Hobby Management part 2- Smaugs Hoard

So, what about the stuff you don't or can't get rid of? What about those models that scream "BUT BOSS, THERE MIGHT BE A NEW EDITION IN FIVE YEARS, USE ME!!!! USE ME!!!!!"

The horror, the horror Well it's all about the storage isn't it? I always think there are a few watershed moments in a life as a hobbyist, one of these is storing your figures correctly. It stops chipping as often, you don't need a tube of superglue everywhere you go for those inevitable breakages (after all most figures are plastic now) and you can store more stuff if you store efficiently. NUMBER ONE- Hobby cases,  look after your stuff, protect your figures, respect your work. Most of us put a fair amount of time into what we do. In fact I was once part of a brief look at how long we spent painting vs gaming in a group of GW staff (I was young and needed the money...). Turns out that regardless of whether someone saw themselves as a painter or a gamer, everyone spent more time painting, other than one guy, who realistically did neither! You need a good case (or cases), there are many brands; GW, KR, Figures in Comfort... I could go on. I go for KR, they're cheap, easily accessible to me and I can store them easily, but more on that in a bit. I tend to try and use 1-2 cases per army, this is fine for infantry and tanks, scales have increased in size over time and some oversized models are harder to store, boxes and your own custom packing seem to be the way forward to me, you can never plan for universally shaped larger models.

You can always go with the odd makeup case- JB is a fan


NUMBER TWO- Display cabinets show off your best work, store those awkwardly shaped figures, guilt trip yourself into painting undercoated models. Display cases are good, I used mine to show stuff off, from epic single models like Primarchs, to whole armies. Ikea was my choice for this, I paid about £150 per cabinet. They also do CD racks with glass shelves which you can mount on the wall. Obviously other retailers are available, but I like my cabinets.

NUMBER THREE- I have loads of cases! What do I do with them? Eventually you get here..."What are all there cases?" "Why are they here on the floor?" "Why has the cat got a lasgun coming out of its mouth?" I've heard the lot, again plan ahead, have a safe space, somewhere a case fits well, ideally a few fit well, maybe a level of organisation, maybe....Ikea again. So, turns out Ikea do some low level units which store exactly 2 KR cases (or GW) on a shelf. So I have two of these, all full of cases, with all the cases labelled for organisation and to satisfy any level of OCD I'm feeling that day. Again any retailer is find, but be thorough in your choice here, you may need a fair amount of storage over the years and it will need to be durable.

Mine looks like this but it's on it's side