Do you have a trick or tool to paint your models better?

I have been using lighted magnifiers for years to paint and they have certainly helped dramatically. The number one secret to better miniature painting...thin your paints.

I am 60 now, and I just got back into painting minis this April, after more than 30 years away from the hobby! My eyesight is not what it was in my 20s and 30s, so I have been looking for lighted magnification options. Thank you for this video!

Thank you so much for your complete honesty at the end. I also have that same magnifying stand and it works a heck of a lot better for me than the wearable one.

You can also check your work by taking a picture with your smart phone camera. Since you can zoom it it gives a pretty good idea of where things are off, even if you cant see it in person. Additionally if you're at all concerned about how things look in pictures, no better way to check than with the camera you're probably using. I'll often take a pic of my WIP mini, sporadically look at it through out the next day, and circle parts of it i think need more work for my next hobby session.

My Wife wanted to get an "ear" camera and I found one on Woot for $15, and I came to the same conclusion that it's kind of fun for close up looking at stuff. I also have the magnification light, which is actually my favorite light source because I can change the warmth of the light. My favorite thing for small details is still a 1.5 magnification pair of reading glasses. Really enjoyed the video, your skills give me hope that I can continue to improve past the "table ready" plateau i feel i'm on right now.

Excellent work, Lyla, and I really appreciate your truthfulness as well as your willingness to 'give it a go'. You gave the camera every chance, and thought of ways to use it, and I like your candour. I have a similar lamp to the one you showed at the end that is marketed as a lamp and magnifying glass for jewellery making and the light is really quite powerful. I don't use it often, but it does make a difference on detail. Thanks!

Maybe attach it to the painting handle, so it always focuses on the mini and you can manouver the brush :)

I have owned a lamp magnifier before and loved it, now I use the headlamp with magnifying glasses and like those alot too because I can switch magnification strengths for diff minis or models etc

Great review. It's what I expected but it was nice to see that confirmed. I once experimented with using a microscope cam that had similar problems. I really WANT it to work but it just doesn't. You really hit the nail on the head when you said that a lot of painting it about feel. And I don't think I really got that until I tried the cam. FYI - A head-mounted magnifier (like an Opti-Visor) is WAY better than a table-mounted magnifier. I picked one up in 2006 and I've been using it every time I paint ever since.

Hah - I love that this turned into a "I made a video about one product but.... I found something better". Good honesty in the painting adventures!

I love that you like the magnifying light. I use one myself for fine details and it helps amazingly ❤

I don't do miniature painting, but I DO build electronic kits with those eensy weensy components they make nowadays. I have the reading glasses, the circular lamp with the magnifier, and a bore cam. But what I wind up using a lot more is an LCD microscope. The work goes on a metal platform, and the camera is in a microscope-like arrangement you adjust with a couple of knobs for gross and fine adjustment. The lights on mine blew out, but an LED light I can aim works just as well. The depth of field isn't huge, but when the component is the size of a grain of rice, it doesn't have to move around much. I just have to get the part on the little metal pads on the circuit board it's supposed to go on, then, while holding it delicately in place, put a tiny drop of molten solder on one of the pads, sticking the component to the board. Then I don't have to hold it in place and can solder down the other leads. The depth of field is about a centimeter, but the components are millimeters long, so that's small enough to stay mostly in focus while I work. If I was to work on miniatures, which isn't my thing, I'd be tempted to use something like Museum Wax to hold the miniature on the platform at the best angle for painting, and focus the microscope camera on the area I want to work on. I don't know if you've tried this, but these microscope cameras are quite inexpensive now, and the screens are large enough and have enough resolution to truly be useful. The problem with the brush cam is that it's too honking big. It looked at first like you were airbrushing the miniature, until I watched enough to find out it was a camera. It looks like the maker just bought a more generic Wi-Fi camera in a stick product, this one originally intended for ear wax removal, and rebranded it. So it isn't REALLY designed for close work like painting, or even electronics. It's designed to help you see hunks of earwax so you can scoop them out. You don't need great depth of field or camera resolution or picture quality to do that, but painting DOES require those things. If the microscope idea doesn't sound useful, we have used flexible bore scope cameras to look inside things through tiny holes. It's a snakelike thing of varying lengths, depending on how far inside something you need to see stuff, has a light so what you're looking at is illuminated, and it interfaces with a smartphone, tablet, or even desktop/laptop computer through Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. One of our bore scope cameras is USB instead of wireless. The other has a Wi-Fi module at the back end. The nice thing about the bore cam is that the part you aren't pushing through a little hole can be coiled up, and even formed into a sort of stand so you don't have to hold the camera after it's in position. Bore scopes were originally made to help see the inside surface of a gun's barrel. It's very difficult to examine the metal, with the grooves that make the bullet spin, when you can't shine a light into it easily, and can't focus on a tiny part of the metal a foot down a quarter-inch hole in a metal cylinder. Bore scopes let you slide the illuminated camera down the barrel from the muzzle, or up the barrel from the breech, so you can see if the interior surface has been damaged or fouled by some foreign substance. But bore scopes have a lot of other uses, including snaking the camera into the control panel of a Cessna to look at the connections on the back of the autopilot, or to slip into a radio to look at the solder joints of components you can't normally see without taking the whole thing apart. They're not terribly expensive, and come in a bunch of lengths. You might be able to mount one on something like a mike stand, so you can adjust its position minutely, then do the fussy, fiddly adjustments by bending the camera around. I'm more the "learning to do watercolors" and "pen & ink drawings" and "pencil sketches" stage of artistry at the moment, though I did make a webcomic for several years using 3d modeling and compositing in the drawing software called the GIMP. (Starving artist. Can't afford Photoshop, especially with the subscription model Adobe now uses. Now I use Corel Painter, Paint Shop Pro, and Rebelle.)

Absolutely love the candid honesty with the lam0❤❤❤ mad respect

So totally appreciate the magnifying glass light cam. As a bit "older" painter (44) with terrible eyesight (corrected via ICL & Lasik, but still have to wear readers for everyday life), I use one for all my painting. It actually looks almost identical to the one you got. :)

I saw that in the Micro Mark catalog and had my doubts. Thannks for the confirmation, I'll stick to my Optivisor.

I recently purchased a pair of magnification glasses with a built in led light and it has aided my painting no end. The light solves having a lamp and the magnification helps with faces

It is an interesting idea, I appreciate your take on it!

I use my reading glasses combined with a Carson CP-60 Magnivisor; the great thing about the Magnivisor is that it has a detachable magnetized LED light - no need for elaborate lighting to get the job done and has a variety of lenses which can be changed on the fly.

I realllly love the change of tone when you revealed the lighted magnifying glass that (finally) worked for you. The camera thing did look like a gimmick and I would not consider it...... except as you developed your concept and used it as double-check, that was brilliant! After all, if the mini looked good under THAT brutal level of magnification, it should look incredible at normal viewing range. As always thanks for an awesome and truly authentic vid! My trick to painting models better: watch the pros on the university of youtube!!!

Reading glasses are my go-to. I tried the light with the magnifier, and I experienced the same thing, a very shallow depth of field that had me moving my eyes and the mini.

That mini is absolutely stunning. Well done

Oddly enough, I just picked up a cheap digital microscope 2 days ago to essentially do the same thing. It was cheaper, higher res and has a built in "ring light" around the camera to light the model well. It's not something I plan to regularly use to paint "live" but I agree it's great to use to check the model. The stand makes keeping it over the miniature easy and I can even mount the miniature to the base of the stand, so the only thing moving is me. That helps keep focus sharp and consistent. Normally for "live" painting I use the head mounted magnifier. I'm 50 and my close up vision is shot so I need all the help I can get.

I love the ending of the video! Thx ❤

This was really interesting! Loved the plot twist at the end too! :D

Ya gonna pass on this for my current Lighted mag, Huge thanks for you taking the hit for me as you say in your title ✌️😉

I have one of the headlamp magnifiers and it makes a huge difference. You can swap (or double up) the magnifiers so you have a little more selection in depth of field. They also have a little bit of room to slide so you can get the focus just right. Yes, I'm hit them with my brush a time or two but not often enough for it to be fail. The headlight is actually pretty good and comes off. The one thing I need to do is swap in a high capacity battery so it can sustain over a few hours of painting. It does work when plugged in but I don't love have to manager a USB cable on top of everything else.

Great for checking your nozzles and needles on the airbrush 👍🇬🇧

Thank you for your input and trying this thing out

yeah ur so right about feel. a lot of the time with tiny detail u cant even see it that well, but u feel ur way around and its surprising how well it works. looking into that camera takes away all conection to what ur doing. also seeing things that zoomed in makes any paint job look like a disaster zone lol.

I use the same model of "literal magnifying glasses" you were wearing in this video. I love them, their depth of field happens to land at a natural distance for me, and 350% magnification is a live saver! Waiting to see what you say on the brush cam product as I am just starting the video, but concerns I initially had are depth perception and weight/balance issues...we shall see what you say in 10 minutes.

I've got a very similar lamp. They're really useful. The lights on them tend to be a bit inconsistent, but for me, it's "good enough."

I use magnifiers and I even bought prescription glasses with a focal length specific for painting miniatures. If you have vision problems they are great. They do have the one, undeniable flaw - the brush gets bigger alongside the miniature.

I also have a magnifying glass lamp as well and love using them.

My wife had a machine to light and magnify print. She had LOW VISION and eventually lost her sight. She got to where she could still see color but not any longer clear vision. I still have the machine but, I haven't tried using it. the machine could be adjusted, the platen that she would rest a book or papers on, moved left and right, forwards and back. the machine was very expensive so if you were to get one, buy a used one. I thought I would mention it anyway, also of that mini camera could be mounted on a headband or something like that, it just might work! I tried painting minis but, I have Glaucoma and I am almost blind in My left eye and I gave up but I still watch videos of many mini painters anyway because it intrigues me.!

Oh thanks for posting this video! This thing has been sitting in my amazon list for a while now.

My thoughts (I’m no vlogger, but do photograph on a higher level) for you and others that have made an video setup, use a good camera zoom or even a good lens on a mirrorless camera and use the video input directly on your pc screen or laptop, gives you a verry good magnification and big enough display to look at. It’s something like a Wacom tablet with a pen and watch on the pc screen what you’re drawing (also in detail)

Attach the cam to the upside down arm on your model pedestal pointing directly at the face. The cam will be steady to the model.

Years ago I found a stereoscopic dissecting microscope at a thrift store and picked it up for about $8, low powered magnification, but with experience, I got a good feel for depth. If you can find one cheap, definitely give it a try.

Exactly! I was going to say, I just use a magnifying glass for soldering and it works wonders. BUT the thing one must understand is that there is a relationship between how far or close your eyes are to the magnifying glass and also how far or close the thing you want to see is. Meaning if one is bumping in to the glass you need to adjust both, the focus work by modifying both. You need to play with this to understand how the focus work so you avoid you or your model being to close to the magnifying glass.

I applaud your integrity, ma’am. As a genuine beginner I’ve found your videos to be VERY helpful. I’ll have to look at grabbing that magnifying light in the future.

Very enjoyable piece Bob England

I have found its often the simpler devices that work best. Watching this channel is one of them. :)

I've used my binocular microscope for this kinda thing and the results were pretty good. You have depth perspective which is critical for these little details. . My scope I use is the Leica A7 which is overkill but I have it for my hand engraving. Here's a link to an Ogrin head I did. was not only able to get the puples this way but even the eye color. Gave him baby blues lol Great vid as always!

I use a magnifying visor for detailed work, myself. I can't work with those table stand magnifiers because I can't sense the position of my brush accurately with them. You are very right about part of painting being feel.

I use the Carson light too... it can even be used with batteries! Yes, the lighting isn't great but the magnification is fantastic.

Utilised the following years ago and still do for stuff like this: DSLR, Good Makro/video lens with decent zoom, iPad.

In the UK we are lucky that we have a chain optician that will do a deal if you have contact lenses from them (Specsavers), you get a free pair of spectacles, so I asked for a 3x magnification set to go with my standard reading glasses. I paint 12mm figures, so on top of that I wear a 8x magnification headband type set, this gives me a total of 11x magnification. I use a 4000k LED desk lamp as the light source. Not only that, but I found this improved my painting 10 fold, (yes I was that bad!)

I really love the lighted magnifiers...

i had a job years ago making stainless steel medical devices and one of the things we had to do was remove the burs from the casting process. since the parts were really small we did it using a microscope and a monitor. so it worked sort of like this does. I found it really hard to do looking through the monitor and i imagine youll run into the same issue here. honestly if you want to do this you can probably just use your phones camera and mount it in front of you, but still i think the best thing is either naked eye or as you had used, reading glasses from the pharmacy. they are cheap, and you can get x4 magnification which is really about all you need

Hi I was in the military and had to learn how to mini and micro solder circuit boards under a microscope and it is the same thing as this cam you have to really want to learn how to do it but it can be very rewarding once you practice enough with it... but dont get me wrong it will take a lot of patience and practice

Laughed so hard at the reflection observation. ❤❤

From time to time I use an old magnifing glass I found, didn't even know I had it still and just taped it to my painting lamp. Luckly the lamp is pretty long so I can either paint on the side without the glass or move a little and use the glass. Its not perfect but for me it works. Found out that I compansate the lack of depth perception with a little trick. There is a sweet spot where the tip of the brush or the model is sharp. Closer or further away and its blurry. So I hold the model at the sweet spot and slowly move the brush closer. When it gets sharper I know it gets closer. When model and brush are sharp, I hit it.

Love my light magnifying glass, can't paint without it anymore

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

I'm rather fortunate since my eyes are good enough that I can see all the details without issue. The big problems are: how steady my hands are, and whether or not my dilution is good enough that the paint flows how I want when the bristles touch down. Smacking myself with my tools or jabbing myself in the face with the brush handle is way too relatable

I appreciate your review as I had been thinking about investing in the micro mark camera. I have been using a positionable magnifying lamp successfully for decades, so I can understand the challenge of watching a screen vice the figure I am painting. I have found that a brush with a good point is the key to good looking models. I have yet to buy a high or low quality brush that did not hook on the end over time so spend your money wisely.

@LylaMev I achieve the same thing with a clearer picture than the mini cam using my Sony camera coupled with a program called Monitor+. Dial in your focus manually on your overhead camera, hook up the camera to your computer or tablet with an OTG cable, and it becomes a recordable live view video of the model you're working on. I use this to simultaneously check my work while filming on the camera in 4K. This app works with almost all Sony Cameras and many other DSLR cams. Seeing what you are working on closely and clearly really does give you a leg up when doing display or competition level miniature work. A pretty cool little app that has improved my work flow somewhat.

I can't paint faces to save my life, which I'm fairly sure has skewed the minis I've bought - helmets all the way. As we speak I am stripping the paint from Mephiston's face, as it looked so derpy I can barely describe it. But I'll give it another go, as you have to make yourself improve. Great channel - love the videos. Onwards and upwards.

This could be quite helpful for people such as myself who have very poor depth perception, the few times I've attempted miniature painting over at friends places in my life so far have been incredibly frustrating since no matter how slow I go I'm always off by at least 4 millimeters, which might as well be the other side of a miniature, so not only being extremely up close to the miniature but more importantly basically having a "brush pov" could really help with actually placing the paint where I want it to go. Now the whole hobby is way too expensive for me but if I had the money this might legit be something worth trying since miniature painting looks super fun in theory.

I wonder if modifying a paint handle that holds the mini to hold the camera also would be better, focus it on the face, and use it in one hand and the brush in the other 🤔🤷‍♂️🥰 basically is just an endoscope I think, u can get ones on flexible shafts for looking in tight spaces (mechanics use them to lookin engine bays etc)

Great video, with old eyes that can't focus close anymore I'm forever looking for the perfect solution to this. Maybe one day I'll find it

I would wager that a lot of your "feel" for things is actually from binocular vision. That would be why a simple magnifier works so well - both eyes can focus through it and give you the 3d spacial information that the cameras lack (also the fact that your eye focusing gives your brain depth information can help) Another option might be looking at tools used for soldering. Large screen and binocular microscopes abound, and some are even at hobbiest pricing)

I got noticeably slower painting when I started using a magnifier. I think it was probably because I could see and pick out more details. Things I would say "good enough" and move on I could see imperfections.

I've had great luck with an "optivisor" it provides magnification but still preserves depth perception.

I use a magnification lamp. I've found that hitting your face off it is a feature. I literally place my nose on the rim to ensure I have a consistent depth of field.

Speed Paint 2.0 is awesome if you already know how to paint and you have 170 miniatures from the MOTU Kickstarter to paint. Also the harbor freight magnifiers are awesome.

I use a jeweller's eyeglass when painting fine detail on my minis. I've used one for many years at work and so am used to working with only one eye. The fact that it is so close to my face means I don't have the problem with hitting it with my brush and it leaves me with one hand for the model and one for the brush.

I'm guilty of pulling my light really close to my head, forgetting it's there, and then headbutting it.

Love the last part of this video! Satisfying. “I found one… that I like… that works.”

Had thought about trying out reading glasses. Glad to see it helps. Will gab some. Thanks for the vid.

In 1998 I had thousands of 15mm figures for sale, exhibited at the Rio Sul mall in Rio (Brazil). Even though my eyesight is now very impaired by painting miniatures, I still produce miniatures and I even paint them. There is a kind of therapy in the concentration and the fact that you have to hold your breath in order to have full control of your hand movement. Unfortunately I don't find painting miniatures a rewarding art and all I hope is that the machines do that work as soon as possible. . For my part, I would just like to program the colors and adjust the results so that this works for many, many figures.

If I need to see super tiny details or eyes on an old 40k mini, I turn to my trusty Opti-Visor and sometimes I've used my reading glasses with the Opti-Visor and gotten very good results, whatever works for you though.

I use reading glasses too, either 2.5, 2.0 & 1.0 plus my normal glasses, all from the local chemist. This gives me enough magnification for detailing small areas.

I figure that if your primary job for this device would be to check your work after it's painted to see if it's good, you could probably do the same with just your phone camera. At least I know that when I've painted a mini to the point where I go "Eh, good enough" and take a picture of it to send to the friends I play with, that picture always shows flaws in the painting that are hard to see with the naked eye. And that's without zooming in very much.

Hahaha awesome conclusion. Love it. Getting old unfortunately means I now have to wear my magnifying glasses all the time while paining. Problem is I've yet to find a good professional set that lasts. In the last 5 years I've gone through 3 sets due to poor plastic frames cracking. While I dont think the brush-cam is right for me it would be great to hear of any glasses solutions out there that are not cumbersome due to a ineffective light and will survive frequent use.

I used phone with macro camera lens attached to it before having phone with macro camera, and both did simillar work you mention on end but i think better. And for sure cheaper if you already have decent smartphone.

thx. very cool video.

I use a lighted magnifier and if the brush handle hits it I just clip 1 or 2 inches off the back tip.

Looking at how you experimented, i would have put the model in some form of vice so that it isn't moving. Then attached the camera to the brush or also have it on a clamp that can be positioned around the model. The less things that are moving the easier it would be to be accurate. Probably going over board but I'd also be interesting is what it would be like if that camera was feeding into a VR headset.

I use the "sexy" gogs most of the time for close up work, the magnifying glass for quick work and just regular glass for slapping it on. That ear cam feels like a repurposed thing based on "seems like it would work like you want?". In other words, not a scam but an honest try of repurposing. Which is what one does a lot of the time 😀 Nice vid 😊

I think a 3D printed painting handle with a helping hand that incorporates a USB endoscope is probably a better idea than whatever this is, just to see what exactly is going on and maybe record the brushstrokes. It is sometimes used in 3D printing to record the nozzle, it helps troubleshoot certain problems.

As someone with "bad" eyes painting has always been a "horrible" experience. Started using a magnifier with light and then an optivisor which in combination with speedpaints/contrast has greatly helped both enjoying painting and actually making the models look half decent. Next is making a dedicated hobby space with good lights etc..

This is very interesting, I'm a big fan of my magnifying glasses, they were cheap and work well. I would like some lenses that have an even higher magnification though lol.

No comment on the brush cam but Micro Mark is a cornucopia of cool stuff for our hobby.

There are plenty of microscopes that could really be used in miniature painting. One particular field is micro electronics repair where there are cameras/microscopes that can provide a stereo magnification and/or magnification without obstructing your work. Cameras are of course cheaper but they aren't particularly cheap for a hobbiest unless you're making a living off of painting miniatures.

It looks like a lot of faff to achieve something which can be achieved by far less cost. I use a lighted magnifying headset (from amazon for like £15 or something) and has helped dramatically in viewing the finer detail. As you put it, the "feel" of your brush and how the paint applies is, we'll everything we do as mini painters. Coupling this with experience, practice and colour theory (my new favourite thing), I find eyes can be painted suitable well - point, I'm a "suitable" painter and nothing special! Additional note, your model looks sick! Awesome work! 👌

Good review

I used a lighted magnifier like you show her for awhile. Until I discovered jewelers wearable magnifying lenses which I've found far better. I'd say they're the single best item to drastically improve painting and the painting experience. Multiple zoom lenses, look under them when you don't need them, look through them when you do, as convenient as normal glasses to take them off and on. Plus they only cost about $30 for a decent pair on Amazon. I've never looked back

I have cone distrophy and i have a screen that you hold up like a magnifying glass but its digital like a mirrorless camera, if they made a flatter bigger version that is like her lamp so you see the digital screen holding figure behind would be great since i can adjust focus, zoom, lighting its like the screen on back of mirrorless digital camera with same adjustments (Sorry guys dont know if ive explained this well)

A friend suggested something similar to this and now that I've seen it could I suggest moulding biue stuff/polymorph into a weighted grip for the brushes

You might want to also take a look at some of the equipment used by people repairing high end cellphones, tablets and laptops. They have to work with extremely small parts and get their tools around with issue.

Great video! Appreciate the honesty! What changed with the depth of field situation? I used the magnifying glasses at one point and found the same problem incredibly frustrating, and I assume it'd be the same for the magnifying stand.

I got "lucky" with being nearsighted, it has the added benefit of having extremely good near vision but it also means I cannot see things that well if they are a few foot away

For real precision, if you want to do eyes right, make a 2 hair brush. Take a brush you no longer love, Take fine scissors, take it down to about six hairs and test it. You may have to adjust the paint thickness to get it right. Keep taking down hairs till you love it. If you really love it, stop and get another old brush to go further with till you get down to two hairs. It takes two hairs to hold paint between them. Be sure to brace you hand and ideally have a brace for your brush as you leverage in the angle to put the dot right in the right place on the eyes. If you have precision, you can make multiple touches, after each drys and you may be surprised how great it ends up looking. This is also good for hair touches, eyebrows and even lashes or at least the effect of eyelashes.

I have the problem of it not hooking up to my phone. And thank you for the information.

My magnigying light was a total game changer. I rarely bump my brush into it.

One possible alternative worth looking at ... microscope cameras. I've seen a few that hook up to your pc by usb. I suspect that they run into the same point of view and lack of depth perception issues that the brush cam has, so they're probably best when you want to look for flaws instead of live painting.

Honestly, just from the thunbnail alone I could tell this would absolutely wreck my brush control just by screwing the balance. The only way one of these could work is by essentially being a huge brush holder that wraps around the handle, with a small screen attached to your glasses as almost a picture-in-picture thing

haven't quite gotten to the end here. I wonder if you could attach it to an airbrush to get a better idea of where that is pointing, and how much paint is going on for detail work.