The Octo - Miniature Painting Handle System

The Octo  - A versatile painting handle catering to those with smaller hands and/or shaky hands due to any reason at all.  I created this design from scratch to help compensate for my own painting style and drawbacks.  

Having started my painting journey back in the early 90’s I learned that pinning and drilling was the safest way to keep your models together.  Even with plastic models I prefer to paint pieces separately and then clip pins and assemble them.  The Octo has space for a slice of cork in the top of the octagonal dowel as well as a full cork in the, fitted, hole in its side.  This allows for the painter to either use it traditionally in a vertical manner OR hold it in your palm so you can brace your painting hand against the other palm creating a more stable connection.  The Octo is based on an eight sided dowel just longer than the span of my open palm.  As a woman with small hands I have always found most printable handles too large for me to use comfortably thus I created my own design from scratch.

Along with the handle the set comes with three different braces to help hold the handle to get a better painting angle or to rest a shaky hand against while dotting that eye.  The first brace is a full octagon which fits over the top cork.  The second brace is a full octagon which is canted at a 45 degree angle.  The third brace is half of an octagon and is used with The Octo in its horizontal position using the center cork.  This brace allows you to have that brace and stability even while using the center cork.  Lastly we have two different stands.  The single stand is used for holding one Octo in either the vertical or horizontal position.  The second stand will hold five Octo’s together as a connected set.  I chose five as that is the number of pieces most of my models are split up into for painting; a head, torso and legs, both arms, and, backpack.