It was February 2017. Most of you probably hadn’t even met me, at that point, lingering at a modest sub-200 on Twitter, no stream, no website… Everything was in infancy and I was doing what I had said I would never do again. The faint sound of plastic being snipped and scraped could be heard and a slight sting of plastic glue lingered in the air.

I was back in the hobby.

I had been an off-and-on hobbyist since the late 90s. My last bout of it saw the loss of 99% of everything I had, due to a flood. Most everything was taken out by shovel, along with the thick mud that it was all encased in. It just felt too daunting a task to replenish all my paints and start anew.

IMG_0754The resurgence started here. It wasn’t much, but it was a solid set place to store everything I had; which was not much either. I had an old computer stand that was still in very good shape to act as the table. I went to Lowes and bought precut pieces of thin wood and sprayed them purple, using them as shelves for what little paint I had. My hobby tools went in a cardboard storage box I found at Michaels and any bits were tossed into a pink shoebox. My remnant of the past was an OTT Lite I had gotten for Christmas years ago and had been in storage since my hobby days were over. I brought it up from the basement and brought it out of retirement to wrap this modest setup together.

Getting back into the swing of things, I had told myself that I would only be doing specialists games; I focused on Bloodbowl and Warhammer Quest at the time. I managed to get about four months out of this desk, my paint collection slowly building along with my first re-entry into Warhammer 40k. It wasn’t until June that I would ditch the computer desk for what would quickly turn into a constantly changing setup.

IMG_0825I had found a cheap L shaped desk on craigslist and thought it would look great in my living room and serve for some more hobby room. I had a docking station for my laptop, so I used it as a duel purpose area, not knowing how key this would be until later. I also added storage areas on both sides; a glass shelving unit for my tools and supplies and a plastic storage cabinet for sprues. My paints simply went into a shoe box lid, at this point. They would not stay there for long, however. Even at this point, I was already awaiting a solution.

 

Over the next couple weeks I would get situated with my new paint rack system; you can see above that I started playing around with different sections. This was picked up from back2baseix.com. They make a really nice paint rack system, with options for just about any paint brand. I ended up getting their largest bundle, plus a couple addons for bits storage (seen on the right side). The docking station was pushed off the table and onto the glass shelf unit and I added a cutting mat from JoAnne Fabrics. This setup would last for a long long time. More paints were quickly added, outgrowing what I had space for. My bits and sprue collection blew up and by the new year, I needed to find a new solution once more.

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I moved the whole desk from the wall and created a U shaped space, with it. The paint pot count jumped from one to three; general use, metallic, and whites. I had received a new comfy chair for Christmas and said goodbye to the kitchen table chair. The rack was completely full at this point, plus I had a couple more storage sections for it. I purchased storage bins from Walmart and organized my ork sprues by kit, having so many at this point that I could do that and still need full drawers to store each different group. I was also streaming by this time, , and had camera and microphone setup at the table. It was still feeling cluttered at this point, however. I needed a bit more space and some better lighting.

Which brought me to my current setup: I have included links to everything I currently use, found at the bottom of this post.

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I picked up an identical L shaped computer desk, turning it into a full U. This immediately opened up the area and cleared up the cramped feeling I had been having. I went through and upgraded a few things while I was at it.

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More sections of the rack were added. With the extra space of an extra desck, I was afforded the room to expand, adding in enough to not only fit the entire GW line but the FW weathering powders and my old GW inks.

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My ottlite was replaced by two LED bar lights, which really helped light up my work area. I moved the rest of my storage back onto the desk, putting my tools in front of me.  More cameras were added, a total of three, for pallet cam and for a face cam, when streaming.  This setup set my paints fairly far away from my working area, on purpose. This is intended keep my work area clean. I use the insert tray from the GW project box as a pot tray, only taking the paints I need, and putting them on that. When done, I put them back and keep things from getting too cluttered.

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Lastly, I was able to add a lightbox to the far end of my desk, giving me a clean area for photography. My notebooks and other materials filled in the rest.

It has come along way in just over a year’s time. I already have ideas of what to add next, so I fully anticipate it to be an ever changing setup. Hope you found this transformation entertaining and, if you see something you have questions about, email or comment here. Also, everything I use will have a link below, if you are interested in checking them out.

Take care,

❤ Soph

computer desks:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FB5LE8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

LED lamps:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073VD4BXX/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

cameras:

Logitech c920 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006JH8T3S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

desk mount

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N77YBLU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Microphone:

microphone

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013RSD3R8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

mic stand and filter

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N641NTA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Paint rack system:

http://www.back2base-ix.com/the-rack-acrylic.html

Lightbox:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XQYF2RH/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1