a tour of my hobby space...

Since I'm on a blogging roll I figured I'd give a tour of my hobby space. These types of posts seem to be perennially popular. (That, and I just spent most of the day straightening up and I want to show it off!) 

I'm a lucky guy to have such a space. I can easily spend all day down here. The room is on the lower level of the townhouse so I have easy access to the garage and the back yard. The only downside is that the laundry room is right off this space so it can be a bit wearisome to listen to the washer and dryer running on weekends. First-World problems, eh?

I spend most of my time at the computer desk. This is my portal to all things internet. The latest addition to the room is the 'gaming' chair with lumbar and head support. While I am definitely NOT a computer gamer, the chair is designed to encourage good sitting posture and that was something I definitely DO need! It's an investment. (The chair also reclines and has an extendable foot rest and I have been caught stretched out and napping a few times.) 

To the right of the computer desk, on the other side of the gas fireplace, is the painting area. 

The pandemic has prompted a number of improvements to this work space. The first is the DIY paint rack (crafted of cardboard tubes) in which to store craft paints. Since most of my paints were well over 15 years old I binned most of them and bought two sets of Artiza craft paints and have been quite happy with them. (I've also been experimenting with gouche paints but that's a post for a different day.) 

The next additions were the two goose-neck magnifier LED natural lights. These are designed to attach to either table bases or clamps. I've clamped them to a shelf of the desk so that each light is placed just about shoulder height and shines down on the work surface. I've never before had such wonderful lighting for my painting space! This, too, was a worthwhile investment. $60.00 for perfect lighting! On the right side of the desk you might be able to spot my tool tray for tweezers, files, knives, etc. In actuality, the tray is design for kitchen silverware. (Wink, wink.) The tall stack of black containers arrived containing 'Chinese' entrees. They now store my basing materials and various flocks. 

There are currently three projects on the desk. The first is a re-basing of my Old Glory hoplites. These have been with me for a long, long time. Once I finished that I decided to build and paint a set of Immortal plastic hoplites. These were donated by Scale Creep Hobbies as a door prize or silent auction item at a convention in Springfield, Ohio. Maybe in 2010? Something like that. I got lucky! The pile of shame shrinks.

Finally, there's a circa, 1974, Airfix 54mm model of George Washington given to me by a friend in 2011. His Excellency is assembled and primed but nary a lick of paint on him, yet. 

Turning towards the center of the room is the gaming table. Actually, it's four 2x4 foot pieces of 5/8 inch particle board sitting on four separate metal shelving racks. I mostly leave it configured as shown in a 4x8 foot configuration. Draped over the table is a child's undersea themed birthday-party table cloth. I got two of them for around $12. They're just the right size but are frighteningly thin plastic and tear quite easily. However, they match my painted ship bases almost perfectly. I'm going to try attaching one of the table cloths to a canvas backing using latex paint. I don't know if it will work or not, but what's the cost of failure in this case?

 On the shelves I've placed plastic drawer units which store most of my figure collection. The large blue boxes contain my scenery pieces. I created those containers out of corroplast (corrugated plastic). I found it was much, much less expensive to buy the sheet corroplast and a hot-glue gun to build the boxes exactly the size I wanted rather than purchase commercially available under-bed storage boxes which didn't quite fit the shelf space. 

 Finally, though you can't see it in any of the pictures above, on the computer monitor is the home page of my collection management database, 'Muster'. I'll get into the details of that in the next post.