One big problem I, as well as many other painters have, is paint storage. Most miniature painters I know have more paint then they can ever use and it’s surprising how much room these little 15 to 20ml bottles start to take up and how fast they multiply.
Now we have to store all of these bottles of paint. I’ve have seen (and used) multiple types of solutions through out the years; shelves, drawers, cases, wall mounts and desk top racks, some of them quite large and elaborate, like Models Workshop own Adam Johnson of Big Minis Studios.
For me I don’t have a lot of desk top space to use for paint storage, at least not the amount of paint that I have, and I used to put most of them on the shelf behind but adding the Light-Arch (see the tutorial and review here) made it difficult to reach them so I need a different solution. I kicked the idea around with the other members of Models Workshop and some friends and decided a wall mounted solution would be the best thing to go with.
Since my room has limited floor space I decided to maximize the wall space. Some of the features I was looking for was a low profile to the wall. If it stuck out to much I might as well be using a bookshelf or installed shelves, and that wouldn’t work as it would eat into the room I have. As long as it was deep enough to hold at least one bottle of paint, that’s what I was looking for.
Originally the first idea that jumped into my head was a spice rack, but all of those I found were much to small, I guess they don’t think people have 100+ different spices (I totally do). So I just honestly started blind searching on Google and Amazon to see what popped up and what sections it’s in. I was looking for a 6-shelf metal wall mount rack. What popped up both suprised me and also made me want to smack myself in the forehead as the answer was obvious once I saw it; finger nail polish racks.
I decided on the MyGift 6 Tier fingernail polish rack as this would allow me to put all five colors of a WarColours (see review here) slice plus the transparent and have them all line up nicely. I assumed that this would be a multiple piece shelf that would require some assembly and I was wrong. It came in one large box, fully assembled, and ready to be mounted to the wall.
The rack it self has four attachment points and came with the hardware to mount it to drywall, a wood, and materials of that nature. If you’re putting it on a surface that require the little pegs to be used, like drywall, you will likely need a drill. You will also need a screw driver and pencil, while not required I also recommend a level or a tape measure to ensure you’re putting it on the wall straight.
Tip: There are two easy ways to put this on the wall. The first is you have someone hold it up to the spot that you want to place it, make sure it’s level, and then use the pencil to mark the spots to drill the holes. The second, if you’re by yourself is to figure where one of the top corners is going to be. Figure out the distance from the middle of one hole to the and mark the second. Drill those holes. Hang it lightly and mark the bottom holes.
This is a picture of my set up (available here). As you can see it hold a good amount of paint bottles and the shelves are large enough to double up on the bottles. The four screws are more than enough to hold it to the wall securely. I love this wall rack and actually plan to buy a second one, the upper swirls and hearts can be removed if you want to cut them off, from what I see the structure of the shelf would not be compromised. There are also numerous styles available, both smaller, and larger. You can also find them in acrylic.
As much as I like this shelf, there are a couple downsides. The shelf floors are made of wire and wasn’t always completely flat which led to bottles not sitting flat. It is fixable by simply pressing down on the metal and bending it down a bit. The second is the price. The one I bought is currently $40, which is kinda pricey, though some of the desk top solutions can cost hundreds. Lastly, if you decide to go the route of the acrylic shelves, they can be fragile and possibly not up to the rigors we will place on the shelves.
In closing these are an item I would highly recommend to anyone who doesn’t have a lot of space on their desk or dont like the claustrophobic feeling of having everything around you while you are painting. They are easy to mount, store a ton of paint and don’t use a bunch of floor space. The one I ordered was ready to hang straight out of the box too.
This is definitely an easy:
Highly Recommended
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All items that I talked about in this article are things that I use and highly recommend. None of these items were donated or were we paid to say what we did.