in varying levels of completeness. Since it'll be a while longer before any of them are finished, I want to share some of the work I've done recently on my work area.
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One of the miniature painting tools I've resisted spending money on the past three years has been paint handles. I've had enough of using pill bottles with rocks in the bottom, so I bought a 1.5" diameter dowel and cut it into 2.5" long handles. Such an easy solution, and I'm ashamed it took me this long to see the light.
Happy with the handles, I wanted to build a tray to hold them while they had models on them. So a took a piece of scrap plywood, drilled 1.5" diameter holes in it, and attached it to another piece of plywood with the same dimensions. A little bit of sanding to the holes and dowels ensure they aren't too snug. Now I have a tray that holds 20 models at a time! I've had four squads of Bolt Action minis I've been painting on and off for the past month, and this setup has made it so much easier to batch paint a little at a time, and put them away while working on kitbashes.
After I put together the paint handle tray, I needed some place to put it. I've seen the suggestion on the IRWT discord multiple times to put labeled trays with unfinished projects into a rack for a nice way to organize in progress work. I was very tempted to buy dental trays and racks for this purpose, but I think they would be too small/expensive for what I need. I found a paper tray with adjustable shelves that fit my paint handle tray perfectly, but I'm still on the hunt for some smaller trays for the other shelves
Another miniature skill I've been trying to improve has been my photography. Previously I've been using just a sheet of white or black card stock behind the mini I'm trying to shoot while it's sitting on top of a paint bottle. This was enough to scrape by, but I was not getting very good lighting from my desk lamp alone. I knew I wanted a foldable light box as an upgrade, but they can get pretty pricey. So I found a tutorial on YouTube that uses foam board and Velcro to make a DIY light box. I scaled mine down and added a paracord loop so it can be wall hung. For the backdrop I picked up some poster board and added Velcro pieces to the corners of both the backdrop and where the backdrop would sit in the box, making it easily removable and replaceable.
I'm very happy with the fact that it fits right on my table and my work light can still be used as the light source. I've also got a couple of goose neck lamps that I can use in case I need supplemental light from the side windows.
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Since December of last year I've been slowly gathering gear for an airbrush setup. I don't have access to a window in my work space, so I followed this YouTube tutorial to build a vent trap for my airbrush booth out of a five gallon bucket, fishtank filter pad, and silicone sealant.
I don't have a ton of space to work with in this room, so I'm pretty proud I was able to fit an entire airbrush setup, complete with filtration, on a small wire kitchen rack. Even with the bucket trap, I still use a respirator and only put acrylics through the airbrush. But I feel like I can paint with a little less worry about fucking up my lungs after building it.
Optimizing my work space is so much fun for me (and sometimes I feel like I'm doing it more than actually using the work space, haha). I could write another 10 paragraphs about all the dumb little things I've added to the room, but I think I'll cut it off here and write a part 2 in the near future.
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