When it comes to the painting handle, every model offers very similar benefits and work in very similar ways. Let’s compare some!
Painting handles are one of the coolest gadgets to really break in the miniature painting scene recently.
They remove the dreaded hand cramp of holding tiny bases for too long, and help a lot at protecting your paint job from having to grab unto the model with your fingers.
Sure, they’ve always sort of been around, but the available options are plenty.
Here’s a few of our favorites, and their differences.
DIY Painting Handle
It would be hard not to talk about the DIY version of painting handle. Before brands came out with their own, hobbyists resorted to their own makeshift contraption to hold models.
The most popular DIY handle was a simple paint or pills pot with blue-tac on top. This is incredibly cheap to make and you can spray on them without any real fear of destroying them as they are easily replaceable.
The biggest downside of these is that blue tac doesn’t have the strongest hold. Seeing your model fall from it when you’re trying to paint an hard to reach area is the stuff nightmares are made of.
The more advanced DIY handles were cork and pins. Drill your model with large rods standing out of the legs or different pieces, stick those rods in a cork cap and you are good to go.
This is more advance simply because it requires drilling your models and usually painting in sub-assembly. So this painting handle is not great when it comes to large projects, but very good for high end pieces.
The Citadel Hobby Handle
Perhaps the main culprits in the painting handle’s rise to fame, the Citadel Painting Handle is now in its 2.0 version. Not a lot of changes between the two versions.
The new handle is a smaller than its predecessor, and holds miniatures from 25mm bases up to 40mm. Having used both, I like the way the newer ones fits in my grip when I paint.
The downgrade is how it holds up on my desk, with a miniature on it. The new sleeker design is much less stable. I knock down stuff and bump my desk quite often, so if you are clumsy as I am, you have to be a little bit careful.
Garfy’s Get-a-Grip
Tale of Painters’ Garfy, hobbyist extraordinaire, came up with his own brand of painting handles, Garfy’s Get a Grip.
Unlike the Games Workshop variant, these come with plenty of options, including longer handles and finger rests, so you can get some that fit with your painting needs and technique.
You can get more infos of them on the Tale of Painters blog here.
Red Grass Games Handle
RGG’s Painting handle is an interesting alternative, because it combines the classic blue-tac approach of DIY handles with a unique grip designed for comfort.
The handle itself is curved and more grip friendly, and the grip part at the top rotates. This means there are no angle where the handle is in an odd position like the other two.
The drawback is the same as its DIY counterpart, where blue tac is not as good at holding as the spring loaded variants.