Creative Space: Evolution of a hobbyist’s space

If you enjoy any kind of making, creating or crafts, you probably keep rearranging your space - bit by bit making improvements as your needs change or you try new ideas out. 

Matt Lincoln spends his spare time (when his lovely wife and wee lad permit) painting intricate wargaming miniatures, and has a fantastic set up for his hobby. 

I know he's very organised, and has great plans for developing his painting studio, so join us for a nosey as Matt takes us into his creative space and explains it to us.

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Lise approached me about sharing my creative space, which seemed  a rather exciting thing to do.

I have multiple outlets for embracing my creativity, such as night photography, reading and video gaming. However, my principal hobby is collecting, building, painting and gaming with Warhammer 40,000 table top wargaming  miniatures. 

My creative area has to be just right for me, everything has its particular space and function. My creative practices are not just my hobby, they are in effect a form of therapy to me, even sorting and arranging my hobby area is therapeutic for me. 

When I had my hobby area in the spare room, I started with a couple of Argos computer desks, a fold out plastic and metal chair and a computer desk. The computer is important, partly for research but mostly for entertainment! I find it relaxing to listen to audiobooks or have a blu ray running while I’m painting (tends to be Sci-FI more often than not). 

Over a period of time I got the space set up in a way that really fitted my hobbying aims. But, the private hobby area had to be sacrificed in 2012 when the spare room became my son’s bedroom, so I managed to infest the dining room instead.

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Hobby Area: Spare Room

Hobby Area 2010

Hobby Area 2011

Hobby Area: Dining Room

"...it helps release stress, so comfort is important..."

"...daylight bulbs mean colours can be seen clearly no matter how dark it may be..."

Creature Comforts
I embrace every opportunity to spend multiple hours in my hobby area, as it helps release stress, so comfort is important. My comfort is derived from the obligatory comfy chair, good lighting and my computer.

Long hours sat painting intricate miniatures can result in a lot of back pain if you don’t have a decent chair. The multiple sources of lighting mean that my eyes are not strained, and daylight bulbs mean colours can be seen clearly no matter how dark it may be outside.

Organised to heck
As you can see, I like things to be organised, in fact I’m quite obsessive about it. When being creative I sit at the desk where the lamps are. As I’m right handed, all my paints are to the right of my painting area. To the left I have my computer within easy reach. Really Useful boxes and box racks are well worth looking into for organising your craft space!

Below the desks my drawers are full of tools, modelling materials and other gubbins. On the top of the corner desk are my reference guides and books, which I refer to regularly when painting or exploring a nutty idea I’ve come up with. Underneath them are my compressors and airbrushing materials, then beneath the desk I store my spray booth and extraction kit. Next to them I stack my cases for miniature storage, in a way that takes up the least amount of space. 

To their right my display cabinet sits, partly to inspire me to get on with projects and partly to distract me from what I’m doing. Finally my Japanese Dojo Devil Mask hangs on the wall, because then I always know where the devil is; or at least that’s the premise behind the mask. 

Future Plans
In the future, once we’ve moved home, if we’ve extended this house or I’ve bought a garden shed big enough, I plan to have a dedicated “Man Cave” again with a set up similar to the 2011 hobby area. My ideal set up would be right next to a window so that I would be able to have my airbrushes and spray booth set up all the time, and giving me natural light to paint with during the day. I think it would look something like this (click on the image for a larger version):

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Thanks Matt! I love how someone's space can mean so much more than just where they work on their hobby - it's something to enjoy in it's own right as a project and reflection of a person's mind (nice and neat in this case!) Matt has a blog where you can see more of his painting and hobby work, here.

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If you would like to share your creative space, and give us your hints and tips for being organised, or efficient, or just happy, then get in touch and we can see if your space is suitable for sharing!

Share your space