The Hobby That Dare's Not Speak Its Name Aka Wargaming

took the plunge and ordered myself an airbrush kit and one of those portable spraying/extraction booths so I can finally tackle the ~1,000 odd minis I probably have across my big mini based board games.

i bought 3 rattle cans of citadel primer a few weeks ago and every time i've been free to get out in the garden to spray some stuff it's ended up being too damp or too cold. I just got fed up of that being the main reason I never get started on painting anything. I'll use them still in the summer i'm sure but happy to be a bit more flexible with when i can paint.

mostly going to be using it to zenithal the minis in black/grey/white and do basic base colours on top which is enough for most things where I'm playing solo then I'll fill in details and apply washes by brush later on but I'm not looking for perfection.

spent today rearranging my work area (still not perfect but useable for now) just waiting on a slightly longer hose for the extraction port so it reaches the window and the cleaner/thinning fluids to arrive so i can put some paint through and start having a play.

portable spraying/extraction booths

Tell me more please

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=spray+booth&crid=2DUF1DO8C8C9K&sprefix=spray+booth%2Caps%2C60&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

it's basically a bit of foam padding with a fan that sucks air through it into a standard 10cm ventilation pipe that you stick out the window like an aircon unit/tumble dryer.

assuming you're careful with how you aim the spray it'll suck up any overspray so you don't come back 20 minutes later to find everything in the room is now covered in a fine mist of wet grey paint (don't ask how i know that but there's a reason i'm keen to ditch the rattlecans).

I went for the large bartsharp one (from their website direct as it was a little bit cheaper) as I wanted to be able to do some of the larger minis I have and it has led lighting and the pipe routes out the top.

arrived next day and is surprisingly lightweight. it doesn't fold down that small but if you wanted something you could keep in the cupboard and pull out when needed (the vent pipe may be annoying to remove each time though).

Even a really basic paintjob makes a big difference in terms of how it feels to play IMO, always nicer to play with some level of painted.

I also recently got an airbrush and really should get one of those miniature extractor fan set ups. atm I have a sort of modified cardboard box that I pull out to mitigate any overspray.

FWIW having watched quite a few different airbrush tutorials on basics and cleaning, the short series on the cult of paint youtube channel is the best.

Nice one, exactly the kind of thing I need

I use a real cheap airbrush. Don't have any kind of booth just spray in to half a cardboard box, open the windows and turn on the extractor fan. I wear a 3m 6000 mask too but I'm only spraying simple acrylics, no varnishes or anything nasty and never that much of it. Not had any problem with paint getting in the air then settling.

Lack of spraying area/conditions is definitely an issue, I suffer from this too. It was also a problem when I raced radio control cars and was trying to paint a body shell every week.

I really need to clear my work area so I have a proper painting/building space too. At the moment I have the kitchen surface which means getting all my modelling stuff out and putting it away again for each session. As a result I hardly do anything.

it's a bit spenny but frontier wargaming have a case meant for people who travel a lot or don't have a permanent hobby space to have something that's easy and quick to pop up/put away https://frontierwargaming.com/product/paint-case

I used to have a little tray I made from cardboard that I set everything up in that lived in a drawer and worked ok, but I definitely do a lot more, and enjoy it more now that I have a dedicated hobby desk.

That's very cool. Something similar could easily be knocked up on a budget. I'd be surprised if Hobbycraft etc didn't have something similar.

final bits arrived today so pushed some work stuff back to tomorrow to get things set up in my "studio(& games room)" in the loft room.

pretty happy with this layout for making the most of the space I have but would still love more worktop area (this house is a rental while we check out the local area so hopefully I'll have room for a shed when we look to buy again later in the year). i plan on leaving campaign games setup on the big red table between scenarios but if i do need a breakout area to spread out what I'm working on I can always just tidy them away first.

I'm pretty pleased.

with work tomorrow and my gf's birthday seemingly becoming a 4 day extravaganza due to easter this weekend I'll probably not get a chance to spray any paint until sunday earliest now though. but i should be able to just crack on when I do get the time at least.

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Nice setup!

Very nice, very jealous

Yeah that's nice! Douobt I'll ever have that kind of space what with bikes and hiking gear etc too.

that looks amazing, +1 to the jealousy... can see a decent amount of games on those shelves I fancy for my own collection.

I've entered a blood bowl 7s tournament in Bromley next month, not played in a tabletop tournament since my magic the gathering days 12 odd years ago, so it will be an interesting experience.

you can definitely tell I have a type when it comes to games. ha

I've entered a blood bowl 7s tournament in Bromley next month

random but I was on the (horrifically ukip-esque branded) patriot customs looking at the custom playmats the other night and they have some pretty cool looking bloodbowl ones. might be of interest to you if like me you love a good playmat for your games.

https://custompatriot.uk/browse.php?var_search_key=bloodbowl&fld_cat_type=search&fld_type_search=000

Oh those do look cool! thanks. I'm incidentally moving to sheffield later this year which is where they're based. I'm trying not to spend too much money on hobby stuff atm after splurging on a few things last month but these will for sure go on my list for future stuff.

I think they're running a Blood Bowl league at Bad Moon Cafe if you're near that neck of the woods

Ah thank you! I'm in a blood bowl league at HATE at the moment which is mostly scratching that itch. One/two day things are good but another regular league might feel like a bit much.

Had another game of Warcry the other night. Played Monsterous Melee - each player has a monster, winner is last monster standing.

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Managed a bit of time to give everything a quick go.

gonna take a while to get my head around everything fully and it's all quite overwhelming trying to figure out at once with the compressor, airbrush, painting, cleaning and everything.

got a layer of primer onto a single door from a pack of terrain minis that are probably the least important minis i have to hand. can see some things that tell me i need to dial in air pressure and stuff a little (just stuck it on 20psi for now).

booth worked well so far but it's noisy enough I dont think I'll be doing any late night painting. the compressor by comparison was much less noticeable. I'll probably get used to the booth noise too before long.

next up I'll finish the terrain pack in black and then have a go at zenithal priming with grey and white on top. after that I think I'll probably end up doing zenithal on a couple of games worth of minis just to work on my fine control with the air brush a bit before moving onto colours and more precise stuff.

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Very nice. If you thin the white enough you can often get all the grey tones you want by just doing thin layers of the white over the black, just saves adding another step with cleaning and paint changeover etc.

Terrain is very nice to practice on though, feels relatively low stakes.

Other nice thing with the airbrush is the layers are so thin that if you fuck something up you can just go over it again with primer and start again without worrying about stripping or anything like that.

Here's my very budget setup

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I feel like it's probably best to practise swapping colours to get started as it seems like a key skill going forwards and keeping the brushes clean seems to be paramount to their long life/function so happy to faff around with it.

my compressor has a second air outlet too so i may add a second cheap brush later on to help me juggle things around if i get into anything more complex.