A Small Touch That Changed the Whole Display Tray
We had one of those hobby moments recently where a small finishing step suddenly pulled the whole project together.
Michał went back to his tray and gave Trey a fresh paint pass and some rim work, and in his words it really pushed the final effect up a notch. Sometimes that last bit of cleanup and framing is exactly what a piece needs — not a full rebuild, not a new idea, just that one extra hobby session to make everything click.
What immediately stood out to us were the plants on the tray. They add a lot of life to the scene and help sell it as more than just a base for transporting or presenting a model. It starts to feel like a tiny slice of a world, which is exactly why we like this kind of hobby project so much.
There was also a very relatable problem involved here: lighting. Michał mentioned that with the weather being what it is, getting good light at home for photos was basically impossible. We know that pain all too well. You finish something, you’re happy with it, you want to show it off properly — and then the sky decides your hobby photos are going to look like they were taken inside a cave. Classic.
The tray also sparked another idea. Ender started thinking about doing something similar for KO and Votann: a simple display setup built from a tray and a flat piece of styrofoam, turned into a small diorama with round spaces for the models. Honestly, that sounds like a great direction. It doesn’t need to be huge or overly complicated — just enough scenic context to make the army feel presented rather than merely placed.
That may be the nicest part of sharing hobby progress like this. One finished detail on one project quickly turns into inspiration for the next one. A few plants, a cleaned-up rim, a stronger presentation — and suddenly we’re all thinking about display trays again.
If nothing else, this was a good reminder for us that presentation matters. Not in a stressful, perfectionist way, but in the sense that a miniature or tray often benefits massively from those final 10% touches.
Sometimes “mega” really is the correct technical assessment.