Artis Opus Painting Handle

IN STOCK

Artis Opus is proud to present our new Painting Handle!

With so many handles already in existence, we've taken our time to try and release what we think is the perfect painting handle solution for you to enjoy the hobby!

Whilst these handles providing the perfect beautiful plinth to place down and sit back to survey your progress, we didn't expect that they would be so motivating to pick back up and start painting again!

Our initial release will have a range of three handles - Small (Hen), Medium (Duck) and Large (Goose). Fun fact! These handles share the same dimensions of the actual average bird eggs! Borrowing these wonderful dimensions from nature resulted in an unmatched level of ergonomics; these really feel at home in your hand! To cater for differing levels of accessibility and hand sizes, these three sizes offer control for what you think would fit your hand the best. 

Whats included in the package?

- 1x Painting Handle Egg (in your chosen size)
- 1x Regular cork 
- 1x Magnetised cork
- 1x metal disc prefitted with double sided tape, that fits a 28mm base perfectly,

What about extras?

In testing, we've found that painters have numerous requirements for how they would best like to paint. Moving between models quickly? Perhaps multiple handles suit you best... Batch painting 20x minis? I like to use one handle with the magnet cork, and fix metal plates to the 20 minis to quickly swap between them... so we're also releasing some accessories to add to your handle which are as follows:

- 5x Regular corks, available in S, M & L
- 5x Magnetised corks, available in S, M & L
- 10x Metal discs (prefitted with double sided tape)

Curious to know about the product development? Here's the story...

What if miniature holders were designed for holding..?

When we started on the journey of making our model holders two years ago we felt that this was the only question we needed to answer, having not found something to our liking out there we disregarded the options available on the market.

We bought a lathe, Byron swiftly broke a pillar drill in record time (drill press, American brothers <3), and we started making prototypes out of stacked high-grade birch ply (something which we know and love).

Two options were swiftly ruled out: ‘screwdriver’ handles (minis aren’t screwdrivers), and ‘shot glass’ shaped things (minis don’t ‘spill’, and being able to moving them about is very important for getting the right angle).

We definitely didn’t want something precarious, especially once a mini is added to the top it’s easy for something to become top-heavy.

Finally, and of great importance we felt that anyone with big hands has been largely overlooked.

What did this leave?

What’s nice to hold, comes in different sizes, and feels solid? Pebbles! There was no disagreement on how a nice pebble (of whatever size matched) felt in the hand, we needed something symmetrical though, and easy to hold, it was at this point the ‘what about an Egg’ jokes began.

Little did we know we’d almost arrived at our final design… We just had to work out how to make this from wood, whilst conveniently holding a mini/part.

Attaching your miniature?

We didn’t feel there was too much need to re-invent the wheel here, many of you will paint your minis on corks, magnetized, pinned, or tack’d. Asides from the corks being a bit blocky at the bottom them making up the material the mini attached to was unanimously agreed to be a good idea. We wanted to work out some efficient methods for the batch-painters out there, and whenever possible we wanted changing/swapping to be a 1-1.5hand procedure (we don’t like putting our brushes down).

Corks kept on getting stuck though (it’s what they’re designed to do) 😅😅😅

It was at this point after some discussion Byron started exploding current and previous prototypes, attempting to hollow them out, and we had to make the difficult decision to leave our beloved plywood behind… Time to build casting facilities, eek.

Casting in house?!

With no little-effort casting was learned, and experimenting begun. With a lot of tweaking and consideration the Eggs as we now know them rapidly took form, and took on a life of their own. With this added flexibility we played with finish (including literally copying eggshell), but swiftly realized that you must be able to turn your holder easily, just like your brush. Satin-gloss was settled upon, hollow (slightly wider/narrower options depending on which way ‘up’ it was used), and we only had one task remaining.

What about the Army Painters out there?

Confident that we’d made a fantastic option for ‘fancy’ painting, and a shape (size-depending) that would work for everyone we looked to science for a bit of help. Army painting requires a lot of swapping and switching, and while we may end up with 5 of our favourite Egg size on our desk eventually we needed to work out a set-up for those of you with infantry blocks to batch-paint.

Enter-magnets 🧲🧲🥰

Cork inserts with magnets are available! Corks can be popped out from below with a thumb (without even needing to drop your brush!), and figures easily swapped over, a ferrous disc come with each holder, and is available separately. Backed with ultra-sticky high-grade double-sided tape the disks fit perfectly under/inside 28mm GW bases, a strong, but not too-strong bond holds it there perfectly. Your mini can be spun on the magnet, without it coming off.

If your miniatures are already magnetized you can put the disc on the cork, and use that to hold your minis. You can also put a magnet-cork in the bottom of your holder, and use that to keep your minis attached to any metal tray/ruler/surface on your desk to avoid things falling over!

We hope you'll enjoy using your new handle for many years to come!

Here are some specifications:

Small (Hen)

Handle - 47mm (tall) x 39mm (widest point)
Cork - 23.5mm (tall) x 19mm (widest point)
Weight - 46g (w/cork), 42g (bare)

Medium (Duck)

Handle - 57mm (tall) x 46mm (widest point)
Cork - 32mm (tall) x 25.5mm (widest point)
Weight - 64g (w/cork), 60g (bare)

Large (Goose)

Handle - 65mm (tall) x 54mm (widest point)
Cork - 32mm (tall) x 30mm (widest point)
Weight - 96g (w/cork), 88g (bare)