Miniature Painting Group

Group painting is the best way to kickstart your hobby progress. Find like-minded individuals easily, no matter where you’re from!

Unlike other meetings, they are usually not held in a church basement.  You don’t always need to leave your house, either.

Painting with people is one of the best way if you’re looking to finish more models, or have more time to hobby.  Having a painting group means you’re less likely to blow it off or do something else in times you allocate to hobby.

Game Stores

Back when I moved out on my own, I lived in a crappy basement with barely any light.  Lucky for me and my painting addiction, the Local game store close by offered permanent tables for people to paint.

That’s pretty much how I learned to paint, or at least transition to crappy models to barely tabletop.  I’ve also made a bunch of gaming buddies out of strangers.

If you look around, you might find some that already offer this service to their patrons, so just start hanging there.

Make this a semi regular thing and tell people about it (Yeah, I spend 3 hours here every Tuesday while my girlfriend does yoga…  Or let’s meetup after the game Thursday and you can teach me how you…)  and before you know it, you will have the painting group ball rolling.

Work From Home

Fast forward a couple of years, me and my roommate would host these paint night once every other week, where the whole kitchen would be turned in a painting studio for 4-5 people.

This was great to get focussed and get things done.  Me and my roommate alone would probably build and paint 4 armies per month this way.

You can also alternate.  Last week was at Jay’s, this week at my place, next week at Frank’s…  Cool thing is that it’s not always the same people who have to travel and cleanup, but it does require everyone to have some sort of setup, rather than option 2.

Pimp out your place out.  It’s easy to set a side 2-3 dollars per person every session going out to buying some supplies.

A large plastic sheet costs 2-3 dollars and covers any kitchen table.  Get a couple of supplies like cups and towels from the dollar store and you are good to go.  As your gathering get more regular, there are options you can explore to bring it to the next level.

Expand and rent.  Thought I was joking with the Church basement, weren’t you?

Well, as your gatherings grow, you may want to setup somewhere affordable and not quite permanent that you can only use a couple days per month.  There are community rooms, and pop up shop locations that are more than convenient to start your very own club.

Online

Then a couple years back, with the great thing that is technology and the internet, came the google hangouts.

This made leaving the house or wearing pants obsolete to find people to paint with.  While not as up close and personal (you can’t help a buddy finish his army over the web just yet ) this brings you hobby friends 24/7 thanks to time zones and different hobby schedules.