The Gear EVERY Miniature Painter NEEDS

$10 off a $100 or more order! COUPON: NINJON2022

Umbrella Games (where I buy my minis and goodies in North America!):
With my link: Get 15% OFF EVERYTHING, plus additional discount on certain products!

Monument Hobbies Pro Acryl: (my brushes, also paint, primer, basing paste, etc.):
10% off your total order! Enter COUPON CODE: ninjon

Element Games - (ALL your hobby needs, UK based, ships WORLDWIDE):
Use Referral Code: JON1303 for DOUBLE STORE CREDIT CRYSTALS on your first purchase!

Red Grass Games (my mini holder & wet palate)

AMAZON LINKS: materials I use, no extra cost to you and they give me a bit of money as a kickback (anything you buy while starting with these links, actually!):

Cheap Big Synthetic PaintBrushes

Flexible Sanding Sticks

Tamiya Sprue Cutters

Tamiya Extra Thin Plastic Cement

Dowels - 1.5”

X-acto knife

Magnifier Glasses (Sexy gogs)

Vortex Mixer

Brush Cleaning Tank

0:00 Intro
1:10 Sit & See
4:29 Brushes & Brush Care
6:38 Model Building Gear
11:24 Hold It, Stick It, & Hydrate It
13:14 Wet Palette
14:36 Priming, Rattle Cans, & Air Brushing
15:55 STORAGE WARS!
20:04 Final Thoughts & Outtakes

[That_Guy_In_The_Sky]

15:33

That's the first time in 3 years of watching tutorial I've ever seen an honest to God, proper alternative to Spray can/airbrush Priming to just use a brush. Thank you.

[philgee]

Great vid
A scalpel and blades
Basing materials!
Isopropyl alcohol to brush onto milliput to create gap filling butter/levelling and texturing cream (also to thin paint etc)
Cheap non-prescription reading glasses as magnifiers
Dremel for drilling/pinning/carving away plastic and resin
Magnets
MagicSculp - forget greenstuff
PVA
Very chewy dog snacks so she gives me half an hour's peace.
Framed pic of the dog because she's off somewhere gnawing on her snack

[milgram]

My go-to water cup is a mason jar. Here are the selling points: cheap, and available everywhere; clear, so you can see how dirty the water is; large, so it doesn’t get dirty as fast; lid, so you are less likely to spill it; obviously not a cup, so you won’t drink it.

[magnusmillerwilson]

Dude. The commandeered box by the wife made me laugh SO HARD. Not only was it funny the way you presented it, it rang so true.

[tamsinp]

For brush cleaning water I use two glass jam jars - dirty rinse and "clean" rinse.

[andreacook]

For water cups, I use these $2 "apaothacary jars" that Michael's sells in their floral section. They're small enough to put in your pocket for travel, made of thick glass (I HAVE dropped them a couple times) and have a latching lid. When the lid is latched, they DON'T LEAK if you tip them over.

[PearlJamk]

There's one item i often keep close, as a prop maker (and ex-mini painter since i stopped playing years ago) its a hair dryer. It might seem overkill but some times it saves a lot of time to just quickly wiff over a model to quickly seal the color in. Especially useful when you finally got *that* perfect shade of color and you dont want it to dry out too fast in the cases you dont use a wet pallet but you need to use it up on a large model.

[justinrisen]

Been building and painting miniatures for roughly 5 years now and all this time I didn't realize how much I really needed flexible sanding sticks until about 2 weeks ago. Picked em up at Hobby Lobby and my God they are absolutely a must. Cleanup without them both takes longer and never comes out as well as with them. Godsend for making joins disappear which is the primary reason I use them and they can be used wet as well to get that seam glassy flush. Great recommendations here mate.

[HotelCharliHill]

For my kit box i use a fishing tackle box. When you open it there’s also two tiers of holding areas. Paint fits in the bottom. It’s amazing

You can also make your own model totes pretty easily

[Steggington_Rex]

Everything I fall out of a hobby streak I come listen to Ninjon and his enthusiasm for this hobby gets me right back into the mood for slaying grey!!!

[Tighron]

my painting handle is just old 0.5 liter or 1 pint soda bottles and some poster tac, works pretty well so far. its kind of interesting seeing what kind of cheaper alternatives we can get away with.

[Nommicus]

As a 48 year old mini painter I use or know a lot of what your saying but the museum putty and airbrush info on the bad things video you did among other things was good.

As for adding I have always used the old clay style cat litter for bigger rocks on bases, we had cats in the 80s and as a young painter with no income to speak of I filled a pot with it and last refilled it 5 years ago lol.
When you've attached the base layer of cooked soil and tea leaves a couple of these rocks glued in place literally and figuratively ROCK 😅.

Also if you don't want to get a holder/handle simple wine corks, or if you want posh ones Champagne/Prosecco ones.
You really only need one or two.
Again had not heard of museum putty and huge thanks for that!!!
❤❤

[sarawhite]

Another idea- if you like to share pics of your minis with friends or on social media, you may want to get a ring light. I got my boyfriend one from Amazon for about $10 for a 6" one with a tripod & a bunch of settings. So far he likes it for taking pics of his painted minis in progress & when he's done. 🙂

[mattperry]

@Ninjon I've watched this video twice, 1 when it came out and today, and its a big help. Started this hobby at the start of the year and next year I want to get into airbrushing. The challenge for me is researching what is needed. There are to many videos on what air brush to get but not the set up and tools you need. I see people using box with a filter or a mask or nothing at all. You stated in this video that you often air brush at you desk and you put down paper. I would like to see a video on this subject, what is needed for airbrushing and how to set up the space.

Thanks for all the videos. As always, they are a huge help. And lets find a little time in the day to slay the gray.

[KabinMiniatures]

I still like spray can primers. Even though they can be fickle, when you use them under the right circumstances, I feel they provide a very strong base to work from and help protect the minis in conjunction with the varnish at the end.

[hoover]

I think a high quality hobby knife blade is super important, such as the OLFA KB blades, which is the same size as your standard blade or my personal favorite the 5B. The 5B is for the OLFA AK-1 & AK-5 knife handles. the 5B blade is 45' opposed to 30'. while it is a tab bit sorter, I find the blade is more stouter and more durable for scraping. OLFA in general for cutting is what I preach. another must have tool for be is a flat extra-fine cut jeweler's file. unlike the sanding sticks & pads, the file will last nearly forever, however you need to be careful because it's easy to remove more material than you want if you're not steady with your strokes. not a must have, but super helper are small clamps, like the tiny Irwin One-Handed Micro Bar Clamp, rubber bands, alligator clips as well as hemostats. alligator clips with a bamboo skewer attached to it and hemostats are great for holding small pieces when priming air brushing. another one that's not needed, but I love is florist wire. I use it for pinning my model since it's a little less rigid than paper clips making it easier to work with.

keep up the great work Jon

[ZombieApocalypse]

Great video! I was just at a convention (for work, not fun stuff) with my frontier travel painting kit at my hotel room so I had something to do in the evening. Was great!

The only thing I'd add is if you have cats... somewhere to store your brushes. My cat to chew on brushes. So having a ventilated box with a lid for my brushes to dry safely in is essential.

[refreshdaemon]

For middle-aged and older painters like me who are becoming far-sighted, also probably mandatory is some kind of magnification so you can actually see the details on the mini you're trying to paint, whether you use one that's on your head or one built into your swinging arm lamp. I have both and mainly use the lamp magnifier at my main desk and the headlamp/magnifier when working from anywhere else.

[bored_pyro]

For me, another simple and "must have" is some way of mixing your paints well. I can't afford a vortex but a bag of stainless steel ball bearings or a pack of slingshot ammo from your local hunting store in each pot has vastly improved the quality of my painting. Especially for things like washes that SEEM well mixed because they are so thin, but actually aren't.

[coloradotrekker]

For transporting paints I use a foam lined, zippered case designed to hold alcohol inks. It fits most dropper bottle style paints (which works for me since I don't care for GWs pots). While it is more expensive than just using a tub, it is still reasonably priced and it holds each bottle securely with no chance of spillage.