when I first started painting miniatures I bought this table at the damaged section at TJ Maxx for a whopping 15 bucks I put it up in my bedroom and wedged it in a corner out of the way and while my painting space has grown over the years most of this stuff is just sprinkles it's not really why we eat the cupcake So today we're going to focus on what every miniature painting setup needs whether you're brand new to the Hobby whether you have limited space at home or whether you just want to streamline or optimize your miniature painting setup I decided to no longer keep track of how many items I buy and try for the miniature hobby to see what I like and what's useful many things like this little saw here are very convenient to have although not entirely necessary and there are those things that are a complete waste of money but along the way I've realized that there are a core group of things that I believe every miniature painter needs to really maximize their miniature painting space So today we're going to go through that list all right first thing we're going to need is a place to paint I think it's really important to have a nice flat sturdy surface to paint at so it's not wobbling and so you can support your elbows so the thing you need to really keep in mind here is that yes you can paint just about anywhere but I think over time it's important that you're not hunching over your table to paint that will kill your back hurt your posture in the long run you're not going to want to return to the miniature paint desk speaking of the desk I think it's really important to try to preserve the surface of your desk and not destroy it over the years of miniature painting and that's why I think one of these flexible cutting mats often used for sewing are really really important you can get really tiny ones like this one right here just throw it out on your desk when you are assembling models when you're clipping things when you're cutting with a hobby tool but you can get really big ones like this giant one right here if you have a bigger desk and it's going to be on there permanently you can bam just slap it down like that you never have to take it up and you're good to go a little extra thing that I like to do and don't feel like you need to especially if you're just starting is I buy a big roll of this paper on Amazon and I put it over my cutting mat and my desk behind me over there because I oftentimes like to airbrush at that desk and this way I'm not spraying the airbrush paint all over my desk and all over my cutting mat so if I ever need to use the grid on it to measure something it's not entirely covered with paint all right you've got your painting surface you've got it protected now the next thing you need to worry about is light so what kind of lighting would we recommend for any miniature painter and I think there's really two main options especially when you're starting and you don't want to spend the big bucks the first option is to just get one of these cheap desk lamps that will clip right on the edge of your desk you can get them for really cheap on Amazon or at Ikea and then you've just got to put a bulb in yourself now the bulb itself is pretty important you want to make sure that it is a nice neutral light leaning on the side of cool somewhere between the 5000 and 5500 kelvins now one downside to these is that they require to be clipped to the edge of a desk and if you don't have that or you're worried that you are going to wreck a very nice table like your mom's dining room table then maybe that's not an option don't worry I'm got a second option for you and that option is something like these Ott lights now I've had this one for many years and I in fact I still use it over there on my airbrush setup I just set it up over here in my little spray booth I can turn it on like that it gives me just enough light to help me see what I'm painting with an airbrush the good thing about these is the quality of the bulbs is very very nice it has a good CRI color rendering index meaning the color that it shows you while looking under the light is very very true to outside in a clear day now the only downside about these is that the bulbs aren't super bright but honestly for the most part you're going to be just fine because you're going to be painting really close right underneath it anyway also you can take this on the go they're pretty cool they fold up and you can just throw them in the closet you can put them in the backpack and take them with you on the go now that we know where we're painting how we're keeping it protected and how we can see what we're painting I want to talk a little bit about our brushes tools and more importantly storage I don't want this video to be about what brand of paint brushes and how many paint brushes and all the different things that you need to have but I'd be a little bit remissed if I wouldn't give you my basic recommendations of what every minute your painter really should have access to especially if you're just starting out and that would really just be a couple of brushes one get a nice cheap pack of big synthetic brushes at a local craft store or online in bulk these things you can beat them up you can throw them away you can chop them up and the tip and use them as a dry brush you can use them to apply super glue to a base you can do all sorts of things with them and don't worry about destroying them outside of this pack of decent sized cheap brushes there's really only two brushes that I really use on a really regular basis and then I'd recommend the first one would be a size one or a size 2 Sable hair brush nicest quality is you can afford even when your brand because learning how to use these nice brushes is really important it's really developing a skill and learning how to best use a tool also I really really like to have a size zero Sable hair brush I know not everyone uses tiny brushes but I kind of love them for all those little details like doing eyeballs like doing little scratches and all sorts of textures on the model these things are great they would be my third place gotta have it in my kit brush oh almost forgot you've got your paint brushes you better bring something with to keep them clean there are all sorts of different kinds of brush soap out there sometimes these nice little ones in the little pucks are great for travel you can just throw them in a case and you're fine also I really enjoy your Sonia brush soap and conditioner this is probably my favorite one although the top broke and cracked open while I was traveling not that long ago and it spilled like a quarter of the bottle of brush soap all over the inside of my travel case so maybe that's not a good travel one but for your at-home kit it's great all right I kind of feel like I've gotten ahead of myself here I'm already talking about brushes and brush soap and painting the model and that's not really what we should be worried about yet first thing we got to do is we got to build the model so what do we need to build our models I think I have about two drawers filled with crap of things that are used for building models or aiding you and building models in some capacity or another and by and large you don't need any of that stuff there's only a very few things that you really need to help you build your models and have them turn out great and get ready for painting the first thing we need is a sprue Clippers this is to get all of our bits off of the sprue or to cut off all the extra bits of resin if you're 3D printing or if you bought a resin cast now you can buy a big cheap one like I bought here this is the very first one I got from a big box hardware store and it cost me like a dollar or two now this thing isn't very exact and it's not great for really nice high quality models on sprue like Games Workshop but I still keep it and use it when I'm hacking off big bits of resin or anything I don't want to use my high quality ones that I use just for plastic all of our bits are now clipped off of our sprues and there's only two things that I really think you need for cleaning up your model the first one would be a nice hobby knife I actually like to keep them moderately dull for the cleanup aspect if I really need to cut through something and use that cutting mat I use a nice sharp one these ones have a nice little protective sheath for the blade those Monument ones but really any of these things will do the only other thing I can't live without in my painting kit when it comes to prepping my models and get them ready for paint are flexible sanding sticks you can buy these in packages and each one lasts you quite a long time so one package should last you well over a year unless you paint about 10 000 models a year and they've got two different kinds of sandpaper one on each side one's a little bit rougher one's a little bit smoother and like I said they're a little bit of a little foam on the inside so you can just smooth over those models get all the imperfections all the mold lines gone and next to no time and that's it three simple things for prepping your models I don't think you need anything else oh and if you see anything here that you wanted to add to your painting kit or you want to know what other things that I prefer in the miniature hobby check out my affiliate links below down the video description you can buy anything that I use at no additional cost to you and it supports the channel so thank you for those of you that use those oops I almost forgot you actually kind of have to put the model together so there's two things you can go with here and one is super glue and one is plastic cement if you are building plastic models please use plastic cement it's so much easier than using super glue and it won't glob over it actually creates a chemical reaction that melts the bits of plastic together infuses them and if you do it just right it'll actually erase the seam where the two pieces meet so there's Mr hobby brand and there's Tamia brand there's probably other ones as well just get one of these things that has the Little Brush on the inside because you can actually just brush it on put the pieces together and you're good to go today's video is brought To Us by people that know all about sweet painting setups Frontier War gaming you may recognize the paint case that they're known for customizable with laser engraving interior storage just the way you like it lighting arm straps and more this case really is the way to go if you don't have a dedicated painting space at home or you just want to take a quality setup to a friend's place a local gaming store or even to a convention Frontier War gaming also has their brand new paint stand line and this stuff is really right up my alley keeping everything organized while looking stylish is not an easy combo to pull off in our Hobby and these things do just that the rich stain even matches their paint case fully modular with trays that optimally hold just about every paint range on the market they slide off the rack so they can sit right on your painting desk when you need to use them and they slot into your travel paint case so transitioning from painting at home to painting on the go couldn't be less painless so click on the link down below to see the full paint stand line the paint case 2.0 and all the other really cool stuff they carry over at Frontier War gaming now let's get back to that video now if you're gluing anything that isn't plastic to plastic you're going to need a bottle of super glue there's all sorts of Brands out there if you are gluing metal I really recommend the super glue gel by Gorilla brand this stuff is amazing for metal models but just about any brand of medium flow super glue I think is just fine from the majority of our hobby next thing every painting kit needs is a painting handle at least one now when I first started I just bought a bunch of dowels and cut them up in three inch sections and so I had 40 50 painting handles should I need that many there's all these different kinds that you can buy from Brands these days and they all have different gimmicks or different things they claim to do well and I think by and large they're all just great so anyone that you decide that you like more than the others go for it it's not going to make or break your painting kit or make or break you as a painter if I had to pick my current favorite painting handle on the market it would be this one by Red grass games it has a nice weight to it it's not too heavy it's not too light it has this top that actually spins side to side and you can pop it off and put another lid on if you're rotating through your models and it works really really well with this Museum putty now I typically really do not like blue tack but this stuff is freaking amazing you just put a little bit on there push on your model like that and it's kind of good to go it's not going to go anywhere and then you can just Prime you can paint and you can pop it off and it doesn't stick to the bottom of the model now on the painting desk there's going to be a couple of important things that you're going to need and the first one is just a cup of water and really any cup that makes you happy will do whether it's a cup that you've got from one of your friends whether somebody told you that their cup with their logo is the best way to do it or you could use a cup that's got a screw top lid and some like this even have a coil in there to rinse your brushes out in as well so yeah you need a cup for water but don't feel like this needs to be a decision that uses maximum brain power to figure out which one is most optimal to make you a better painter okay this little desk is really quickly getting overrun with uh all sorts of stuff here almost out of space onto the wet palette yes you should have a wet palette if you don't use a wet palette get one right now or make your own the sooner that you start using one the quicker you are going to improve as a painter our paint dries it's such a fast rate because we use so little and we use a tiny brush and it's acrylic paint I've tried all these different brands and a few more and I can tell you they all work just fine they're all basically doing the same thing one bit of advice I would have though is is you can buy your own parchment paper or baking paper from the grocery store and cut it yourself to use for the paper here so a lot of these companies will sell their own paper if you want to save a little bit of money at the expense of sitting there and having to cut it out yourself that is one thing you can do suppose I don't have to keep everything on this table as I'm going through all this stuff but I can't help it oh one of the really important thing something that I found I can't live without these days is just a squeezy bottle with water in it when my water in my wet palette is running low around the edges I can't have my paper kind of curling up on me on the sides from being too dry so I can just squeeze around the edges with this thing right here or if I need to have a little water to thin down my paints I put a drop of this on the corner of the wet palette so I'm not taking my dirty water from my rinser cup here I can just dip into that drip of water there and keep on painting all right I've got a really important section on something I think we all struggle with but before I do that I wanted to briefly talk about priming our models because we need to do it and sometimes it's just the biggest pain or hurdle in the hobby so you could use an airbrush but if you're brand new and you just don't have the space or you don't even know what to do with it that can be a big hurdle if you wanted to dip your toes in and just look at airbrushing and you don't do it currently I've got a video up in the corner of the screen on this kind of introductory starter easy to use airbrush that's great for priming or base coats of your models I also am not a major fan of rattle cans because where I live about six months out of the year the weather is not exactly nice and I don't love going in and out whether it's super rainy or super windy or 30 degrees below zero this isn't always lovely as well and of course I don't want to do it in the house so what I would recommend is that you buy a bottle or two of airbrush primer and just apply it with a brush thin it down with just a little bit of water on a pallet and just apply it with one of your big cheap brushes you're going to need probably two coats make sure you don't put it on too thick a couple of thin coats is much better the last and I think probably most importantly I want to talk about storage now when I first started the hobby I got this it's just a little art bin you could also use a little toolbox anything like that and this is where I just kept all my stuff and since then it appears my wife has commandeered it to use for sewing stuff but I want to show how useful something like this is so we're gonna make a painting kit with everything we've talked about today and see if it will fit in this box I'm gonna throw it over here all her stuff don't worry I'll pick it up later I'm sure some needles will fall on the floor and I will step on them and that will be the universe saying uh this is what you get for wrecking your wife's all right we throw in our Museum putty down there I throw in my primer down there I throw in my super glue down there I throw in my plastic cement down there I throw in my brush soap down there okay I think that's probably all we need down there I put my sanding sticks put a a hobby knife put a couple of sprue Cutters different kind of sprues throw my painting handle in there I can also put in some paint brushes in there I think that pretty much everything inside of this oh this big finger paint brush that I put down here this like isn't even half full like there's so much more space in here now there's a bunch of space in here but you're saying John you still haven't put any paint in this box that's because I never use this box for paint I think that there's a better option for paint this is where I put everything else this way I can close this up I can take it over and put it in the closet put it under the bed take it to the store anything I needed this one thing I could even put in a model in here to paint I usually would wrap it in a bit of bubble wrap so it doesn't get beat up on the way to or from the store but everything I would need is in a little Arch storage container or a little toolbox but where I put the paint is in scrap booking tubs you can get these for pretty cheap online or at a local craft store and I like them for two reasons one the height on these things is about four inches meaning even the taller bottles of paint will fit in there just fine also I like them because they can stack on each other relatively easily and they're completely clear I can look inside of each one before ever opening it and rummaging through to see what colors I have in here what brand I have in here eventually you can get things like paint racks on the wall so I can see them at a glance but for the most part these things are just as good as any other paint storage and they're a lot more flexible because you can put them away wherever you need the last thing I want to talk about is one more bit of storage and that's for our models now our models typically whether they're painted or not are not exactly the most durable of things they can be quite finicky they can have little bits on them that can snap off easily and that's why I like to put them in these stackable totes these ones specifically are called really useful boxes and yes they are a bit more expensive than your average tote and you don't have to get this exact brand but I really find that these are great because they have nice sturdy sides they stack nice and well and they're really flat on the bottom they don't bow like a lot of tubs can especially the cheaper ones on the bottom of each of these I'll often glue down these flexible magnet sheets that they're used to put on the side of cars to put like signs or advertisements for businesses and you can buy those in sheets they're pretty cheap and then I just tape those down and then all my models are perfectly stable they're not going to go anywhere as long as I put a magnet on the bottom of each base so that is it this is my list of all the things that I feel every miniature painting setup should have if you were on a desert island and you had one of every the things I mentioned here you could paint until you died of starvation or dysentery from all the coconut water and to tell you the truth making this video is is much a reminder to myself about not getting overwhelmed and not always looking for the next secret Gadget or thing that will make me a better painter that is inside me it is not outside of me in all the tools and gear so sometimes keeping things simple being minimalist and only using the things that are really going to make a difference in your painting is what we need I hope you found something in this video that was helpful for you or made you think is there anything else that I missed out any must-have miniature painting tool or something you need for your miniature painting setup that I didn't mention I'm curious to hear put it down in the comments below if you like the channel want to support me in making more videos there's a couple of easy things you can do first of all make sure you're subscribed like the video tell your miniature painting friends about these videos next you could pick up some Ninja merch in the store down below as well as join me over on the Ninja on patreon for just a couple of bucks a month you get access to some fun rewards and that really is the number one way that I get support from viewers like you to help me keep making these videos I'm gonna see you back here again real soon and now that your mini painting setup is pristine you have no excuse but to get out there and slay the gray people as a whoop next thing oh gosh damn it oh no and you won't