 Hello everybody and welcome to another interview with the artist and today we are sitting down with I really couldn't be more excited about this. We're sitting down with Gareth Nicholas, former GW sculptor, multi-multi-multi-time golden demon winner, all around amazing artists and somebody that I am very lucky and proud to call my friend and just an all-around great human being. Gareth how you doing today buddy? Hey I'm great thanks very much Vince and thanks for the invite to be on your show it's a real honor. You know I've been a long time admirer of the work that you're doing so yeah it's great. Well thank you sir very much just as a as a I'll share a quick personal story before before we get into the interview that I think really displays Gareth's character and why he's such an awesome guy. Two years plus ago or something I went over to my first event at Warhammer World for my first golden demon and you know I had certainly done plenty of competing in painting before then but to say I was nervous is an understatement and Gareth couldn't have been nicer he came up to me he introduced himself he was like a friend in the storm of anybody who's been to Warhammer Fest knows it's absolutely crazy because there's just so many people and so many entries and it was like completely overwhelming and he was like the nicest guy and you just like I cannot explain how nice it was to have a friend there and you made the whole experience so much better my wife is like he was the nicest guy and just says that to this day I remember you so I just want to say thank you from a personal level man it meant so much that's cool I wasn't quite sure it was you because you looked so much taller than I was expecting you know I think because the cameras above you looking down and I kind of had it in my head you were quite short and then I saw this guy wandering around I was like I think that's famous so I had to go and introduce myself but yeah that was cool well I also wasn't wearing an apron at Warhammer World so that's true yeah yeah you made a mistake there absolutely that's usually how people can know for sure but at any rate we want to get into your journey as an artist today we're going to go through all that we're going to of course look at some of Gareth's pieces up right now you can see the gorgeous Eisenhorn that he painted this was obviously one of the special edition sort of releases from a little while back and it is absolutely amazing the job he did with it one of my one of my favorite pieces amongst a host of incredible pieces that Gareth's done so let's get into it man so we start with the same place we start with everybody which is the beginning right so how did you get into miniature painting like what was your journey to decide you wanted to get into this weird hobby to collect little plastic people and start putting paint on them yes the origin story yes yeah so I knew you were going to ask me about this it was quite fun actually just thinking back and trying to remember you know the sequence of events but the first thing that got me into it was back in or it would have been I would have been about nine or 10 so we're talking late 80s or about 1990 on a family holiday in southwest UK so of course it was chucking it down the drain and me and my younger brother must have been even more of a pain than normal because my mum sort of vanished at one point and next thing I know she's come back with hero quest and that was it you know we spent must have been the whole of that day and pretty much the rest of the holiday as much as we could get away with just playing hero quest and I was hooked immediately you know I've never seen anything like that and it was you know the miniatures that I mean that was that was what grabbed me straight away see I knew we were simpatico that you were brothers from another mother because uh that is exactly the same way that I got into like the whole world of fantasy it was hero quest right like I mean I I'm with you I played that until we wore out the pieces right like it was it was just it was revel it was a revelatory experience there you go okay continue I'm sorry no no that's a cool one um so I I mean I never I don't think it ever occurred to me at the time to paint to try and paint the pieces in there but I remember looking at on the side of the box they had like all the miniatures painted you know they had pictures of all the characters and I thought they looked amazing um but then it was like probably a year or so later a friend of mine at school suddenly shows up with this space marine um and he he painted it I mean it must have been awful but it looked like the coolest thing to me and I was like what's that you know and so all of a sudden I'm into I'm into all this uh all this 40k stuff and um we lived in a fairly small town at the time and this was you know GW wasn't didn't have as many stores as it has now when they so we had to to get hold of this stuff we had to go like there's about 25 miles or something to the next town so whenever my mum would wanted to go on like one of those shopping trips to this town you know we we try and tag along and then so and then we try and get her to take us to this model shop um so it wasn't a proper games workshop but it had um you know airfix and rain and then they had a few of these of these miniatures um and I can remember the first time going there and just not having a clue what I was buying and coming back with like I think some Bretonian arches and um some adeptus arbitis and like I think my brother had some staven or something like that and of course we knew we needed to paint them so we've got some paints as well in a paintbrush but because our budget was you know I don't know a few a few quit we had about three or four paints probably I don't know maybe five and so we get home and I start I start going to paint this archer and I immediately realize I haven't got any kind of flesh tone to me this thing and one of these paints was um I think it was called elf gray obviously it's from one of the older older suits already yes um in my like 10 year old head it was like oh well you know he's not an elf but he's close enough so I'll just paint his face with this elf gray it'll be fine so so my first my first painting miniature was like this Bretonian bowman with elf gray paint straight from the pot you know slap on his face and then just whatever colors we happened to pick up all over him so it must have looked horrendous and then we played some games with him you know we didn't have any idea about the rules there was we didn't have any kind of box game or anything like that so we just made up our own game me and my brother you know I don't even know if we got dice but it was awesome you know and that was my first sort of proper experience of painting um that's awesome that's great it's funny too because I think about looking back on those miniatures I and like it's funny too because we're we're about the same age uh and uh so my experience in hitting these things was about the same time as you and I think back on those first miniatures and there's this it's hard for me to remember how bad they looked because at the time I was so overjoyed that they were even painted right like in my head I look back and I'm like oh those miniatures were cool right and but I know if I saw it today and I do still have a few of those earlier things I painted like I remember I bought the empire war wagon right and it famously on the box if you remember it was a true true 90s era color scheme right black wood uh and then alternating red and yellow shingle patterns and it was you know in like on the color wheel primary red primary yellow right uh alternating and so I was like okay well this is easy to paint all I need to do is get red and yellow and I just you know primed it black and I was like oh well the black's done and then I just started painting the red and the yellow just straight over the black one coat call it a day we're good to go just flop it on thick and and I still have that thing and now I look at it and I'm like oh god yeah I kind of wish some of that stuff still is still we're still around but you know it's been lost for for many many years I've got no idea where any of that stuff is it's probably thrown away so yeah so you you're we you start out there you're you're painting the stuff you're collecting these these things you came in through the gw route I talk often about how there's like there's sort of the four routes in and gw is obviously one of the main ones you discover space means you discover fantasy like that exactly because then good oh right because yeah because then of course when I went to a secondary school and got a new group of friends you know that was when I discovered 40k properly because they they launched the second edition gotcha and that was like oh wow we all got into that and so we were just playing you know that was it then Blood Angels was my thing they were on the box you know for second edition and um that's when I properly started collecting you know an army um yeah because that was the addition with the like captain with the big fist up in the air right you know the blood angels can alter in the fist yeah yeah yeah that was awesome yeah because you had like loads of plastic space rooms and plastic orcs in there and you had the cardboard cutouts as well for like your dreadnought oh yeah right yeah but we played games um those games against my school friends were just savage you know it was because we didn't have any conception of trying to make the game fun you know it was all trying to win and second edition if you were really trying to win there was you know you could make it a really unpleasant experience you'd load up your army with as many like heavy weapons as you could get you'd have these insane characters you know it'd always be like a chief librarian with terminator armor and the displacer field and you know and then it would be we never had enough terrain so we'd spend ages lining all our miniatures up you know getting the board set up you roll up someone would get term one and then it would be like if you if you still had half your army when it was your turn it was you were doing well you know right right as did the obliteration range from the sky from these weapons yeah yeah it was crazy so yeah it was good times and then you know it was a bit more relaxed with my brother because you know I was going to school fair distance away from where we do so me and my brother kind of got into all of the other games because that was like the first golden era of GWD now they were bringing me out like Manowar and Epic and Blood Bowl and all these other games and so my brother and I were playing those and had some really good fun with him but yeah everyone at school was like 40k you know loads of competitive 40k for a few years there gotcha so you're very into the 40k side you do it and like all the I remember that era of specialist games you're right like it was just what we would think of now as specialist games right yeah and uh it was amazing there was just like some new it it it's it's better now like we get because they they feel more integrated in the product and have good support but like at that time it blew me away you know because for me the big one I was more on the fantasy side and I had my 40k army you know like third edition 40k was the one that really brought me in I got I got tricked into playing 40k like I was a big fantasy person I was like I'll never play 40k and then they came out with uh do you remember Schaefer's Last Chancers did that when was that was that like late 90s late 90s yeah exactly yeah you see I already I already dropped out of the hobby by then because I by about 96 okay they let girls into our school ah so then like everyone it wasn't just me everyone was like oh we're not playing we're not playing that anymore you know we're too cool for that which is ridiculous because me and my friends were like the straight A students that play warhammer and like looking back on it we were never going to get a girlfriend you know what what were we thinking so we gave up on it completely so I was out of the hobby for about 20 years or something like 96 till no it's less than that yeah 96 to about 2006 okay so you spent that you had your away decade yeah yeah so anything that came out in that period I've got no knowledge of you know I came back and it was like necrons what are these you know right right right yeah they I got tricked into it because they came out with Schaefer's Last Chancers which the whole idea was it was about it was 12 guys and they were all special and they were all characters and you could play them like an army against thousand point forces right and so my friend was like oh this is all you'll need to buy every and you can play 40k with us and and you know this is what we'll do and I was like okay sure I'll give that a shot so I bought it and then three months later I had a full imperial guard army like what's that what happened here so I certainly understand the opening turn salvo because I was into the tanks and so it would just be like I would set up as just a row of tanks and this the scantest minimum amount of infantry dudes with flashlights standing in front of them and you know when it was my turn it was just time to start bombing the other side and the rules because like the rules were a little bit ambiguous I seem to remember for second edition and the rules lawyering that would go on you know it was like it doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense if you can interpret something to your advantage then that's what you were going to do so yeah those those games are just crazy yep uh all right uh I'm just answering a comment real quick here uh the uh sorry for the typing noise there we go all right so uh so you spent you you as well did your your time in the wilderness everybody I've talked to more or less has we all have that time right that time in the wilderness where we go away from the hobby it's often girl related uh so I I get it no it's very normal we all were like oh no we're gonna be cool and then we come to a point later on exactly you know where you're like oh never mind that doesn't actually matter I'm gonna go back to doing what I have fun with so 2006 comes around what what brings you back in well yeah I mean 2006 because what happened was I've taken a job in Belgium and so I had a year in Belgium on this contract and at the weekends I did not have a massive amount to do because I didn't really know very many people outside of work so I was just bored basically so I was wandering around the town I was staying in one day and I just came across this model shop and they had I think it was like wood elves had just come out or something so they had legs of wood elves in the window and I was thinking oh yeah I could just I could just buy some miniatures and paint them you know that'd be something to do so I went in I thought I think it was um high elf spearman um unit um because I always liked elves sure but they weren't the best models either those ones because they had I think they were already quite old by then so they had quite big you know not not very old them was that like the monopose uh no no because I think that was the one in the I remember there being a monopose kit in the um fourth edition right fantasy battle ball because we had that no I had the elves out of that so I was kind of I had a bit of nostalgia for them now this was like a proper I mean you could pose them a bit I think they had separate torsos from their legs but you know it was with fancy battle you couldn't really do a lot of posing sure it was like you you had this yeah you could kind of you know just supposed to be uniform so yep so you pick up these elves you're out you're out you're out there for work you're like oh yeah great okay I'll give me some elf spearmen yeah so yeah how does that cascade because that there there's your first bit you're back in right it's keep trying they're pulling me back in that's the thing so at that time I still I mean I don't have any of these miniatures but I'm pretty sure I still didn't really have a very good concept of what made a good paint job I think I was still I hadn't really grasped that you should thin your paints I think I was still pretty much just painting straight out of the pot and I was probably doing like a a line just a one line highlight on these things and maybe shading just straight into a recess with some thick paint but I wasn't you know I wasn't like producing anything of a particularly amazing quality yeah I came back from from Belgium having just messed around really painting a few bits and pieces and then that that kind of carried on for a few years so I think an edition of 40k came out maybe 2007 am I going fifth edition or something and I started painting some blood angels again and the whole time I was just thinking I'm going to paint these miniatures and then I'm going to play a game with them at some point right and so I was kind of building up these small forces and it never really happened because you know people have moved on none none of my friends were anywhere near me from from school my brother was miles away so although I was still painting this stuff it didn't really have a purpose and then it must have been around 2010 cool mini or not was kind of at its height I think and I'd seen I always remember it was the like the sanguinar that that Darren made them have painted because at the time he was he was in heavy metal I think he was lead heavy metal painter at the time and him and joe t were like just really pushing the level of painting you know because the stuff that comes out of heavy metal is always amazing but I feel like when those two were there they were kind of pushing each other and then all of a sudden they were coming out with this non-metallic metal stuff and I remember and of course the sanguinar it was blood angels so I was immediately going to love that anyway and I was just I looked at this thing and I was like that is amazing you know why why don't my paint jobs look anything like that and and so then like I say like cool mini or not was the thing and you could go on forums so I went on there and there was like tutorials on there and I joined another another forum that was kind of focused around UK painters and there was people on there that had won golden demons and you could post pictures of your work and start getting feedback so I fairly quickly worked out what I needed to do you know where I was going wrong right in your paints it was like a revelation you know because I'd heard that before and I think what must have happened was I've tried it I'd say I've got some paint I'd added some water to it and I've missed out the critical step which is to then wipe the excess off your brush ah they'll get on the miniature and it just got gone everywhere and I'm like well this is this doesn't work you know this is nonsense I'll just go back to doing what I always do I'm just gonna you know paint paint from the park because I can control the paint then you know I know where it's gonna go but once I'd sort of work that out things things move quite quickly I think uh and just having that resource because you know when I was you know you look back in the 90s and I didn't have any I mean the internet didn't really exist you know and I didn't have access to it or any way of learning how to paint there was no one to to explain oh no I mean the best tutorial we got was like a white dwarf where famously the three steps were paint shade complete like complete was a step that's not a step yeah they were awesome most things I do remember those because we had we had quite a few white dwarfs knocking about and they they were not very helpful for teaching you how to paint my stuff was always neat and like amongst my friends I was I was always the one that had more painted models most people didn't care you know that it would be a sea of gray and metal you know and I always the look of it was always really important to me but I wasn't producing good quality stuff and it took until like 2010 to realize what I was doing wrong gotcha so it was a long period of not producing very good stuff well it doesn't surprise me that you like one of the things that defines your work is is the cleanliness of paint like you have you're such a precise painter and so it doesn't surprise me that you had kind of that already in your in your quiver as you were going forward I would imagine that would serve you well so yeah yeah you're like you've always come across to me as somebody who really has like your your brush control is always very fine everything on your miniatures looks extremely intentionally placed and well placed yeah it's funny I think there's something in my brain that's like not wired up correctly or something because I can remember even as like a really young kid you know you'd be given like a drawing assignment in school or something and my my stuff would always be like intricately detailed and really neat you know but whereas other people are a bit a little bit more expressive you know and I think that's always been with me and that's always the way I paint miniatures is is always like that you know I'd say I'm technically very proficient but I always think I'm not really an artist I'm not very creative you know it's it's it's more of a yeah just a technique really a hundred percent my god do I feel what you're saying there like I the I've never felt like an artist ever right because I feel like I always feel like a technician or a craftsman often when I'm doing this more than an artist it just in my own personal experience and that's something that challenges and of course that's crazy I mean the stuff you make is is gorgeous and you make artistic choices all the time and you're like we're gonna look at some of your work and I mean there's no universe where I would look at what you're doing and not say that's art done by an artist like that would be madness uh so but but I get but unless I understand what you're saying yeah so okay so you're you're you're improving it's 20 you know it's 2010 that period after and I agree like there was this sort of thing that happened on the internet in the 2010s right where all of a sudden knowledge just started getting shared you know I look back on especially the early 2000s and there was a lot of people really pushing it and doing some incredible stuff with miniature painting like that brought us out of the dark ages of the 90s and and bright single colors and stuff but those techniques you had to like know those people basically there wasn't really a lot of knowledge sharing going on right you had to kind of be in the club and then all of a sudden something flipped like partially maybe YouTube forums like you were talking about there's just a lot of stuff that all happened in 2010s where everybody started sharing knowledge and suddenly we live in a world where we can learn from other people and everybody was like keen to start talking about it and forming a community which is awesome yeah yeah exactly yeah those forums back then were super great you know I mean some of the people I'm really I'm still really grateful to the people that followed to kind of tell me what I was doing wrong and you know give me a few pointers because it really helped and you know I make some I think in quite a short period it was about a year I made such a big jump from just producing absolutely rubbish to stuff that was half decent you know and it was all down to just people giving me some good feedback well I talk about that all the time that one of the most important things you can do in your painting is is get feedback right like get feedback from people who who know who are experienced who can actually share knowledge with you like direct feedback on your work will generally improve your your output like it'll help you take your next step on your hobby journey faster than just about anything right um you can you know you can watch all the tutorials in the world but if you then don't go and check your work you're never going to actually know how you're doing right it's like you can you can read but when you take the test it's got to get graded otherwise you don't know how well will you actually retain everything right yeah that's right so when did you make the leap then so your your your painting's improving we're up to half decent yeah well i'm never gonna say any of my stuff's better than half decent so as good as it gets very very british of you yeah so you're you're up there when did you say okay you know what i think i want to go compete like where did that jump happen because that's always an interesting leap for people it is it's an I can't I can't really remember what my thought process was because I think what what probably happened was I was sharing stuff on the internet and I was thinking yeah I think you know my stuff's decent you know it's it's comparable to what other people are putting out and I kind of thought I need to see some other miniatures like in in the flesh you know right it's all very well showing these photos but I mean I'm sure you know it's quite easy to make things not look with miniatures you can kind of make things look better than they are or you can certainly make them look a lot worse than they are if the photo is not lit well or something like that I know a lot more about that ladder than the former I've never unlocked the mystery of good photos but yes I understand that that is something some people are capable about there yeah I mean I've never been I've never been able to use Photoshop but I know I know that that is a that is an avenue that's available to you if you really care about this so yeah I was curious really and so I went to my local GW so that was Oxford as I was working in Oxford at the time so I went to they they were just running regular painting competitions I think like every month or something they'd have a painting competition um and so I mean I wasn't a regular there by any means but I just decided to go along and I took uh I'll give you this letter Fess Brax the dark held our lady that I painted and um yeah I just thought it would be interesting just to see you know what other people are doing and um yeah that that was like the standard there was not super high so that wasn't a particularly great learning experience you know it was I took along this miniature and you know it was quite a lot even wanting to be modest it was quite a lot better than anything else that was there so so I thought okay well I'll try something else and then um you know I was always aware of Golden Demon I mean obviously back in even back in the 90s Golden Demon was a thing there was no yeah no hope I was going to get to it but I knew it was it existed um and so I thought oh okay maybe I'll try that you know I'll I'll go along to um to Golden Demon and just see see what what the standard's like there you know see how my stuff compares to it sure um so that was 2011 the um the first Golden Demon I went to um that was Birmingham NEC they were still games days back then rather than Warhammer Fest but it was kind of the last few games days right so it was kind of it wasn't as big as it had been previously but I still remember being amazed when I got there you know I walked in for the first time and they've got these massive banners hanging from the ceiling with Golden Demon on them and there's always huge glass cabinets and they had like big TV screens showing the best entries that people have handed in you know this was before the results had come out so it wasn't stuff that was going to win necessarily it was just cool stuff that they'd caught the photographer's eye you know they need to bring back the TV screen thing that sounds awesome that was really cool I don't know maybe they can't do that at the Reco Arena or something but the E.C. was like it's huge I mean it was it was bigger than the Reco um yeah that was awesome so it was like wow you know this is a big time yeah um so I put I'd taken three miniatures along and I just I always stick to single miniature it's what I like painting so the the undisputed hardest category and Golden Demon it's why I enjoyed painting I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna I was aware that you might have a better chance if you painted a squad or something like that but I wasn't going in expecting to win I was just like I want to see what level I'm at you know right just I want to know maybe I'll get a finalist pin that'd be fantastic yep so I took along a 40k a fantasy entry and a Lord of the Rings entry so I covered the three single miniature categories and as the day went on you know I was like well I'm sure you can relate I was like I was I basically ignored the whole of the rest of games day didn't bother going looking at any of the stuff you know the studio yeah they were showing I was like I don't care you know I just spent the whole day looking in the cabinets or trying to you know you've got fight your way in sure yeah yeah at packs and all and then and then when the when the judges were have the miniatures on the table I'm like you know looking to see maybe they're looking at my miniature yep doing that for people who've never had this experience when you say I can relate my god can I relate like yes yes it is because for people who've never been to like Warmer Fester one of these big things I really would recommend you go it's a singularly awesome experience and just the level of what you experience there is so amazing it's just like if you enjoy miniature painting and looking at incredibly painted miniatures I mean it's it's such it's mind-blowing like it's hard for me to even put into words because I spend most of the day looking in the case just going oh my god that one's amazing that one's amazing that looks gorgeous what is that that is beautiful and and then yeah when they're judging they sit in like the middle generally and so you're just like staring through the glass like trying to get a peek of like what they're looking at you know and if you are on the table you don't want to like so because like if they if you do get pulled to the table you're like okay they're looking at my piece you know and then there's the worst thing where they'll pick it up and they'll look at it and then they'll just set it to the side yeah and it goes over the side it's like oh no it's the side move oh no anyway sorry go ahead no that's exactly the experience and I think it gets better you know I've been to quite a few of these now and I'm not as bothered anymore right I remember that first one it was it was nerve-wracking so yeah I mean I was I was ecstatic because I found out fairly fairly quickly all three pieces of your finalist pins so I was I was absolutely delighted with that and then of course I'm watching as they're judging and and then I think they went through in order and it's like you know 40k video or 40k categories first probably and then it was like fantasy and and both so my 40k one exactly as you described very quickly it was on the finalist table and then it was on the side yeah it was like oh okay and then fantasy comes along and I think pretty much the same thing happened and you know no surprise uh and then lord of the rings comes along and and miniatures are getting put on the side and and mine's still there and they're still looking at it and and in the end I wasn't quite sure what they've decided and I saw rather merit here's the chief judge at the time just go to one two three like that over three of the miniatures and I couldn't see which ones he'd done oh no and I was like okay mine was still in that group right they whittled it down but there was still a few miniatures in there um and then they put the miniatures back in the cabinets and then there was three of them on their own shelf they still do this now and mine was one of those and I'm like wait does that mean I'm one of the three you know and nobody plays to you I had no idea um so I was just going around wondering uh for like an hour or so this feels very familiar kind of thing and then and then I finally realized when for sure because they read out the names to go to the stage to play the wards so I managed to get the bronze for lord of the rings single miniature which you know that was just amazing I was I was thrilled and just to go up on stage and you know it was a big crowd in those days because you know I think you know because there was more gaming going on there was a lot more people there probably right it's not a bad crowd at war on the fest don't get me wrong but I think it felt bigger um yeah it was crazy um and then yes I'll come home with my statue and I'm like yes you know I've done it I've got I've got a golden beam and I can I can rest easy now about it and honestly I thought I'd never go back I thought that was it you know oh if we could only talk to 2011 Garrett now mission accomplished I'd sort of validated myself and I thought well that's it now you know I know I'm I know that I'm not like I'm not top level I'm not winning the slayer and I'm not getting golds for my you know 40k miniatures but I'm not far off you know so I was I was happy I was happy with that nice nice so obviously you did go back okay so did you keep competing fairly regularly over the years or yeah I think I've went I think I must have been to go on demon like I don't think I've missed a year since 2011 so yeah because I think and I think every year I've probably been through the same thing where I just go I probably won't bother going back next year and then by the time by the time six months has gone past you know I still love paintings I've still been painting things right and before you know it you've got things that you could enter into golden demon and you just think well you know I've got this I might as well go and enter it you know and and of course as the years have gone by I've met more and more people and that's going to go on demon is pretty much the only time of the year I'm going to see them so the really great guys you know Richard Gray Andy Wardle people like that I shouldn't start this because I never forget people and I don't want to upset anyone but there's a load of great painters and that's the only time that I'll see them so these days you know I go to golden demon it's made me just to see to see people and say hello and catch up with them and the painting side of it is just the bonus really it's absolutely true the community that's there is so amazing and it is a great chance because it's the same it's the same for me obviously especially because I don't live in the same country as many of these people right so it's a when I when I come over there for for Fest it's such a great chance to just actually see people and catch up and talk and hang out and just discuss the hobby and you know what people are working on and stuff like that and it's it really is a wonderful unique community that's just awesome to be a part of like I couldn't there's so many reasons to go and that's just another one in a long list right awesome so then obviously at some point you you started working for GW so you couldn't compete in the in the main categories anymore because you went into the you went into the sculpting studio right yeah yeah that's right so um so that all started um about 2015 so um I know we're gonna talk about my blood angels diorama but that was like huge piece that I did in 2015 um and once I completed that um I kind of I didn't know where to go with my painting at that point because I'd kind of I'd reached this level where I was like I don't know I'm going to do this better than that um because up until that point there'd always been like something something more that I could try you know some new technique or um you know I can make this better I could do some freehand there was always something and I kind of that was like the culmination of everything and I put so much effort into it I was kind of looking for a new challenge and I just thought well I'll try sculpting you know I've never done that that really looks like that could be fun you know and that's a whole new area for me to to start trying to learn right because I think I must have tried physical sculpting at some point and gotten nowhere with it because I had some green stuff and it was the same problem I had with painting you know there was no one to tell you what to do and I can remember this intensely frustrating experience of just you know mixing up this green stuff and then not not waiting for it to cure or anything just trying to sculpt something with it and it would just stick to the tools and it would it wouldn't it wouldn't stick to where I wanted it and I couldn't get anything close to a miniature out right right this really frustrating experience so I probably tried it once or twice and just thought this isn't for me I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know how to find out how to get how to get better but you know by the time we get to 2015 obviously computers have moved on a quite long way so I started just sculpting digitally with free software that you can still download I use Blender which is this is amazingly capable free software and I just started playing around with that and sculpting of course if you work digitally the problem you've got is getting stuff actually made physically why we're sending my designs to this company shapeways oh yeah sure and you just submit your stl to them and then you pay your money and then a week or two later a package shows up your door and they've printed your design um so to keep the the costs down I was kind of um I was sculpting really small things like uh 15 mil miniatures and got your ships you know out of nostalgia from man of war I was doing these little ships so I didn't want to commit my my finances to sculpt in full size warhammer miniatures or anything like that you weren't making like three ups or something and then having them send you a giant box in the mail because this is a thing with shape plays it was like you know you're paying for the volume of material that you were using so if you make it really small then it was only going to cost you a few pounds you know um but if if you started making decent size miniatures they were it was like you know oh I don't know 30 40 quid or something which is not the end of the world but what I what I usually found was what I what I thought looked good on the screen when I got the physical copy of it it looked rubbish you know it was nothing like what I thought because there's when you sculpt digitally there's this learning process you have to go through where you have to make it so much more graphic on the screen than you think you do because when you you know everything on the screen is huge right you think you've put this crease into some cloth or something and it's you know it's maybe 0.1 mil thick or something in reality and so you get it back and you cannot see it and so you have to go through this process and when you're sending stuff off to shape plays and waiting a few weeks you know it's kind of a slow learning process where you try something it comes back it looks rubbish you go my head I'll adjust it and then you get something else back and gradually I've got a little bit better and then at the time I was I was working in back office in a retail bank and you know the work was was okay it was fine but it was never what I was passionate about I'd kind of taken that job because I had a science and engineering background I was good with numbers the pay was reasonable um so I just ended up working there um but I realized you know maybe maybe if I keep getting better at sculpting maybe I can go you know I can make a living out of that instead and I wasn't necessarily thinking I'll work at GW I was thinking well you know maybe I'll be a freelance sculptor or anything like that so I just I just started working on that you know and and as I say it was a whole new challenge for me after the the epic painting effort so it was just a whole new load of stuff to learn which is cool you know a whole new challenge um and somewhere along the line I just I must have probably a golden demon or something I've probably ran across Matt Toon who's the the guy who runs the recruitment effort for the studio uh and got and got talking to him about you know what it would take to sculpts it's about miniatures right um and obviously the first thing was well have you sculpted anything uh you know like a warhammer miniature and I'm like no not really so I went away and sculpted a few figures that were actually warhammer scale um and I went back to him and you know it's kind of long it's kind of a long process it probably it probably went for two or three years just um I'd sculpt something I'd send send pictures of it to him um and we'd have a discussion and I'll just carry on and then eventually I applied for the um they had a trainee program well I think I think this process is still the same now at the moment look to do it you can apply to be a trainee sit-down miniature designer okay but they don't necessarily have an opening in the studio so you go you submit your letter you go through an interview process and then if you're successful you go on to this um they call it a selection program so you're given assignments and you complete the assignment you send them the file and then they print it out and you get feedback from people in the studio on what you've done oh okay that's cool so I was thinking okay well maybe I'm not going to be able to work for GW but I still want to be on that program because that feedback is like gold dust you know come yeah in the studio I want to be on that program so so yeah I signed up for that and um yeah I was successful obviously at the at the interview and gone to this gone to this selection program and then yeah I mean I can't remember exactly when that was it must have been like 2017 I think um so I did a few I did a couple of assignments and it starts off quite simple like your first one is to copy an existing sit-down miniature so they specially you three miniatures which is awesome I got this package of three miniatures in it and you had to choose a miniature to copy um and so I did that and then it moves on a bit and I asked you to do some design work and you know um before I knew it they asked me to do another interview um and I went on to it thinking it was just going to be like feedback for a you know one of these assignments and the next thing I know um Mattoon is saying oh well you're pleased to know we're we're going to offer you a job as a trainee sister miniature designer that's awesome I was like wow I was not expecting that um so I didn't have to think too hard about saying yes to that opportunity sure um yeah I moved to Nottingham started that job in July 2018 um yeah that's right um and I spent I spent about a year and a half there working in the studio um battling um a very severe case of imposter syndrome the whole time I was yeah it's like what the hell am I doing here you know you're surrounded by such talented people and and some of them have been doing it for 20 30 years and it's just amazing it's the most amazing place and they're all such uh helpful people um yeah it's fantastic um so yeah so I've been there for about a year and a half and um in the end I had to leave it's purely for personal reasons it was nothing to do with the job right the job is fantastic the people there are awesome I would totally recommend it anyone that has the opportunity to work there should do it it's fantastic yeah I don't really ever hear people who work especially in those kind of roles I've never heard anybody who left complain it's always just like it's amazing right people it's what it is you know life happens and so you know that's cool but it just it seems like every time I've ever met any of them that's that especially people in those kind of creative type roles um and I mean that for like the people who write the rules the people who design the miniatures and the heavy metal team they're all just like the nicest most genuine interested artistic friendly people like it just seems like that it seems like their recruitment is focused on getting people who are positive and who are going to be you know really like putting together a good team which I think is super important as somebody who's done a lot of hiring in my life yeah I mean that's yeah you're dead right I mean it's definitely a large part of the recruitment process is not just can you do this you know are you technically up to the level is definitely are you going to fit into the team you know are you going to be uh open to giving feedback and receiving feedback you know that's such a critical part of working in the studio you're not you're not just sitting there on your own working on your own thing I mean it's it's a really tough job it's hard work you know right and getting your head around some of the engineering stuff to do a plastic uh plastic injection molding is is pretty tricky when you're coming into it because you're not just sculpting stuff all of a sudden it's like huh I need to sculpt the miniature and think about how the mint is going to split up and it's going to fit on the frame and I'm right so you're you're trying to juggle like three separate things or at the same time and it's a whole new level of complexity but everyone's super helpful and they don't have they're not they're not expecting you to be like you know producing top-notch stuff straight away you get to work on some training projects to start with so yeah it's yeah it's awesome hard work but really really rewarding that's awesome I always think about like um you're discussing like knowing not only having to sculpt the thing but know how it's going to split onto the sprue I remember there was a story that way that I heard about the giant kit and like the sort of and the clever design of I mean if you put together a warhammer giant ever you know uh the leg is like this really unusual piece that's just like the back of the thigh and then the whole knee and then the back of the the um calf and then the front sort of sits over top of it and makes a whole leg in this really unexpected way right and it's just like it's this weird brilliant piece of of design that once it goes together you're like oh yeah of course but then you look at it on the sprue and you're like what is this which piece is this so it's just it's it's fascinating sometimes how that stuff gets split up I always think of that as like a super creative solution to that challenge of having what because they want because he wanted to have the exposed torn knee right where you actually had space inside and that accomplished it it was such a clever way to create negative space in the miniature yeah I mean there are some geniuses in the studio for doing that sort of stuff I mean I can remember Steve partied us some amazing splits on models you know there's some people in there that really do clever clever things like that yeah it's definitely a skill in itself I think some people outside the company don't realize that it's you know it's actually the designers that that do all that as well you know I think people I think before I went there I kind of had this vague idea that maybe there's a separate you know there's a separate team that like take these sculpts and work out how to how to split them up and stuff but it's actually it's all down to the designers so it's um yeah so it's a challenging job sure so uh now here we are we're at the end of 2019 uh let's talk about your real quick here before we get into your stuff are you prepping up for May are you are you ready to go like are you are you well you're back in now you were you were relegated to the open category for a little while now you're back in I'll tell you what then you see here's the here's the problem everyone thinks Darren lay them is a really nice guy when I left the studio he told me more than once that I would never win another golden demon so there's no point there's no point in me entering oh he's he's uh he's hanging that over your head huh there you go I'm writing actually but I've never won another golden demon he signed it so you know there we go now in all seriousness I have not had a great deal of time for painting and it's possible I'll enter something but if I'm going to enter something I hadn't started painting yet and so it's going to be probably my usual single miniature lord with the rings or something gotcha it's not it's not going to be a big year for me in terms of uh golden demon entrance that's all right that's all right you know you ease back into it I understand it's been away for so long uh after you know you'd never mind the fact that I think you won in the open category both yours you were competing there when you could only do open but hey that's fine uh so no that'll be great I hope to see you up there man if nothing else because obviously I'm coming over again in May it's gonna be a great time I'm sure I'll go along if I'm just saying hello to people and you know but the chances are I'll enter something I always do awesome well let's look at some pieces speaking of entering things uh hey what this that's what this show is all about awesome segways uh let's get in just look into some of your stuff so we're going to cover up gareth's face for a moment so we can all look at his stuff there you go we replace gareth with his work so everybody on the screen now uh can see your arwin and that's where we're starting so uh take us through I'm going to make her a little bigger here uh take us through arwin yeah so I mean I wanted to I wanted to include the law of the rims piece just because you know I've always really enjoyed painting them they don't they don't take me a huge amount of time so one of the one of the challenges I always have with the way that I paint is because I tend to be very precise it takes me an eternity to to finish painting things and that's why you never see me paint like a big monster or something like that because I think to finish it I'd either have to commit hundreds of hours or I'd have to kind of back off on me um the perfectionism a little bit yeah I think the lord celestant on drake off is like the biggest thing I've ever seen you enter yeah yeah that's probably right I think I'd yeah yeah I'd agree and I always find it a challenge because part of me would like to paint bigger stuff but I know that as soon as I start getting a little bit more relaxed with blends and things you know making not not making everything as neat and precise as it can be my my level of personal satisfaction goes right down you know right finish piece I'm kind of like I don't know that could be better this could be better so that's why I always end up painting single miniatures really I think because I it's a manageable project but I can I can push the perfectionism but it's still you know I can finish it within a reasonable amount of time and the Lord of the Rings miniatures kind of take that a step further because they're so timing and they haven't got that many details on them so it's usually a fairly simple like couple layers of cloth or something do an awesome job on the face do a base and call it a day you know it doesn't take a huge amount of time so I've always really enjoyed painting them and I always I always try and make an effort because the sculpts from the Lord of the Rings range are I think are amazing when you look at them closely the likeness to the actors from the films is incredible you know right but what you find when you try and paint these faces is the slightest little bit of paint out of place will totally change the look at the face and all of a sudden it doesn't look like the actor anymore so it's always I've always taken it as a personal challenge to try and retain that likeness that's in the sculpt and and have have the finished piece still look like look like the actor so I think Arwin was probably I'd say the closest I've come to achieving that you know actually retaining the the likeness of Liv Tyler and so I was proud of that piece with that one yeah this one's so good I there's there are things I want to make sure the audience keys in on that are really amazing about this piece and I agree with you like it for those who haven't painted Lord of the Rings miniatures they're in a true 28 scale right so as opposed to what we would think of is like the heroic which ends up drifting more toward 32 and even somewhat larger sometimes with your normal range of fantasy and 40k but what I love here is the I love the softness of your skin tones and the subtle colors you've captured in here but honestly what blows me away about this piece is something you incorporate into a lot of your work that I really love that you are an absolute master at and that is the sort of micro texturing and the detail you've done here on the cloth in the way you've captured the reflections through through the application of texture like you can really see it in the bottoms of the folds under her I don't know what they are her wristlets or whatever you know like that these these long hanging swoopy wrist things to her to her her coat she's wearing and then same with the reflection point where you've made it feel very silky right it just it has this satin silky feel to it where I feel like if I touched the miniature it would have that that that soft texture to it I mean obviously it isn't it's plastic but but that's how it comes across but yeah it's absolutely great yeah thanks Mark yeah yeah I think I mean that's the other thing with Lord of the Rings when you're painting it for competition it's like you've got a really simple miniature and you have to try and if you want it if you want to place you're going to have to try and differentiate it from the competition somehow so it's always a challenge to try and get you know something in there that's going to that's going to differentiate it and obviously painting the face as well as you can that's that's really important but yeah if I can get a bit of texturing in on the cloth if I can get a tiny little cheeky bit of freehanding then I will do that I think you know that's just part of that's just part of going to competition and bringing your A game right right no she's she's gorgeous I love it and yes you're right I'm sorry metal absolutely correct yes I the reason I say that is because when you're painting a metal miniature and you want to take it to that level you really have to spend a lot of time prepping it before you paint it you know you're there with you're there with really fine grit sunpaper and smoothing that surface out yeah that's what you're saying so do you when when you're doing metal do you what do you go up to with your sanding do you go all the way up to like a 400 and 800 to 1200 something like that do you use I know some people have talked about using the kitchen like the the scrubby thing you use in your kitchen like that's aluminum wire stuff or whatever okay no that never occurred to me no I do exactly as you say I have some really fine grit sunpaper I mean I haven't painted a metal miniature for a very long time now but I can remember I mean when I was getting into this gone beam stuff it was there was still a lot of metal miniatures around right and yeah I was I think I was going up to like 1200 1500 grit you know really trying to get the surface smooth because it's so important if you're going to get a finish like that you need the surface to be perfect yeah and of course for plastic you don't have to worry about that it already is perfect coming out of the mold so that saves some time I did make a whole video called I hate metal models and it was one of the reasons why because plastic has that natural smooth finish and metal you gotta work forever to get there yep yep it's just never gonna be it's just never gonna be as as smooth unless you just put in hours and hours of prep work and I'm famously hate that sort of thing so there you go all right so you mentioned the Blood Angels diorama and I'm gonna like I'm gonna skip direct to the whole diorama here so we're starting on the picture that's the whole the whole shooting match uh and you won a sword for this one this wasn't just a this wasn't just a demon winner this was a sword winner and this piece is just it's outrageous we're gonna go to the detail shot in a minute but I mean this thing to this day blows me away this is the piece you were talking about and it is this is a career you know piece I don't mean I don't think you could never do anything better I I'm sure and positive you could I'm just saying like this is something so masterfully well done and beautiful and uh and singular in its creation so so talk us through this thing because it's it's wonderful yeah so obviously by the time I started this I've been going to Golden Demons for a few years and I've been fairly successful you know I've been won a few golds by this point and I was kind of thinking what what do I need to do to win a sword you know because although you never say it deep down you really want to win a sword everyone wants to win the sword of course you you don't acknowledge it to anyone but you want to right right and and the feedback I'd always had from the judges was you know we really like your stuff you need to paint something bigger because the stuff that was winning the swords was usually like a god and a monster or it was a big diorama or something like that I mean I'm not saying the single miniatures were never winning but that was the stuff that was generally winning the slightest so of course me being me I don't want to paint a big monster I go well okay maybe I'll just paint eight single miniatures and put them on one base there you go yeah exactly yeah same same thing it's just going to take more time but yeah it's all just single guys yeah um and you know I was I was obviously as I say I mean blood angels was always my thing um and I was inspired by some of the amazing artwork that's knocking around you know there's this there's this artwork from way back in second edition of all these red armored blood angels you know and they're fighting kind of a last stand kind of pose you know and we've got this golden commander in the middle um and that's that kind of things always stuck with me and I kind of wanted to recreate it so you'll you'll see on this on the diorama there's only miniatures that were you know there's none of the newer stuff those miniatures that are in there are all stuff that was around in second edition you know you've got any definitely you've got your tactical marines you've got a terminator and then you've got a guy that's I mean he's not taiko but he's kind of taiko you know right so I had to have the the golden commander in there yeah so this was my bit at winning slayer sword you know I knew that when I started it I was like I want to win the sword and this is this is the piece I'm gonna have a real proper serious effort at winning the sword yeah it was just an absolute grind I think it took me eight months start to finish that was the only thing I worked on in my free time and um you know I was still as I started full-time job but I was putting in I was putting in a good number of hours every day because I would get up stupid early like five a.m. or something just to have a couple of hours of painting before I went to work um so I put in a lot of hours on that piece I don't know exactly how many I think that I think the painting time itself was something like it was more than 500 hours but then there was a lot more time in the planning and sure sure that all the poses work with each other and there's some conversions in there's not massive amount of conversions but the commander's got is is a bit converters and the the death company marines are they've got some conversions in them so yeah there was quite a lot of work before the painting even started but yeah I mean that piece nearly killed me it was so much effort to get it finished it's it's absolutely gorgeous and I want to flip over to this shot because you have this wonderful shot you included of like all of the detail and when I say you're a precise and really like clean painter at the detail I think this shot just shows the I'm gonna be honest insane skill that you have okay because I look at this stuff and like I would really encourage the viewers to just don't just look at this but see this what I mean by that is is you know don't just let your eyes kind of drift over it but pick an individual detail and and really zoom in like look at the here's here's just a small thing that caught my eye but is so wonderful this blood angel gem that's on the top of the gold guy in the center's banner like just the way you chose to catch the blood drop highlight with like the very slight white hitting the dot in the top center and then having a small dark spot on each side to separate it and make the white stand out more of the light reflection point at the top of the drop and then the thin white line that fades into the yellow and cascades all the way around and just like how smooth and precise that little thing is and there's there's by the way we could look around and see you know 20 other things in just this shot at the same level but it's that kind of attention to detail that your that your work always blows me away with right uh it's it's just absolutely fantastic man thanks yeah yeah I mean I was I was pleased with that I kind of look back at it now and it's like I can see things like I think I do better now but there's no way I'm gonna try and do it again so yeah it's uh it's pretty it's pretty great and that's hey you did it there you go so yeah we say we say I did it but I've still got this nagging thing now because that 2015 as luck would have it was the year where they for whatever reason they didn't have the big golden demon event you know so every year up until then it was like you'd have the once a year you go to Birmingham or late later it was Coventry and you have the big golden demon but that year they had a series of mini demons oh yeah sure so this ended up I entered it in the golden demon space marines event of warhammer world because there was no big golden demon that year so in my head I still haven't won a proper slightest or because I don't know whether I'm ever going to do a piece sure of course you would ask Trix your own work well I if you want my vote you're you're good you're fine this is fantastic all right and such wonderful use the reds too like one of the things I love here is how rich your reds are and that's all down to not only how you've highlighted so softly with when you go into the whites but also just the softness of sort of the the darker color the black the black purple crimson you know the dark color that you've used there I think really sets these guys off like they're so well separated it's it's fantastic all right so next up well again we'll start at the at the whole shot we've got we've got our custodians leader uh I'm going to call him Trajan Valeris or something like that that sounds like probably what his name is I'm in the ballpark there yeah so take us through this guy yeah I mean this one just because I think probably this was yeah this was entered into the last golden demon I could enter as a civilian if you like so it's kind of it's kind of a more recent a more recent piece and I think it just it's just a good example of pretty much all of the techniques I'm kind of well known for on one miniature you know I wouldn't necessarily say it's my favorite piece you know as a finished piece I don't I don't look at it and think yeah that's amazing but yeah as I say I think it's got it's got all the techniques in there you know you've got the shiny armor you've got some non metallic metal you've got the power weapon you've got the lion with the fur texture on it you've got the the cloth you know with the texture on that and a little bit of freehand so I just think it's a it's a good example um with the sort of thing I'll do but I think it goes back to what I was saying earlier you know it's it's a good example of me being technically proficient but not really painting it particularly exciting you know it's just take a take a stock figure paint it in a slightly unusual color scheme and then put it on a underwhelming base which is always one of my hallmarks you know you say that and I love that you say that that's so funny to me because I look at this and all I see is the artistic choices that I think are so excellent and wonderful because you've got the big purple axe and you like I'll you I've seen you do the lightning sort of weapon thing many times and you really are excellent at it like you're again it really shows off your precise control because you're great at doing that like hyper hyper thin controlled line but then the way you balance the purple with the feathers and the gems that are kind of hidden all over him and pull that around and then sweep into the warmer red from an almost cold purple I think actually sets a nice warm cold contrast the and also just the white armor here man it's singularly incredible okay because it reads as as you know this bright color and yet you've so massively executed on like the 30 40% rule of adding depth and shadow to it like you have deep shadows hidden in that armor and yet it only serves to make the armor seem brighter like right no one would look at this and see anything other than the bright color uh you're so again I think this dude's you know fantastic for so many little things and and one of the things I want to point out on this and we'll we'll look at the the close-up shot here in a minute too is you're really good with capturing light and light reflections and sort of you know having these secondary catches and stuff one of the places that it's just I want to point the audience's attention to this little tiny light reflection right here on the bird so what I'm pointing out is the bird that's on the back of his axe right and you have this little tiny light reflection that just creates a secondary volume off of like the bird has a big chest and you have that lit and light lit like a globe right but then he has this sweep into kind of uh I don't know like the rest of his body like before before the wing right and the uh that little tiny extra secondary reflection that's both on the top and then the purple tone of the reflected light from the axe and it just sets the two volumes so well and it's something I always noticed about your work that you're really good at capturing light not only in its primary reflection but in the reflected light as well and so I think yeah I think that's something I've continued to evolve at you know if I look at some of my earlier work I kind of the primary reflection was always I mean the primary light source is always there because that's kind of the easy one way the way I always approach these things is I'll take the miniature and I'll put it actually just hold it under the lamp and I'll have an idea where I want the light the light to be coming from and then just observe on the miniature where the light is collecting you know and then I just literally put the paint there you know I take my first highlight shade and I just put it exactly where the light's hitting it so that's easy um and then and then you just sort of think about it a bit more and the more you do it the more you get a feel for where the light's going to reflect you know the secondary reflections you talk about you know it's it just it's kind of I think over time you just observe things in real life and you just start to think oh yeah maybe I could I could put a reflection in there you know and and some of the reflections you add will just be purely you know there's no science behind you just you paint something and you think meh looks a bit flat you know I'll put I'll just put a bit of a reflection on there um from some you know uh mystical object that's right outside of the miniature you know just to make it look good so it's a combination of kind of thinking it through and you know taking some artistic license to try and make it just look good at the end of the day yep no it's great I switched over to the zoom in shot because one of the things you can't see from the front view is the big lion pauldron and yeah it's another great example of your your textures in play uh it looks like poor aslan down there but uh it's a great capture of that miniature it's just so much richness added to again what is ultimately a flat piece of plastic right and yet you've created like this wonderful texturing that just feels like oh yeah that's that's a furry lion head right like that's what that is uh the other thing I want to point out is I've I've one of the most common things I see people do when they make glowing effects is they just kind of have a thing brightly glow you know like it'll just be like the center is bright and then just light extends out from there yeah and I just want to point out real quick to everybody this the little I don't I'm sure this thing has a name the the the the little tiny piece on power weapons that makes it a power weapon you know the little you know what I mean the stick with the little ball on the end yeah I'm not sure I know what the real name for that is I think I think I prefer to use a power node but you know I don't think that's an official term gotcha yes let's do that let's call the node so that that node it you know I just want to point out to everybody I'll get my mouse out of the way here but like notice how he put the darkness around it like the thing itself is the brightest and then around it it gets softer but there's that line of dark and when we go back out to the big view look at how much brighter it makes the node look because there's an area of dark around it this is one thing I try to tell people all the time over and over again that like that capturing that little contrast in that area is what will make it feel like it's actually glowing and quite bright right like the light has to create a shadow you know yeah that's right all right so now let's uh let's finish out here on something pretty exciting and I'm gonna let you talk through this one because we're actually not going to look at another painted miniature instead we're going to look at something completely different so take us through uh through this lady here yeah so I think you've got an exclusive here because I haven't you've shared this on social media yet so that's why people come here for the exclusives yeah exactly yeah I know that's that's why I watched it um yeah I mean you know since I've left GW um I obviously want to carry on sculpting and this is just for fun really um I don't have a clear objective in my mind at the moment what what I'm going to do but I don't want to stop sculpting I've really come to enjoy it and love it probably more than painting um and I still love painting um so yeah this is just an example of the sort of thing I'm doing now I think one of the slight frustrations of working in the studio is there's this body of work that I've done you know for like a year and a half and I and none of it's none of it's out there yet right right I have to wait until I can share it and show people what I've worked on so yeah I mean I love elves and this is uh this is just a kind of dark healthy type type of lady you know it's just kind of fun to work on whatever I want to work on that's you know if there is a good side about leaving the studio it's that I can do what I want so I'm just indulging myself in sculpting what I want to um I'm kind of in the process of figuring out how I'm gonna you know how I'm going to get this realized physically I'm not super keen on going down the shapehase route but 3d printers are a lot cheaper these days so I'm looking into acquiring my own and doing some experiments because I'm curious whether the quality that comes out of them is actually good enough like it'd be something I'll be happy painting you know yeah out of these budget printers you can buy today how good are they I'm not going to spend 100k on like an envision tech top of the line print um but yeah that's so it's it's an interesting time for me yeah no she's really cool I dig her and as I I agree with the miniatures paintbrush who commented wow where can I buy a copy I agree put me put me second in lying behind Rob there whenever you do bring it to market if it does you've got you got two sales right here my friend you know if I just set the price high enough five thousand dollars a piece boom you're making your money back you're good to go oh no she's really great it's fantastic man I love that you're still keeping up with the sculpting I can't wait to see you know the stuff that you do here I think she's absolutely gorgeous she's wonderful and this is right in my aesthetic uh I am a well-known fan of uh you know like sexy elf murder chicks uh and so you know this seems like you're right in line with where I wear my aesthetic is so I dig it uh no it's great stuff man okay I know after a long way to go with the sculpting and I kind of like one of the frustrations of leaving GW is I was on this trajectory where I could see I was getting better you know and just because of the feedback and being around awesome awesome artists and you know learning so much so I'm determined to keep improving but I think it's going to be unfortunately a slower rate of progress when I've only really got myself to critique my work well that's all right I I have no doubt that uh that you will you will still progress uh just as quickly and make some awesome stuff there's there's I have no worries about that if this is already what you're doing I can't wait to see and uh and once those things do release we're back to back to you now on the screen once those things do release by the way you've got to pull a Tom Walton and and just you know share him out there and be like hey I made these things here you go like he's always I love following him because it's he'll always share when he when he puts out his sculpts and I love a lot of his work it's great stuff so yeah for sure I mean yeah I know some of my some of the stuff I've worked on is coming out in 2020 so yeah I'm looking forward to it cool awesome all right sir are you ready for some lightning round questions yeah bring it on okay here we go all right so number one uh what do you what do you listen to or you know have on in the background do you have anything on in the background when you're painting do you use music do you use audiobooks anything like that are you a silent it's just solid warhammer weak event you've made the right choice no I mean honestly it's it's a variety of things I listen to our podcasts I um yeah I listen to stuff on YouTube I mean that's that's when I'm painting I find it's interesting actually when I'm sculpting I might as well not bother patin podcasts or YouTube on anything that requires me to pay attention right I can't do it I can I have music on while I'm sculpting but if I'll play a podcast and I'll be sculpting for a few hours and the podcast finishes and I just think well I haven't actually listened to a word of that right so yeah painting I'll listen to all sorts of stuff but sculpting just tends to be music nice that's that's really interesting but like exact sounds exactly correct because of just the nature of how you're engaging your brain it feels like that that yeah it's it's exactly right all right tough question you've got to pick one okay and that's why this is a tough question you're ready who is your current favorite miniature painter other than yourself I'm gonna have to say yeah and you're right this is a tricky question because we can all sit here and do a list of a hundred amazing artists that's not the challenge it's who is personally your favorite if you had to pick one yeah I'm gonna have to say the legend that is Darren Mayden and he is still he is still painting so I can say that there you go yeah he's painting quite weekly now he's got his own YouTube channel he's blown it up over there I mean it's amazing but he's doing that I do not know where that month finds the time I have to say because I know what he puts into his day job and to do that as well I think is amazing so massive respect to him but you know he's the reason I I've got into all this really because if we go back to 2010 if I hadn't seen that sanguine or you know I'm not sure I would have gone down the same route so I think you know I still look at his work and I'm just amazed by it and he's the guy I've always tried to emulate when it comes to painting so I understand I have to make up for the comment earlier about him not being a nice guy well that just shows how that just shows the skill level right because if he if he made that and you're still picking him there you go it just shows him again and can I can I just I know you asked about painters but I like because this is sculpting is big yeah that's I you know what absolutely yes my favorite sculptor because that is hands down and he doesn't get enough recognition because he's such a quiet and nice guy that is said said per bait in the GW studio I mean he's like he's one of the content leads and basically anything that comes up for Ava Sidmar is pretty much down to said you know he's the guy that's coming up with all his awesome ideas and I had the fortune to work with my desk very close to his for a long time and it was amazing it's so inspirational watching him work words cannot be expressed so I have to mention said per base his favorite sculptor I mean he used to paint a lot as well back in the day he's got golden demons I think but yeah I have to mention that guy he's he's superb that's awesome uh I I have to add him to my christmas card list if he's the guy who's who's doing all this great stuff for AOS that I've been loving then yeah I need to make sure that I that I seek him out and shake his hand next time over there and give him a personal thanks I had no idea and I'll I'll tell him that uh that you know it's it's uh that that Gareth turned me on to the fact that you're the man who's responsible for so much happiness in my life so you know that's it's you're right like I the sculptors I I wish I follow all of them that I can on Twitter both within like say GW and outside that right like in the general world because lots of people doing their own sculpting as you said freelancing these days and I'm always so blown away by so much work that's going on like we live in a time that's just an embarrassment of riches right for for the sculpts that are out there and what's getting made I cannot I feel so lucky to be a miniature painter right now because I just there is there is always 10 times as many things that I want to paint as I would ever have the hours in the day to paint right and that's that's an amazing position to be in okay don't worry I've seen I've seen the future and it's only gonna get better my friend don't don't tempt me like that I'm so excited all right well that's good uh okay what is your what is your again you must pick one what is your favorite color of paint yeah yeah um you know I'm gonna have to say it's snake bite leather and I'm talking about the paint not the contrast paint the outer production yes the original snake bite that was the secret for many years of my non metallic metal and although I've tried to replicate it by mixing other paints I'm not sure I've ever quite got there so uh I'm gonna have to go with that one gotcha we need we need to get them to to just do a special run it'd be like the sejuan sauce at mcdonald's right where they just like the greatest hits and that would be that would be one of them like a special run of like the 90s hit paint kit where they could just it would be like snake bite and maybe like the original there's a couple other ones like maybe the original like moot green or something like that you know there'd be a couple from that time period there you go maybe that purple ink that they had back in the day that was amazing yeah um each purple that's another one we need to bring back because the purple lines they're all quite cold purples and I feel like that one's got a lot more virginity that they should bring my back there you go uh all right and this last question you can construe it in any way that you would like okay so you here's here's the question what are your favorite type of minis to paint and you can construe type however you like whatever that type means scale you know elves like whatever you like what's your favorite type yeah I mean it's it's it's GW's warhammer scale and it's basically it's GW miniatures you know I've I've tried painting miniatures from other manufacturers and whether it's nostalgia I think that's about a big part of it you know GW is what I grew up with and that's the style I like and so I'm always going to come back to those miniatures I paint other stuff I painted some infinity there are some miniatures you know there's nothing wrong with them but it's not it's not what I'm excited about so it's always going to be I'm always going to come back to the 40k and I'm interested see what comes about yeah I mean for those of us who that was and by the way if folks in the chat have questions you can feel free to drop them in now and we'll we can always do a couple quick questions before the end happy to do so so if you've got a question drop it in there but no I get that because it's you're right it is part of like some part of our brain is locked to that my my experience is being very close to your own right in that I started with hero quest for me it led to D&D but then right back to warhammer fantasy not long after that and you know I I still remember you know I got I inherited a a bunch of like battle masters figures I used for an empire army for a while but then I I was in a store maybe the first time I like actually went to a real proper game store after I started playing I walked and I saw all the scaven on the wall and I was just like oh my god this is this is it this is the greatest thing in the history of things ever you know and it just like it it indelibly imprinted itself you know on me right and to this day whenever I need to like clear my head I just paint a scaven mini right just for myself it's just it becomes that palette cleanser there's a there's a comfort zone to it right uh because it's been with you for so long yeah so I get that a hundred percent all right uh oh Travarian hey what's up Travarian uh he said can you get snake bite through coat to arms because I know they still make some of the original colors is it maybe I should look into that yeah I know they make some of the original ones I don't know I've not tried I have to admit well there you go all right I think I can I think I can get close to it with my with my secret mixes your your seven secrets spices and and and recipes yeah I got it all right uh Rob from Miniatures Paintbrush says uh pro painter is a term that doesn't truly exist but clearly you're in the upper level of painting royalty do you consider yourself a professional painter um no I don't think so because I've tried I did have brief experiments we're trying to make money painting which is I would turn if he's calling yourself a professional painter to me that says you're you're making your living from it right and I did I have toy I've played with commission painting I've done a few commissions for people but it wasn't for me so I definitely wouldn't call myself a professional painter I've never painted for every metal I've you know I've done very few commissions it's it's always just been a hobby for me all right right on uh so this would be an interesting question to kind of turn because I honestly don't know how much you I think you use some so uh the question from Minitrix was uh when do you decide to airbrush versus you know traditional brush like how do you integrate that into your work yeah I mean growing up obviously it was always just using a brush and usually not a very good brush um and I sort of became aware of airbrushing sometime in you know that 2010s decade um and I could see the advantages because I kind of came to it fairly late it's never been a big part of my work um I do I do have an airbrush and why most Minitrix I paint now I will put down a base coat with the airbrush right um if the Minitrix is in sub-assemblies then I'll use that to my advantage and they'll be you know I'll use different colors on different sub-assemblies but it doesn't usually go much further than that um I have there are pieces I can think of like I did the um I've forgotten the name now it's the the uh in that triumvirate of Inya the the lady with the cat she's got a big flowing dress behind her oh yeah sure I did a color fade on that and I did use the airbrush for that um just to you know get that initial color fade down but usually no very little airbrush work for me it's something I'd like to do more of really but then it's just easy to pick up the brush and just get on with that rather than mess around setting up my airbrush and you know because I don't I've never used it that much I'm not that proficient so there's a good chance something will go wrong and you know it's just easy to stick to what I know I'm doing sure I'm good sure absolutely all right well sir it's been an absolute pleasure thank you very much for coming on man it's great to talk to you it's been my pleasure Vince is like I said at the start it's it was a real honor to be asked to come on here and I kind of thought wow he's scraping the bottom of the barrel if he's asking me to interview an artist I'm not sure I'm an artist you may that you mentioned that originally I think that's crazy crazy you are my friend no I am so thrilled you came on it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you sir and uh hey I'll see you in uh maybe like six months ish right yeah it's fantastic that you come over you know that you met the effort to come over for a UK Golden Demon I know you've got your US Golden Demon now so uh oh I'm still coming over to the UK you know I see yeah you believe you me I don't plan on not showing up it just means that I've got to do more work in advance right but but it'll also give me a chance to hopefully get feedback on something before I then bring it over there you know so it's a win yeah yeah if I fail once and can get good feedback then I can go back and do all the extra work and then come in ready to go see it's yeah look at it that way yeah I like I like the way you're thinking man all right well Garrett thank you very much sir to all of you who are watching thank you very much for watching really appreciate it as always we'll see you next time