Paint Your Tools
Being something of a handyman that people often turn to for help with simple manual labour, you could confidently classify me as a tool user. A colleague would rather have it as a slave, which is reasonable since I mostly work for free, all things considered. My hands will be active at tools, writing on keyboard or turning pages in a book most of my waking time.
Why not bring some joyful colour into the toolkit you're going to use so much?
Even if your life will be filled with mass produced factory wares, you can still put a personal touch on some long-lasting things in your surroundings, as our ancestors have done since time immemorial. Crafting patterns and ornamenting things has a therapeutic quality to it, for good reason. Minimalist modern man is a pauper in regard to decorating his own stuff, compared to his forebears, though there are still places where people dare to pimp their rides, as evidenced by South Asian
jingle trucks and Japanese
dekotora trucks.
The idea to paint tool shafts was born after viewing through
AMELIANVS' late antique and medieval Roman artworks. This artist brings a great deal of lively period detail into garb and gear. Striped spear shafts appear on the famous
mosaic of emperor Justinian, and provides a simple idea for upgrading the looks of common tools.
The means were provided after I was gifted left-over facade paints of various kinds, which were put to use first on homemade lightsabers and wooden toy weapons, and then on the tool shafts. Plastic and metal shafts have been spray painted.The recent set of tools painted this week were given a matt varnish spray as an experiment in endurance.
Yes, paint will fade, wear out, flake off and get dirty when you use the tools. That's part of the charm and lifecycle. Viking runestones and classical Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Assyrian statues were also painted, yet all that remains now is the carved stone, seemingly eternal. As grey as an unpainted miniature collection.
I can recommend painting your tools in your favourite colour and colour combinations. I painted those I am going to use red and blue, the colours of Karak Norn, which are my Warhammer army colours and incidentally also the Carolean regimental colours of my landscape province.
Gotta teach the basics, if they decide to become knights!
Wheelbarrows are definitely better employed as horses, fighter planes and magic carpets!
