CHROMATORY
Chromatory Studio 1.0.9 beta is out now on Windows, with macOS experimental. One-time purchase, with a free demo. →

A paint studio for miniature painters

Take the guesswork out of NMM and OSL. Place real lights around your actual model, see where every highlight lands, and match what you see to the paints already sitting on your shelf.

🖥️ Get the full studio$19.99 one-time · free demo ▶ Try the free demo
One-time purchase, no subscription Works offline, no account Your models never leave your machine
Inside the studio

See it work

Everything below runs live in Chromatory Studio, on your own machine. No account, no upload, no subscription.

🧩 Assembly Workbench

Printed a multi-part kit? Drag the parts in, nudge each one roughly where it belongs, and Chromatory snaps the mating surfaces together for you. Then export the whole thing as one merged STL, ready for the slicer.

  • Load every part of a kit. No triangle limit, and none of it leaves your device.
  • Snap mating surfaces together automatically, or click two faces and let them mate
  • Organic sockets, not just flat cuts: the fit reads the joint's own outline and checks the spin all the way round
  • Close the joint gaps as you merge, so a kit prints as one solid instead of parts with a slot between them
  • Remove internal voids, and see them first in x-ray the way your slicer would
  • Scissor cuts through organic shapes: click a few points, the line hugs the sculpt's surface, and both sides preview before you commit
  • A square alignment peg and its socket, sized from the cut face, so the halves only go back together one way
  • Magnet pockets and drill-pin guides, bored to fit both sides of a joint
  • Route a channel for LED wire through a finished model, and carve it
  • Save one merged STL, or every part as its own print-ready file
Get the studio
Scissor cut · model: Hastur, sculpted by NS Miniatures
Snap assembly · model: Krymathor, sculpted by Flesh of Gods

💡 Light Studio

Drop in your STL and light it the way a photographer would. Preview NMM (non-metallic metal) and OSL (object-source lighting) with real cast shadows, so you can see where every highlight and shadow will land before you commit a drop of paint.

  • Silver and gold NMM, glowing OSL, matte through chrome. Each one is a single click.
  • Paint regions with a brush that stays on the surface and fills that stop at real edges
  • Painted areas can glow as light sources, and a dark source radiates shadow for void effects
  • Comic style, with an inked outline you can lock to the view you are painting from
  • A monochrome value study, for checking your lights before any colour goes down
  • Apply SVG decals as stencils or press them into the surface as indents
  • Print 3D airbrush masks and edge masks that shield one area while you spray the rest
  • Export a colour model to Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer or PrusaSlicer, ready to print in filament
  • Assemble and paint in the same scene, and save it with its lights, look and camera
Get the studio

Model shown: The Price of Magic, sculpted by Nerikson

🔒 NMM without the guesswork

Non-metallic metal lives or dies by where the highlights sit, and real reflections move every time you turn the mini. So lock them. One click freezes the highlights exactly where they are, and you can orbit the whole model while they stay put. Every angle becomes a painting reference for the same NMM.

  • Silver and gold NMM looks that respond to your actual lights
  • Lock the highlights, then orbit. They stay right where you'll paint them.
  • Painted regions keep their own colours and finishes next to the metal
  • Capture a reference render from any angle you like
Get the studio

Model shown: Lord Celestian Prime, sculpted by Rescale Miniatures

New in the 1.0.9 beta

What landed recently

Short looks at the newest capabilities, each one recorded in the app rather than mocked up.

Organic jointsSculpted sockets with no flat face to line up. The fit reads the joint's own outline and checks the spin all the way round.
Internal voidsX-ray shows the sealed pockets a merge closes over, then one button fills every one of them solid.
Assemble and poseMate each piece onto the body, then spin the joint to pose it. Trench Pilgrims, Trench Crusade (Factory Fortress)
Lock the highlightsFreeze the metal reflections where they are, then orbit. Every angle becomes a reference for the same NMM. Lord Celestian Prime, Rescale Miniatures
Object-source lightingPlace the light and see where its glow actually falls. A Moment of Rest, sculpted by Nerikson
Mock up, then check your valuesLight the paint job, then drop to a monochrome value study to see if it reads. The Price of Magic, sculpted by Nerikson
Comic styleAn inked outline over your paint, with a line you can thicken and lock to the view you paint from. Sweetdream, sculpted by StianIan
Tutorials

Watch it done, start to finish

Real sessions in the real app, no cuts around the hard parts. Each one is a few minutes and shows the whole job, including the bits that take a moment to compute.

Assemble a multipart kit 1 min 28

Drop in the body, head and rifle, mate each piece onto the body, then spin the joints to pose it.

Model: Trench Pilgrims, Trench Crusade (Factory Fortress)
Join organic sockets, then stitch the seams 1 min 42

Sculpted shoulder sockets with no flat face to line up. Mate both arms, close the joint gaps, and merge the kit into one piece.

Remove internal voids before you slice 51 sec

X-ray shows the sealed pockets a merge closes over, the ones a slicer would print hollow. One button fills every one of them solid.

Split a model to fit the plate 1 min 52

Trace a cut along the sculpt's own creases, cap it with the model's inside face, and add an alignment peg so the halves only go back together one way.

Model: Hastur, sculpted by NS Miniatures
Paint areas on the model 1 min 50

Name the areas of a sculpt, fill them so the fill stops at real edges, and light the result to see where the highlights land.

Model: Laura Bust, sculpted by Nerikson
What's in the studio

Built around your paints

Chromatory knows what's actually in your paint drawer, so every match, mix and scheme it suggests is something you could sit down and paint tonight.

📷

Copy a mini from a photo

Point it at a painted miniature you love. Chromatory reads each area and works out a step-by-step scheme using the paints you already own.

🎨

Paint the model itself

Describe a scheme or match a reference, and it paints the regions of your actual 3D model. Every angle agrees, because there is only one model.

🎯

Colour match & mixing

Real colour science (CIEDE2000 and Kubelka-Munk) finds the closest paint you own, or the mix that gets you there.

🗄️

Paint inventory

Catalogue your collection with swatch photos, and name a paint straight from a snap of the bottle.

🌗

Shadow & highlight guide

Give it a scheme photo and a lighting render. For each element it hands back the shadow, midtone and highlight paints, and shows you where each one falls.

📓

A memory for every project

Photos, decisions, recipes and whole painting conversations land in the project log, so next month's session starts where this one ended.

🤖

AI painting coach

Advice, a painting log and scheme mockups, all built on the paints you really have. Runs on your own AI, a local model, or turns off completely.

🧩

Assemble and cut kits

Mate the parts of a multipart kit, close the joint gaps, remove the internal voids a slicer would print hollow, and split a model that is too big for the plate.

🖨️

Print what you painted

Export a colour model to Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer or PrusaSlicer, or bake the cel shading into printable shades.

✂️

Masks, stencils and decals

Print 3D airbrush masks and edge masks that shield one area while you spray the rest, and apply SVG decals as stencils or press them in as indents.

🎬

Looks beyond realism

Comic style with an inked outline you can lock to your painting view, and a monochrome value study for checking the lights before any colour goes down.

🔒

Local-first and private

Everything runs on your own PC. Your data, photos and models stay with you. Pair your phone or browser to it whenever you want the bench in your hand.

Get Chromatory on itch.io → 💬 Join the Discord
Bring your own AI

Drive it from Claude or ChatGPT

Chromatory doesn't sell you another chatbot subscription. It plugs into the AI you already use. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or a model running on your own PC, and your assistant gets Chromatory's actual tools: your real paint inventory, colour matching, your project history, and the Light Studio itself.

You, to your AI Here's a photo of a painted mini I love. Can I match this scheme with my paints?
Your AI, using Chromatory It reads the photo area by area, samples the real colours, and matches every one against the paints you actually own, with honest close-enough grades. No invented paints, no wishful substitutions.
You Paint my model like that so I can see it from the back too.
Your AI, using Chromatory It splits your STL into areas, colours each one, and renders the painted model from any angle. One consistent scheme all the way around, because it painted the 3D model, not four separate pictures.
You, next weekend Where did we leave off?
Your AI, using Chromatory Sessions are logged to the project, so the conversation picks up with the scheme, the mixes and the decisions already on the table.

Built on open standards (an MCP server and an OpenAPI tool server), so it isn't locked to one vendor: Claude Desktop and Claude Code, ChatGPT and Codex, LM Studio, Open WebUI and local models can all connect. Your AI account stays yours, and Chromatory's tools run on your machine.

🔒

Your files stay yours

Chromatory Studio lives on your PC. Models are never uploaded anywhere, your library stays in your hands, and it only talks to the cloud when you ask it to.

Get started

Try it free, keep it forever

The demo is the full studio with one project and one scene at a time. Every feature works, including export to your slicer, and the paint shelf you build carries over when you buy. One-time purchase, DRM-free, on itch.io.

🖥️
Windows$19.99 one-time · free demo
🍎
macOS EXPERIMENTALSame licence. Unsigned, so first open needs a right click → Open.
📱
Phone or tabletPairs to the studio on your home network
🖥️ Get Chromatory on itch.io See what's inside

The macOS build is experimental: it is not notarized yet, so the first open needs a right click and Open, and it has had far less testing than the Windows one. Chromatory also began as a pair of browser tools. They still work, but they are not maintained and nothing new lands there. The studio is the product.