Painting Setup Epiphany

I have a lot of miniatures to paint. I have been buying and receiving miniatures since about 1980. You know what you need to paint miniatures? Paint. I have a lot of paint. I have been buying paint almost as long as I have been buying miniatures. I have accepted paints as a form of barter for commissions. I have also inherited at least two paint collections from people that have stopped painting miniatures.

I have collected different brands, which, in turn, means that sometimes I have near duplicates from different brands.

More recently, I have been in a year long move. I put my paints in storage in June 2025. I moved to KY and needed to paint for sanity. So I bought a whole new set of paints. I discovered Army Painter since that was the main line available at The Rusty Scabbard. It comes with a convenient range of shades for a given "color type." E.g., there are six "browns" that range between a palish brown and a deep dark brown and six "ruddy browns" and so on. This range allows (at least mentally) for easier shading and highlighting. You pick a midrange color as the base and highlight with the lighter tones and shade with the darker tones. So, I ended up buying a good number of Army Painter paints to get me through the time when my usual paint collection was in storage.

Now, the move is essentially done, and my paints are all in the same place. Did I mention I have a lot of paints? I have endeavored to arrange them logically and close to my paint space for ease. This has resulted in a two tier system spread in an L around my painting space. More on this later.

You know what else you need to paint? Lots of things, but I searching for LIGHT. In addition to overhead lighting, I have four main lamps directed at my paint space and two additional lamps that add to the light. This creates an impediment to access to paints on the upper tier as not only do I have to stand up, but also I have to snake my arm through/around the lamp arms to get to desired colors.

I appreciate that this is a first world problem, but it does disrupt the flow of painting. So, the epiphany, such as it is: Paints have to be the side of the paint space away from the lamps so that I can just spin my chair, grab the paint I want, and then spin back to paint. Or worst case, stand and grab something but not behind a wall of lamp arms. So, redesigning my paint space is on the horizon.