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.
@@karlthemadscientist6295 🤔 thin paint, no practice. Got it. 🫣 I basically taught myself to paint in glazes. Maybe it was the paint maybe it was me but that formative time was harsh.
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)
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.
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.
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.
you can setup the smart phone to video, zoom in at max and turn on the led. I usit to read water decals to figure out what it reads and how to place it.
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!
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.
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.
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)
There's some very slim and lightweight ones you can find and cost less than this version. Shouldn't be too difficult to adapt for a paint handle and they're pretty handy outside of this.
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)
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!!!
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.
Even if it worked, you have to also consider installing apps that act as a backdoor for the CCP. Personally, I paint minis to disconnect from our digital world. Things that look to get me to look at my phone during my hobby....Im not a fan. But imagine my joy when I reached the end and your conclusion was - just use a magnifying lamp.
My uncle worked with watches so i just asked for one of his glasses he used, of course me being a dumbass broke it and apparently it's very expensive, and i don't have the guts to tell him i need another one, so now I'm back to shoving small pointy objects dangerously close to my eyes.
Why is it that the brushes with the best grips have the worst bristles. This may be a great product in 5 years after several revisions. What they should have used was fiber optics at the brush and let the bulk of the hardware be anywhere but on the brush or your hand.
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.
Yeah, I have something very similar, with several interchangeable magnifier options and an LED light in the forehead (USB chargeable, even!), and it's invaluable for that close-up work.
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.
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 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.
I think we forget these things we paint are not ment to be scrutinized up close. 3 foot rule on the table top. Now "pro" or "competition" id say 8 inches to a foot. Would be reccommended viewing. Think of all the great art through the years. It was all painted to be viewed from a determined distance by the painter. Get up close and it looks like a mess but keep stepping back and boom into focus and and a beautiful painting emerges. I wish for the community to stay away from feeling that they have to develop super natural skills or develop exo suits just to paint a satisfactory model. My final words would be do you want your painting to be exact ? Or have life brought to it ? The in-exactness (I know I just made that up) is that breath of life.
Seems like there was a problem invented that converting a micro camera would solve in this instance. I'm sure it could be useful if you wanted to adapt to using brushes in a completely different way, and maybe something that was wrist mounted vs brush mounted might be a better option. Either way, I don't know if we're ready to do away with magnifiers yet.
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.
I'm laughing so hard about the earwax thing, stuff gets repurposed constantly and it's always funny how it makes it to minipainting. I have one of those USB charging airbrushes, and the instructions that came for the compressor unit where clearly written for essential oil diffuser
And I'm not surprised about the price difference, either. I always tell people that before you spend a ton of money on supplies from a hobby store, see if you can't find exactly the same thing aimed at another market for half the price.
i still use a lamp magnifying (don't use the light, i use a brighter source) , but the initial one i bought...was 2x/4x (mini), which was not what i wanted. Then i bought another 2x and cross them to be 4x, and that made my small details better in painting.... Now, the TLDR story was...buy at least 4x magnifying....some lenses advert 5x and etc...but comes in at 2x...just scam. Then, slowly adjust your painting eyes. It might get groggy at first when you adjust to such painting....also...don't overdo it...paint 20-30mins...then stand up, walk around, and adjust your eyes to see some far images...this is not to overly stress your eyes. This is just how i paint. With 4x...my details just got from just "dots" on white pupils, to another dot over the dot. :) . I use Tamiya brushes...5/0, 10/0 and 20/0. LOL.
This is mega LOL. A 20 usd ear inspection camera with a fancy brush attachment.... for 80 USD. No, it is definitely not a ploy :). Cought up another 100 USD and buy a used stereo inspection microscope instead. You will have depth view and no wifi delay....
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!)
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.
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.
Not 5minutes in the video, and already having a quite important question about this "device" : how do you even rinse your brush with this on ?? When I paint, I usually do 2 quick rinsing steps for my brush, one in a dirty water cup, another one in a clean water cup with some brush-soap in it. I don't see myself unscrewing the whole thing every 30 sec or so to rinse it properly, nor can I see myself NOT rinsing it every 30 sec or so xD Haven't watched the whole video yet, but already this seems more like a gimmick than a real useful tool to me xD Still, thanks for trying goofy things like these for us Lyla, you're suffering so we don't have to nad I hope Fate will reward you for this dedication some day :D
The best is chirurgiens and dentist binoculars I have a Zeiss x8 one with 20cm working distance it's absolutely stunning but very expensive hopefully for me it's a gift........ because it's to expensive for no chirurgicale use
Hmm. I think it might be the other way around -- if you are new to painting it could be easier to adapt to the camera's off-kilter perspective. Since you don't have a sense of how the brush should "feel" it wouldn't feel wonky to see the brush in 3rd-person. Double hmm. I don't know what the quality of this camera is, but if you are using it in between paint layers to double check your work -- as a "zoom" to get the tiny details -- your phone might be just as good if not better. (Well maybe not your phone it appeared to be damaged, but in general). My phone has some ridiculous camera like 200 megapixel or something and it can zoom in '*very* close. And I already have it. Any phone from the last few years should have a camera good enough to pick out the layer imperfections in a 3d print.
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.)
I paint my favorite fantasy figures, miniature and various size Dragons. I use a magnifying glass and bright lighted room, at times with a bright LED lamp. Also got a set of miniature art brushes for tiny details like narrow color lines and eye details. I also place my subjects into a small vise and use one hand to steady my brush hand. At 64 yo my eyesight and steadiness is lacking! Thanks @LylaMev!
brush cam...now, I've seen it all... I don't think, I'll use this. first off, the brush'll become heavier, making my hand tiring sooner. secondly, it's in direct line of sight, when I paint. thirdly, I'm not constantly looking at a screen, while painting. a magnifying lamp is easier to use.
Sorry. I couldn't finish watching the video. I got dizzy, looking at the shakycam constantly moving with the brush. I couldn't ever work with anything like that. I use some high quality magnifying lenses that I can clip onto my normal glasses. I got them from an optician. Since they are dual lenses, I still have depth of vision and they are always pointed at where I am looking. I have several swappable lenses so that I can vary the magnifying strength. They work very well for me. (I did try out several other variants but these worked out the best for me)
Surgical loupes work better than any other solution I've tried. Not the cheapest option ($300 and up) but they're far more comfortable and preserve binocular vision (depth perception).
@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.
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.!
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 😊
The learning curve seems similar to laparoscopic surgery; a surgeon learns to see and feel what he is working on, but doing a procedure by camera is a whole different experience. That said, it is a skill which can be mastered, and so, I would expect, is using this device to paint miniatures. However, that seems like a whole lot of extra weight to attach to a brush I'm trying desperately to control with the hands of a non-surgeon. ='[.]'=
I think I'll stick to the cheap "helping hands" that I got with built in magnifyer and light ring... It just works and I don't have extra weight on my brush affecting my control over it or a bulky "thing-a-majig" getting in the way.
Magnifying on a tiny phone-screen that you still have to be X inches away from to focus on? For my hobby of electroncs I often have to work on really small SMD components and a digital microscope really helps with that; a fixed camera above a fixed surface that the electronics move about on and the HD image is displayed on a 10inch screen (can connect to any monitor if you need bigger). Depth of field is quite shallow, as it is for all magnification solutions, that's just how it is, but having it on a fixed surface means that the focal point is always at exactly the same spot so your hands rest on the surface nad your fingers manioulate the object so it's easy to get the components in that sweet spot. Main difference with modelpainting ofcourse is that there is no artistry involved, I just have to make sure I get a proper connection that doesn't have to look aesthetically pleasing. I have used a magnifying glass for a *long* time but now that I'm getting older I'm finding it annoying that I don't see the same thing with both eyes. I could try a pair of magnifying glasses because that means both eyes will see the same thing and your depth-perseption doesn't f-up. Not seeing the same can make you seasick, which is not a good thing.
My advice visit your local eye doctor. I have to wear glasses when reading and painting. They came up with a magnifying glasses I wear behind my glasses that gives me about X4 with a great depth of field. When I want to check my work I just use the zoom feature on my phone's camera, its much cheaper.
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..
It's a shame the Cobalt Keep don't have a EU or UK distributer , it costs an arm and a leg to ship stuff from the US, I paint busts or 1/6 scale figure kits, it's usually $80 on average to have them sent over , and import tax etc on top .
Seems kinda silly to me and that's before we factor in the latency, the poor image quality and the simple fact a 2d image can only help you so much...why wouldn't you just use a magnifier? 🤪
Funny video! I couldn't imagine to attach additional weight to my brush and be able to get better at painting details. For controlling my work I use the camera of my phone. And I use reading glasses too and I think about getting some with proper correction for my eyes. How much magnify yours?
$80 for a $15 ear cam, a clunky mounting tool and some wonky brushes seems like a joke, though I appreciate you can't just come out and say as much on your video...
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.
Just wondering what the "contrast praints" you mentioned in the sponsored section are. 😛 As for the product reviewed, that looks so cumbersome to work with, that a magnifying glass seems preferable.
11:40 Not a problem You didn't know you'd find a magnifier that works for you. The rest of the video shows your process of working with the ear *ahem* brush cam, and that's what we needed to see. I'm thiking about trying out one of those digital microscopes. It looks like the brush cam is a similar setup, but the digital microscopes have stands so you don't attach them to the brush.
The whole point of painting well is a 3D hand-eye coordination. The camera product of this video is a 2D picture, hence you are unable to judge depth and you are unable to correctly position your paintbrush.
I could n e v e r use something like this, only 4 and a half minutes in lol. I cant stand the visual of the miniature moving and the brush staying still. It has to be the opposite for me. Still a cool concept though, id just prefer some kind of less obtrusive desk mounted camera, only occasionally moving the miniature. Edit: Turns out you did something like this! Great minds think alike lol.
I bought one of those ear cameras. I think these are mass produced for pennies, and then another company just slaps a custom housing and name on it. The one I bought came with an all plastic housing, which would actually make it better for mini painting by saving weight. I could 3d print a brush mount which would also be lighter than the metal one, same deal. And the camera is just as good, very similar to the one in this video. Sadly, I think this is another product with "mini" tagged on it to justify charging three times the price.
I would be interested in seeing if attaching the camera the base the mini is on. That giant arm-thing that comes up over the mini looks like a great place to attach the camera. This way, the camera is always at the correct distance from the mini for focus. Plus, if you move your support hand, the camera moves with it. Of course you have a problem if you rotate the mini as the orientation of the camera would not chance, but that could be an excuse to develop a better mini holder. All that said, just watching you was sending my blood pressure through the roof. Oh... I completely feel the pain of using various magnification schemes. They all suck in their own special ways. It'd be a whole lot easier if my eyes just worked correctly.
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.
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.
It might actually be better for a new painter. You're already used to your workflow which makes it harder to change things up. I don't know if switching between your perspective and the camera's perspective is ideal for hand eye coordination and seemed to be what was messing you up.
Naaa, not good. It reminds me when I switched from drawing on paper to drawing with Wacom tablet... the coordination eyes / hands / monitor / tablet was all messed up! All feeling was awkward. Trashed. Then, some years later I finally can draw on a tablet, that is a monitor, and the reaction is almost like drawing on paper. Not all technologies are good, sometimes the draw backs are more than the benefit.
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)
I use a sowing lamp, it did take a while to learn not to hit myself in the face or ram the lamp 😂 Ha ha just got to the end and my sowing lamp is very similar. The point is follow the nannas, they know the way. You can get ones with bifocal magnifying lenses and lights that can outshine the sun, it takes a bit of looking about though. I'm Australian so I doubt I'll be able to suggest anywhere useful to look for most people sorry.
The feel for using things like this can develop with practice. In my professional life I do a lot of fine detail work through a microscope, you develop that feel of where your hands, tools and object are eventually. That said, this seems a terrible solution for miniatures. I'd probably go a digital microscope over this. It can sit on a stand, feed to a large monitor and will have focus control and the kind of relatively low magnification we need will have decent depth of field. The bigger problem is that both of these options are feeding you a mono image, so you lose perspective. You still need to develop the muscle memory of where your brush is.
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.
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.
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.
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
You probability don’t get a feel for the brush because of the delay the WI-FI creates. You do not actually see what your hands are doing in real time. Had the same issue when I tried a Bluetooth headphones setup on my piano. My hands and the sound did not quite match up, making it useless for me at least.
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.
I have issues with the lighted magnify glass like you, I keep hitting it with my brush. I heard about this tool and it really doesn't look like it helps more than it hinders. OOC what kind of readers do you use for close up? That's a great Idea and I may do that.
I’m an anaesthetic nurse to pay for my addiction to beer and model kits, (ok and dog food and the mortgage and other things my dog and my wife insist are essential, but I digress). Where I work we do a lot of ENT surgery, and for sinus surgery the surgeons use cameras and light sources, not a million miles removed from this one, held in one hand and their surgical instruments are held in the other. The only time they look at the patient is when they are inserting/removing the camera or instrument. When they are operating, they’re re looking at the image on the screen, not the instrument going up the nose. I would suggest that you need to concentrate on the model or the screen, not look at both, and learn to judge feel as you watch the screen. - similar to when you’re working by feel only, trying to get a nut you can’t see, started on a bolt under the engine, behind the footrest on a motorcycle. If you’ve worked on cars/bikes you’ve had to do this at some point! I think the best thing you could do is use an iPad/tablet compatible with the camera to maximise the view, and not try to look at the workpiece and screen at the same time.
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.
If you put the figure on a pedestal and not hold it in your left hand you will leap forward. Pedestal can pivot but if you lock it down the only movement will be from the brush like it would be if the figure was six feet tall. Random art teacher advice. Nice video
I wonder if someone good at programming might be able to incorporate the app into a VR headset so can see directly "Through" the lens? I imagine that would be trippy AF though 😄
Yeah, but does your magnifying glass remove that nasty wax from your ears? Kidding aside, the simpler solution is often the best. Thanks for showing us this gadget and its flaws.
The clear lag you get between the camera and your phone will make that thing very hard to use to "paint", but I guess it's going to be pretty useful when it comes to very punctual "operation" like making the pupil and the reflection inside the eye. I guess if you really wanted to use it to paint you'll need to learn to not look at your mini directly and only look trough your screen (a bit like when you learn how to use a tablet for 2D art).
Its really difficult to use these kind of things because they can't show you any depth, compared to your eyes, which can process depth. Painting these small raised details require you to know how far they are from the tip of the brush, so its really hard with a camera.
So I don't want to sound rude or condescending but you like a lot of people using these types of tools are using it wrong but also I wouldn't use this either way. So You are trying to use this as a supplement to using your eyes. These tools are meant as a replacement for direct line of sight. This requires a very specific skill set and training. It's like using a drawing tablet instead of a pen display. That being said I wouldn't use this and instead would use a soldering microscope. It has way less latency and generally speaking better depth of field. Painting without looking at your hands is a skill that needs a fair bit of training. It took me months to get used to using a intuos
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
Do you have a trick or tool to paint your models better?
I use a micro pen to paint eyes.
@@joshuawilson8804 I do, too!
make your models wear helmets.
Been using the light and magnifying glass for ages. Wouldn't swap it our for anything else.
@@funchick202 This. Not a single one of my space marines is missing a helmet.
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.
And practice sir. Lots of it.
@@jc7997aj No argument here! At some point a person has to pick up a paint brush and turn theory into reality. :)
@@jc7997aj lol no just thin your paints seriously I didnt do it for years and wished I had
@@karlthemadscientist6295 🤔 thin paint, no practice. Got it.
🫣
I basically taught myself to paint in glazes. Maybe it was the paint maybe it was me but that formative time was harsh.
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've had great luck with an "optivisor" it provides magnification but still preserves depth perception.
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.
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.
i use the iphone magnifying lense, works very well and as lots of features.
Maybe attach it to the painting handle, so it always focuses on the mini and you can manouver the brush :)
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.
you can setup the smart phone to video, zoom in at max and turn on the led. I usit to read water decals to figure out what it reads and how to place it.
If you’re reading this comment you should go like and comment to appease the almighty algorithm 😁❤️👍🏼
You're my favorite!
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!
@LylaMev , I ended up buying the Carson DeskBrite300. Thank you for the tip! (I used your affiliate link 🙂).
Just use a head band light, like the one cave climbers use. It's amazing and doesn't get in the way
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.
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.
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)
There's some very slim and lightweight ones you can find and cost less than this version. Shouldn't be too difficult to adapt for a paint handle and they're pretty handy outside of this.
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)
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!!!
the camera would be good for making content though
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.
Even if it worked, you have to also consider installing apps that act as a backdoor for the CCP. Personally, I paint minis to disconnect from our digital world. Things that look to get me to look at my phone during my hobby....Im not a fan.
But imagine my joy when I reached the end and your conclusion was - just use a magnifying lamp.
My uncle worked with watches so i just asked for one of his glasses he used, of course me being a dumbass broke it and apparently it's very expensive, and i don't have the guts to tell him i need another one, so now I'm back to shoving small pointy objects dangerously close to my eyes.
Why is it that the brushes with the best grips have the worst bristles.
This may be a great product in 5 years after several revisions. What they should have used was fiber optics at the brush and let the bulk of the hardware be anywhere but on the brush or your hand.
I'm guilty of pulling my light really close to my head, forgetting it's there, and then headbutting it.
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.
I use a lighted magnifier and if the brush handle hits it I just clip 1 or 2 inches off the back tip.
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.
Yeah, I have something very similar, with several interchangeable magnifier options and an LED light in the forehead (USB chargeable, even!), and it's invaluable for that close-up work.
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.
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 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 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.
I think we forget these things we paint are not ment to be scrutinized up close. 3 foot rule on the table top. Now "pro" or "competition" id say 8 inches to a foot. Would be reccommended viewing. Think of all the great art through the years. It was all painted to be viewed from a determined distance by the painter. Get up close and it looks like a mess but keep stepping back and boom into focus and and a beautiful painting emerges.
I wish for the community to stay away from feeling that they have to develop super natural skills or develop exo suits just to paint a satisfactory model.
My final words would be do you want your painting to be exact ? Or have life brought to it ? The in-exactness (I know I just made that up) is that breath of life.
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
That mini is absolutely stunning. Well done
Thank you! I wish I had filmed painting the armor, but sometimes you have to pick between having fun or filming and I chose fun!
Seems like there was a problem invented that converting a micro camera would solve in this instance. I'm sure it could be useful if you wanted to adapt to using brushes in a completely different way, and maybe something that was wrist mounted vs brush mounted might be a better option. Either way, I don't know if we're ready to do away with magnifiers yet.
Never use pure white to pain the eyes.
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.
magnifying devices never work because they mess with the hand/eye co-ordination, which is literally the key motor skill whilst painting
And this is why I will only paint eyeless figures!
I enjoy painting eyes! Some times
I'm laughing so hard about the earwax thing, stuff gets repurposed constantly and it's always funny how it makes it to minipainting. I have one of those USB charging airbrushes, and the instructions that came for the compressor unit where clearly written for essential oil diffuser
And I'm not surprised about the price difference, either. I always tell people that before you spend a ton of money on supplies from a hobby store, see if you can't find exactly the same thing aimed at another market for half the price.
i still use a lamp magnifying (don't use the light, i use a brighter source) , but the initial one i bought...was 2x/4x (mini), which was not what i wanted. Then i bought another 2x and cross them to be 4x, and that made my small details better in painting....
Now, the TLDR story was...buy at least 4x magnifying....some lenses advert 5x and etc...but comes in at 2x...just scam.
Then, slowly adjust your painting eyes. It might get groggy at first when you adjust to such painting....also...don't overdo it...paint 20-30mins...then stand up, walk around, and adjust your eyes to see some far images...this is not to overly stress your eyes. This is just how i paint. With 4x...my details just got from just "dots" on white pupils, to another dot over the dot. :) . I use Tamiya brushes...5/0, 10/0 and 20/0. LOL.
This is mega LOL. A 20 usd ear inspection camera with a fancy brush attachment.... for 80 USD. No, it is definitely not a ploy :). Cought up another 100 USD and buy a used stereo inspection microscope instead. You will have depth view and no wifi delay....
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!)
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.
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.
Not 5minutes in the video, and already having a quite important question about this "device" : how do you even rinse your brush with this on ??
When I paint, I usually do 2 quick rinsing steps for my brush, one in a dirty water cup, another one in a clean water cup with some brush-soap in it. I don't see myself unscrewing the whole thing every 30 sec or so to rinse it properly, nor can I see myself NOT rinsing it every 30 sec or so xD
Haven't watched the whole video yet, but already this seems more like a gimmick than a real useful tool to me xD
Still, thanks for trying goofy things like these for us Lyla, you're suffering so we don't have to nad I hope Fate will reward you for this dedication some day :D
The best is chirurgiens and dentist binoculars I have a Zeiss x8 one with 20cm working distance it's absolutely stunning but very expensive hopefully for me it's a gift........ because it's to expensive for no chirurgicale use
Hmm. I think it might be the other way around -- if you are new to painting it could be easier to adapt to the camera's off-kilter perspective. Since you don't have a sense of how the brush should "feel" it wouldn't feel wonky to see the brush in 3rd-person.
Double hmm. I don't know what the quality of this camera is, but if you are using it in between paint layers to double check your work -- as a "zoom" to get the tiny details -- your phone might be just as good if not better. (Well maybe not your phone it appeared to be damaged, but in general). My phone has some ridiculous camera like 200 megapixel or something and it can zoom in '*very* close. And I already have it. Any phone from the last few years should have a camera good enough to pick out the layer imperfections in a 3d print.
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.)
I paint my favorite fantasy figures, miniature and various size Dragons. I use a magnifying glass and bright lighted room, at times with a bright LED lamp. Also got a set of miniature art brushes for tiny details like narrow color lines and eye details. I also place my subjects into a small vise and use one hand to steady my brush hand. At 64 yo my eyesight and steadiness is lacking! Thanks @LylaMev!
brush cam...now, I've seen it all...
I don't think, I'll use this. first off, the brush'll become heavier, making my hand tiring sooner. secondly, it's in direct line of sight, when I paint. thirdly, I'm not constantly looking at a screen, while painting.
a magnifying lamp is easier to use.
Sorry. I couldn't finish watching the video. I got dizzy, looking at the shakycam constantly moving with the brush. I couldn't ever work with anything like that.
I use some high quality magnifying lenses that I can clip onto my normal glasses. I got them from an optician. Since they are dual lenses, I still have depth of vision and they are always pointed at where I am looking. I have several swappable lenses so that I can vary the magnifying strength. They work very well for me. (I did try out several other variants but these worked out the best for me)
Surgical loupes work better than any other solution I've tried. Not the cheapest option ($300 and up) but they're far more comfortable and preserve binocular vision (depth perception).
Surgery glasses with magnifying attachment works great but are expensive. New are $1700. Mine were used on eBay for $300.
@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.
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.!
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 😊
The learning curve seems similar to laparoscopic surgery; a surgeon learns to see and feel what he is working on, but doing a procedure by camera is a whole different experience. That said, it is a skill which can be mastered, and so, I would expect, is using this device to paint miniatures. However, that seems like a whole lot of extra weight to attach to a brush I'm trying desperately to control with the hands of a non-surgeon. ='[.]'=
I think I'll stick to the cheap "helping hands" that I got with built in magnifyer and light ring... It just works and I don't have extra weight on my brush affecting my control over it or a bulky "thing-a-majig" getting in the way.
Magnifying on a tiny phone-screen that you still have to be X inches away from to focus on?
For my hobby of electroncs I often have to work on really small SMD components and a digital microscope really helps with that; a fixed camera above a fixed surface that the electronics move about on and the HD image is displayed on a 10inch screen (can connect to any monitor if you need bigger). Depth of field is quite shallow, as it is for all magnification solutions, that's just how it is, but having it on a fixed surface means that the focal point is always at exactly the same spot so your hands rest on the surface nad your fingers manioulate the object so it's easy to get the components in that sweet spot.
Main difference with modelpainting ofcourse is that there is no artistry involved, I just have to make sure I get a proper connection that doesn't have to look aesthetically pleasing.
I have used a magnifying glass for a *long* time but now that I'm getting older I'm finding it annoying that I don't see the same thing with both eyes. I could try a pair of magnifying glasses because that means both eyes will see the same thing and your depth-perseption doesn't f-up. Not seeing the same can make you seasick, which is not a good thing.
My advice visit your local eye doctor. I have to wear glasses when reading and painting. They came up with a magnifying glasses I wear behind my glasses that gives me about X4 with a great depth of field. When I want to check my work I just use the zoom feature on my phone's camera, its much cheaper.
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..
It's a shame the Cobalt Keep don't have a EU or UK distributer , it costs an arm and a leg to ship stuff from the US, I paint busts or 1/6 scale figure kits, it's usually $80 on average to have them sent over , and import tax etc on top .
Seems kinda silly to me and that's before we factor in the latency, the poor image quality and the simple fact a 2d image can only help you so much...why wouldn't you just use a magnifier? 🤪
Funny video! I couldn't imagine to attach additional weight to my brush and be able to get better at painting details.
For controlling my work I use the camera of my phone.
And I use reading glasses too and I think about getting some with proper correction for my eyes. How much magnify yours?
$80 for a $15 ear cam, a clunky mounting tool and some wonky brushes seems like a joke, though I appreciate you can't just come out and say as much on your video...
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.
Just wondering what the "contrast praints" you mentioned in the sponsored section are. 😛
As for the product reviewed, that looks so cumbersome to work with, that a magnifying glass seems preferable.
11:40 Not a problem You didn't know you'd find a magnifier that works for you. The rest of the video shows your process of working with the ear *ahem* brush cam, and that's what we needed to see.
I'm thiking about trying out one of those digital microscopes. It looks like the brush cam is a similar setup, but the digital microscopes have stands so you don't attach them to the brush.
The whole point of painting well is a 3D hand-eye coordination. The camera product of this video is a 2D picture, hence you are unable to judge depth and you are unable to correctly position your paintbrush.
I could n e v e r use something like this, only 4 and a half minutes in lol.
I cant stand the visual of the miniature moving and the brush staying still. It has to be the opposite for me. Still a cool concept though, id just prefer some kind of less obtrusive desk mounted camera, only occasionally moving the miniature.
Edit: Turns out you did something like this! Great minds think alike lol.
I bought one of those ear cameras. I think these are mass produced for pennies, and then another company just slaps a custom housing and name on it. The one I bought came with an all plastic housing, which would actually make it better for mini painting by saving weight. I could 3d print a brush mount which would also be lighter than the metal one, same deal. And the camera is just as good, very similar to the one in this video.
Sadly, I think this is another product with "mini" tagged on it to justify charging three times the price.
I would be interested in seeing if attaching the camera the base the mini is on. That giant arm-thing that comes up over the mini looks like a great place to attach the camera. This way, the camera is always at the correct distance from the mini for focus. Plus, if you move your support hand, the camera moves with it. Of course you have a problem if you rotate the mini as the orientation of the camera would not chance, but that could be an excuse to develop a better mini holder.
All that said, just watching you was sending my blood pressure through the roof.
Oh... I completely feel the pain of using various magnification schemes. They all suck in their own special ways. It'd be a whole lot easier if my eyes just worked correctly.
This isn't worth $80 for a double check device. I can buy a lighted magnifying glass for that. It looks awkward as hell too.
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.
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.
It might actually be better for a new painter. You're already used to your workflow which makes it harder to change things up. I don't know if switching between your perspective and the camera's perspective is ideal for hand eye coordination and seemed to be what was messing you up.
Naaa, not good. It reminds me when I switched from drawing on paper to drawing with Wacom tablet... the coordination eyes / hands / monitor / tablet was all messed up! All feeling was awkward. Trashed. Then, some years later I finally can draw on a tablet, that is a monitor, and the reaction is almost like drawing on paper. Not all technologies are good, sometimes the draw backs are more than the benefit.
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)
I use a sowing lamp, it did take a while to learn not to hit myself in the face or ram the lamp 😂
Ha ha just got to the end and my sowing lamp is very similar. The point is follow the nannas, they know the way. You can get ones with bifocal magnifying lenses and lights that can outshine the sun, it takes a bit of looking about though. I'm Australian so I doubt I'll be able to suggest anywhere useful to look for most people sorry.
The feel for using things like this can develop with practice. In my professional life I do a lot of fine detail work through a microscope, you develop that feel of where your hands, tools and object are eventually. That said, this seems a terrible solution for miniatures. I'd probably go a digital microscope over this. It can sit on a stand, feed to a large monitor and will have focus control and the kind of relatively low magnification we need will have decent depth of field. The bigger problem is that both of these options are feeding you a mono image, so you lose perspective. You still need to develop the muscle memory of where your brush is.
I prefer my sexygogs, but all the things have a terribly shallow depth of field. Also having 47 year old eyeballs makes everything more difficult.
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.
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.
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.
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
You probability don’t get a feel for the brush because of the delay the WI-FI creates. You do not actually see what your hands are doing in real time. Had the same issue when I tried a Bluetooth headphones setup on my piano. My hands and the sound did not quite match up, making it useless for me at least.
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.
I have issues with the lighted magnify glass like you, I keep hitting it with my brush. I heard about this tool and it really doesn't look like it helps more than it hinders. OOC what kind of readers do you use for close up? That's a great Idea and I may do that.
I’m an anaesthetic nurse to pay for my addiction to beer and model kits, (ok and dog food and the mortgage and other things my dog and my wife insist are essential, but I digress).
Where I work we do a lot of ENT surgery, and for sinus surgery the surgeons use cameras and light sources, not a million miles removed from this one, held in one hand and their surgical instruments are held in the other.
The only time they look at the patient is when they are inserting/removing the camera or instrument. When they are operating, they’re re looking at the image on the screen, not the instrument going up the nose.
I would suggest that you need to concentrate on the model or the screen, not look at both, and learn to judge feel as you watch the screen. - similar to when you’re working by feel only, trying to get a nut you can’t see, started on a bolt under the engine, behind the footrest on a motorcycle. If you’ve worked on cars/bikes you’ve had to do this at some point!
I think the best thing you could do is use an iPad/tablet compatible with the camera to maximise the view, and not try to look at the workpiece and screen at the same time.
The brush looks huge compared to the details you are painting. I really like the Princeton 20/0 Monogram Petite for fine details on my oil paintings.
I feel like this possibly would be better for soldering...maybe...
...ok it's a bit of a stretch.
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.
If you put the figure on a pedestal and not hold it in your left hand you will leap forward.
Pedestal can pivot but if you lock it down the only movement will be from the brush like it would be if the figure was six feet tall.
Random art teacher advice.
Nice video
I wonder if someone good at programming might be able to incorporate the app into a VR headset so can see directly "Through" the lens?
I imagine that would be trippy AF though 😄
Utilised the following years ago and still do for stuff like this: DSLR, Good Makro/video lens with decent zoom, iPad.
Yeah, but does your magnifying glass remove that nasty wax from your ears? Kidding aside, the simpler solution is often the best. Thanks for showing us this gadget and its flaws.
Now try to repurpose a surgeon robot, one of those that they use with two handles to operate but the movement is super tiny
The clear lag you get between the camera and your phone will make that thing very hard to use to "paint", but I guess it's going to be pretty useful when it comes to very punctual "operation" like making the pupil and the reflection inside the eye.
I guess if you really wanted to use it to paint you'll need to learn to not look at your mini directly and only look trough your screen (a bit like when you learn how to use a tablet for 2D art).
I saw that in the Micro Mark catalog and had my doubts. Thannks for the confirmation, I'll stick to my Optivisor.
Its really difficult to use these kind of things because they can't show you any depth, compared to your eyes, which can process depth. Painting these small raised details require you to know how far they are from the tip of the brush, so its really hard with a camera.
So I don't want to sound rude or condescending but you like a lot of people using these types of tools are using it wrong but also I wouldn't use this either way. So You are trying to use this as a supplement to using your eyes. These tools are meant as a replacement for direct line of sight. This requires a very specific skill set and training. It's like using a drawing tablet instead of a pen display. That being said I wouldn't use this and instead would use a soldering microscope. It has way less latency and generally speaking better depth of field. Painting without looking at your hands is a skill that needs a fair bit of training. It took me months to get used to using a intuos
you really need to change that thumbnail.
it's definitely not a scam. they are delivering what they are advertising.
if anything it's a gimmick.
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