Software Report: PaintMyMinis A+

  Every once in a while, you find an app that you never thought you needed, but the minute you see it, you say... Why didn't I have that before???  PaintMyMinis from Scriblab Products is just that software!

  If you have painted minis for any length of time, you probably have a small art book, a notepad or some collection of notes that shows you just how you mixed that awesome color for your favorite mini.  You make those notes so that you can go back and duplicate the effect or color any time you need to.  Well, PaintMyMinis is that book, except that it resides on your iPhone, and it becomes your notebook on steroids, with some serious awesomesauce thrown in.


  What does it do, you ask?  Very good, you're paying attention!

  It allows you to make annotations, record paint mixtures, record the layers you use on a particular mini or group and way more than that too.  You can even use the app to help you determine the color scheme for your army, squad or single mini, it has a built in color wheel...  It does so many things that you never realized would be helpful, that it is WAY worth the $2.99 price tag!  Right now, it's on the apple app store, there is no other version I know of.

  The interface takes some getting used to, so I highly suggest going through the tutorial on the website and readying the manual, also on the website here.  Once you get the idea of how the author uses the different steps/layers, it becomes very easy to define your basecoat, layers, highlights, washes and the like.  Entering the information for your paints and washes is laborious the first time, but once it is in there, you can use it all the time.  If you use the full range of Citadel, Reaper and Valejo and badger (and so on...) paints, you're in for a treat :)  But once they are in there, you can define your own mixtures, define layers, make custom washes to your hearts content.  Oh, and you can do some other GREAT things like export your formulas to share with friends (or paste into a notebook??) AND... this is cool, you can export labels for your newly created formulations of washes, paints and use those to label the jars you keep all over the place.  How handy is that????

  This app really does so much, I can only touch the surface.  Suffice to say that is great app, made by a painter for other painters!  Check it out, for less than the price of a pot of GW paint, you can buy a tool that you will have for life!  This is really a great tool, and you won't regret it!! 

  After the jump I'll have screenies (Stolen from the website!) and some thoughts about the program's functions.

 Each mini/group can have a multitude of layers assigned to it, these are set up in bases, fabrics, metals etc and you can define them as you like.  The program comes with icons for the different things and you can customize them a bit too.  Once defined, you can use them again too.

   Here is the definition of the Orange Fabric mixture from the shot above.

   And the mixture further defined into it's component parts,  As you can see, you can seriously define some color mixtures here.

 Yes, there is a cool color wheel section in here that you can use to help you decide how to define the overall paint scheme and design new colors that will compliment your mini.  By double tapping the screen you can select the overall color scheme, such as triad, complimentary etc...

   There is a very helpful help screen (redundant??) that helps people who are color challenged, like myself, work the color wheel and learn how it can be used to really help you define your highlights and why they will work.

   Yeah, you guessed it, the app will help you also track your paints and make you a shopping list for the stuff you're out of.

    The color entry, prepare to spend some time here when you first start.  Trust me, persevere through this, the results are well worth it!!