Painting Miniatures Declassified - Pre-Painting Organization

If you're like me, you have stacks of unpainted lead around as they wait their turn in the queue.  When you are ready to paint them, how long does it take you to get them ready?  Do you have all the men?  Are all the pieces to that gun still there?  If you work in platoon size sized batches and paint 2 teams (8-10 figures) at a time do you have to now organize them into their teams...taking time away from painting?  Ever have that "one time" where you opened the box...set everyone into their teams and found you still need some figures or something was missing/broken?  Now the timeline for that whole batch goes wonky as you wait for the replacement parts to come in?

Well....I have a solution to ALL these problems (well, maybe not the getting broken/missing parts...but I can mitigate that disaster).  2 simple words....

Egg Carton

Yes!  The incredible edible egg is a true wonder.  After you make your omelet or 4...that carton is a lifesaver (it does float....but don't rely on it in a life or death situation). 

I am one of those who HAS to open the box as soon as I get the box home (sometimes before).  This allows me time to check out if all the parts are there and in working order...and if not, I can order replacement parts and have them on hand BEFORE I need to start painting that unit (or at least before I finish it so it can go in at the tail end of the batch). 

Now here is where the egg carton comes in handy.  I use the egg carton to store the unit until it is time to be painted. Each "cup" in the carton holds one stand of infantry or one gun team or the pieces for a gun if is too big to be placed with its crew.  You can also put the bases for the unit inside (or store them in a baggie ...which I do for infantry units). 

Everything in once nice, neat, little package.   

You can put multiple units in a carton too...a MG platoon and Mortar platoon usually fit nicely in one carton...and if you get the 18 egg cartons you could put all the Infantry stands in 3 infantry platoon together in one carton and all the command groups in another like in the picture above.

And they stack and store very neatly too.

The only downside is collecting the egg cartons can be bad on your cholesterol level  ;-)