 Hello everybody and welcome to another interview with the artist and today. I am honored Honored is the best word I can I can say by to be joined by somebody who mentored me even though they had no idea They were doing it just through their wonderful blog and inspiration of all the great miniatures and everything Meg Maples, how you doing? It's so good to have you on Thanks Vince for having me. I'm really happy to be here and I was quite introduction. So thank you It's a hundred percent true. I remember one of the first competitions. I went to Somebody asked me who is your like who is your your inspiration? Like who's an artist you like that you want to paint like and I said your name like that was it was the only the only source I quoted right there. So that that's a statement. I think more than anything It sure is and I really appreciate hearing that it's um You know and now that I've been teaching for about 10 years It's really nice to hear that I've had a positive influence on people in the community because that's you know What you hope for when you teach a hundred percent You've done so much great work that I like that I in fact love and has been something that I know I've picked up as part of my own style my you know Trying to directly incorporate as best as I'm capable those things that you've done and we're going to look at some of that wonderful One of the wonderful art later. I've got a piece up on the screen right now for everybody But of course as always I thought we'd start at the beginning. That's usually where we like to start on this show So as I always say this is a very Weird hobby we have Meg like we We decided to take little tiny plastic and resin and sometimes metal people And put paint on them as a thing to do So how did you come to this very strange hobby that we love? uh in a Very unexpected way So um, I know a lot of people out there probably started when they were you know in high school or around that age and found maybe Dungeons and Dragons or war hammer and got into it when they were kids I knew that Dungeons and Dragons existed when I was in high school, but um, I was permanently in the jock crowd I was always into sports and I was into Army ROTC in high school and in college and everything so Like getting into nerdy stuff was really not on my radar It wasn't until I went to university and I started dating a guy and At first, you know, it was just like casually dating and he just set up the boundaries that every Weekend he would have this guy's night where he would go and hang out with his friends And they would do things together and that was just not to be infringed upon basically that was his time that he needed during the week This sounds very familiar to me Yeah, and I'm like, you know, that's cool. That's fine. Like I've got cool work that has to get done So I'm not too worried about like letting him have you know a night a week Um to go do whatever he wants So that was a fine by me and then it was about a month into dating that he decided that we needed to have a Really serious conversation and he sent the request to me like text He's like, hey, can you come to my house after class and We need to talk and of course, you know, I'm sitting there in the middle of class like freaking out about what it is That we need to talk about thinking he's gonna break up with me and so I just said that over the text I said well, if you just want to break up like let's do it now and not You know, worry about it later and he's like, no, no, no, it's not that just come on over I just need to talk to you about something So of course like for the next hour and a half. I'm thinking it's the absolute worst Like you've got some horrible secret or some horrible thing that he has to tell me and So, you know, I've been like preparing myself for the worst and then I get over to his house and he Pits me down and He proceeds to tell me that he plays this game with his friends every weekend and it's a game called dungeons and dragons and I was like Okay, um, I said well, I don't really Know anything about it other than it It exists and it's what the nerds in high school played and that was about all my experience with it And so I asked him what it was about and he thought he was being punked there for a minute and He didn't really know I had a response to a girl being interested in his hobby. So When he recovered from that, he Proceeded to show me all his miniatures modules the monster manual. He had all of the like, you know, from the very first edition of Dungeons and Dragons and he had his gray box set still and he pulled all that out and What we did for the rest of the night. He just showed me dungeons and dragons and miniatures And then I felt interesting going to His game just to meet his friends and see what the game was all about and kind of get a better understanding And From there, I saw some really awesome minis and really cool artwork in the third edition of the Dungeons and Dragons book and Just got hooked and thought it was the coolest thing ever and I once I got into miniature painting. I've described this to a few people But it's like the activity that I always knew that I wanted without never knowing it existed Like I'd always been fascinated by small things doll houses, you know, putting model kits together, which my dad Encouraged he would buy me model rockets and cars and things like that. That's what we do on rainy afternoon So I always had an interest in in things like miniature painting But miniature painting was really what the activity that I had always always wanted to do without knowing it So when I found it it was just like finding a piece of my soul essentially That's awesome. That's so wonderful Uh, I and I you know, it's very funny like there's so Many echoes of that story for me, but from the other side of the equation. I will say Because as somebody who was uh Certainly a nerd in high school and certainly played d&d throughout high school and in college and had that night where I told my My now wife, I was like look this night. This is it. This is This is a sacred night. This doesn't get interrupted. And by the way, that's still true 20 years later with my wife So she's clearly a saint. Um but the That's a that's a really interesting inroad because you you had this obvious Uh connection to it so quickly. Were you into did you ever do any kind of art? You know, did you have any artistic training or did you do art in high school? Or you know anything like that beforehand or was it just like this was literally kind of the first artistic big expression Um, I always like to draw and do arts and crafts and things like that growing up and um, I'm the oldest of five kids, so Uh, whatever my parents could you know do relatively on the cheap to entertain us was good and arts and crafts was always one of those things because all you needed was a ring of paper and some crayons and the kids would be set for hours Um, and that seemed to hold true all through high school for me. Like I was encouraged to keep a sketchbook and doodle when um, did art classes and stuff like that through high school but um, when I expressed an interest in becoming an artist and going to art school in university That's when I was discouraged from it and I was told it was an impractical profession and I'd be a starving artist for the rest of my life and it's really hard It's really competitive and you'll never be as successful as you want to be and it's just a pipe frame and you should never do anything in the art field and um that I found a little bit boldest drawing and Unfortunately, you know my parents put the contingency on my education that if I wanted them to help me pay for my education Then I needed to do something that they approved of so I kind of abandoned art at that point and um went in For some reason they thought anthropology and studying archaeology was far more practical than art So i'm not sure why You can become indiana jones and that obviously pays very well. He seems to live a nice lifestyle My mom's argument was that you can always become a professor You know if they could go in and get your phd and then you could get funding to do research During half of the year and then funding to do excavation during half the year which She is correct. Like that's how it worked for account card um, but it's I would say an even more competitive field than getting into art is like it's super So, yeah, so I guess I had this This craving and desire to do art when I found miniature painting because I had otherwise abandoned everything else that I Was interested in because that's what the adults in my life were telling me to do Gotcha. Gotcha. No, that makes sense So you find a miniature painting now. What's interesting is coming in through dnd I would imagine like the miniatures that Uh, your then boyfriend had and probably that you were that you got into painting initially were more character based, right? Or maybe some monsters here and there but more kind of like single figure stuff So you didn't have the army track, right of like I I am somebody who's gonna paint 150 figs to even play this game You were sort of more bespoke right one one in one time The only army painting I have done has been for privateer press and that's still on a you know model by model basis essentially when you're a staff painter like that, but otherwise I've I mean I've painted Two convergence armies when it was released From privateer And that's that's pretty much it. That's the extent of my my army painting Otherwise everything has been either monsters, you know Couple of character models here and there at a time for people That's that's how I I got into it And I quickly found my footing with miniature painting to the point where like people at the local games store Were starting to ask me if I'd paint their characters for them and you know being a starving student Um, I was like, yeah, sure if I can make an extra 50 bucks a week. That's groceries right there Right Nice nice So do you think that informed some of your journey as it went on because I think when I know for myself When you know starting as like an army person because I came in through warhammer itself So when I had to paint a whole bunch of stuff your and speed is what you're always going for right when you're an army painter Do you think you coming into single figures? Yeah, like from the start being this Set your expectations differently like you didn't have to reset your expectations to go I'm going to spend a couple hours or 10 hours or 20 hours or x amount of time on this single mini Like do you think that reset expectations for you from the beginning? Or did you still train the endurance muscle all the same over time? Yeah, I still train the endurance muscle only because I was Like a full-time university student and also working part time When I found miniature painting so I didn't have a whole lot of time to spend and I used miniature painting sort of as my carrot You know like I so I made sure that I got my studies done my chores I went to work all that and then that was when I break out my Paint to my mini shirts and put something like Lord of the Rings on in the background and um, I use Some people might find this funny. I'm pretty sure so there's a few people out there that can relate to this Um, when you have the Lord of the Rings extended edition, you know, roughly the lengths of each dv So I would turn into painting sessions by the length of the dvd That's awesome. So you got so you got one session is uh is fellowship and one session is two towers And then one for return of the king boom. Yeah, nice pretty much so um When I first um, I so people often say Mentor painters must be very patient people Because of what we do and anyone who knows me personally knows that I am not a very patient person And so that's something that I've had to sort of train Is to become patient with miniature painting over the couple of decades. I've been doing it So when I first started I still was like, okay Well, I only have you know three hours to paint so I need to finish this many in three hours And so I did start by just I mean similarly painting to army painters without knowing it was there was a fixed amount of time I had to get it done then and then so I I became very quick at painting and then I noticed that my quality was improving after I got the speed down Gotcha. Okay. No, that makes sense So I'm interested then in the sort of journey to Uh, the journey into working for p3 and you know, like how did how did that? Where did that arc happen? Where did that happen? Where did that occur? It happened over a few years Um, and I guess I have to thank global financial crisis for me being a professional manager painter because that's Pretty much what made the decision for me um after university I went and worked as an academic counselor for university of phoenix, which Anyone was a student at university phoenix. I'm sorry They don't have the best reputation these days and they didn't even when I was working for them But it paid the bills and that's what you did um I ended up getting let go from that job during the financial crisis when they had to tear down their staff and I was living in texas at the time which was where I was working for university of phoenix And I just happened to have a house that was about two miles from the reaper factory And so when I lost my job, um, I Just started looking for anything and reaper They needed a couple extra bodies because they had a contract come through to do some limited edition figures for I think it was a a video game and So they taught me how to cast miniatures and I did a good enough job And they had somebody quit while I was there that they hired me on as a caster and then that Turned into being a caster and just a general warehouse monkey during quality control and packing and Shipping out orders and basically doing everything on the factory floor other than working with the paint And since I was working for them in that capacity if they needed something painted up really quickly Oftentimes overnight then I would stay up all night and get things painted for them so that they could have a release the next day And so it was just I don't know I was there for A year Two maybe I can't remember it all went so quickly and then I ended up finding out about Privateer wanting to hire another painter And I just heard about through the grace line I think it was Jason Levy who actually contacted me and he knew of the opening and to get in touch with Them and submit my portfolio and you know see how it went And so that's what I did and I was persistent about following up the contacts with privateer And after I had the interview and everything and they Eventually offered me a job and I don't think they were expecting me to say great. I'll be there in two weeks because They were expecting me to you know Pack up my house and sell it and do all that in order to move to Seattle but Yeah, I basically pulled everything I owned other than what I could fit in my car And uh rented out my house and moved up there Nice nice Okay, so that's how I that's how I got started at privateer and Then it was two and a half years at privateer before I had the opportunity to come to australia and that kind of set things in motion to um forge out on my own Gotcha. All right. Nice. And I do want to talk about the the australian adventure as you are an expat You're in australia right now, but uh, but obviously I think and you've been there a while Uh, and I I would suspect you're not leaving anytime soon given the ties you've got there Uh, so But but what I want to understand here is so I want to think I want to just kind of talk about over this time period You're you did some painting there for Reaper. You're painting for p3 Um, I'm sure there's lots of other people and artists over here I know also worked p3 and also did work for Reaper and stuff who you were you were talking to and meeting with Um, do you did you find yourself competing or anything like that during this time period or you know? How do you how did you look at that? Yeah, so I mean if you're a professional painter and you want to be relevant you have to compete Particularly in american things like that is something that you have to do. Um it's So now now that i'm living living in a different Culture there I've you know, there are some differences that I've taken note of since moving here and with the way that the differences in the painting communities operate and in the u.s. I think it's just More of a cultural thing that we kind of um, you know elevate anyone who's won awards There's a certain level of prestige that we have to fight to them. Um There's a bit of you know, I guess because of the the close uh Ties of hollywood and everything and sort of celebrity worship We've kind of filled out into miniature painting as well to a certain degree And so I think that's why competing is such an important part of american paint of the american painting community um If you do want to be someone who is continually working on a commission level or on a studio level Then you need to go to competitions. You need to compete. You need to win awards You need to have the accolades in order to continue to be relevant once you sort of stop that you'll notice that you know You'll still have some fans that will always be there and and will Pull over your journey no matter what but then once you stop really competing You sort of just go by the wayside of it in terms of your general exposure within the community Um, we're appeared. That's not so much only because we don't really have that many competitions and right now like the one competition that I go to every year. I am either organizing or judging and so I cannot compete Yes, you you uh, and I want to talk about that. So let's talk about australia. So you come to australia And what's your experience when you get down there? What what what what happened that trapped you in to that continent on the bottom of the world there So I I was originally asked to come to australia as a special guest by jason wagner who was a Press ganger for privateer at the time and he originally contacted me because we had chat on the Partier forums a little bit and he asked would privateer ever send anybody down to australia as a special guest Or would be or would they ever send, you know a boost down to a convention? And I explained that it was highly unlikely just due to the cost Involved with something like that and you know, even though privateer seems like a huge company much like reaper does they're still you know, like relatively small businesses and So anything that has a high cost like they really have to make sure that it's worth it for them um And so even though I had sent that discouraging reply I then followed up with but there's nothing saying I can't take my vacation and come down and do something with the community there So, you know, I only had two weeks of vacation at privateers and so I was like well I can come for a full two weeks and you know, I can come to Canton and be a special guest and then maybe I can do a class somewhere and just kind of recoup some of the cost and He was all for organizing that and then it quickly turned into well if you're coming. Why don't you hit a couple of other cities? so I was asked to go to um Teaching Canberra to teach an Adelaide. I think I also went to Brisbane Sydney and and then I was asked if I was also going to New Zealand before I went back So a two-week trip quickly turned into a six-week trip And when I did all the calculations, um, I was going to make my entire privateer prep salary in six weeks. So It seemed the right idea to leave privateer at that time and so pursue teaching on my own and uh to be able to have this opportunity to go to Australia in New Zealand for six weeks um, and while I was there Mark my husband he and I had met each other on the August Painters Forum back in the day and we had you know like knew who each other were and Kind of kept in touch Very very casually through forum um So when he heard that I was coming to Canton which was an hour away from where he grew up He decided that he was going to come and hang out and meet me and see what I was all about because no American painter had ever come to Australia previously Gotcha, and so came and he um uh saw that I was doing a one-on-one with somebody at the convention and um, he interjected a few things and um Then that was the beginning of everything really he didn't leave my table for the rest of weekend Very nice Uh, so you stayed down there. You've been painting, you know the whole time still continuing Uh, what and and obviously you took over Uh, the crystal dragon at can con at some point, right? And how did you find running that because it was I'll say this obviously I know you didn't run it this last year You actually did get a year where you got to paint a little and put something in there, but um from everything I was so impressed By that competition. It's amazing the the level the quality just the way it's run I thought it was fantastic and obviously I I interviewed Trent and he said look that's all Full credit to meg who who really took this up. So how did how did you find that running that over the years? um, so So the the year that I was at can con was 2014 and um, I actually entered into the can con painting competition at the time Because you know, why not like I'm just there as a special guest and they Nothing extra really to enter um, and I think there was maybe 14 entries for the entire competition and um, it was just so poorly organized and run and I mean even organizers I think would have to admit that you know, they just didn't really have the time or the knowledge of how to make it better because the guys who run Can con are firmly like war gamers and dnp gamers and board gamers like painting is just something that They know happens within the hobby and they can appreciate to a certain degree But they just have no idea how big opinion competitions can actually be and how important they can be so, um, I uh Basically begs them to let me take it over and it took some, you know Negotiations of how it was going to happen and what expectations were going to be for the competition and um, I had to sort of give into some of their requests in order to Have The majority of the competition run the way that I wanted it. So they um originally had us on the uh main game floor So if you cannot you you were there this year, you know, how noisy it can be in the middle of the gaming hole and They had us right in the middle of everything because they wanted to have maximum amount of exposure they wanted everyone to see the really awesome painted minis But unfortunately that sort of took away the community aspect that I was going for because it was so noisy Nobody could really talk there wasn't like even though he had tables and spaces for people to come hang out It just wasn't comfortable. The lighting was terrible. I was hot um And so I you know, we we made the best of it essentially in the first year we had 40 entries and I believe we we actually had categories the first year as well because that's what everyone wanted when I was asking what they wanted out of the painting competition um And you know, so like we had a fairly good turnout for our first year I wasn't expecting a whole lot. I was just hoping that we'd get you know more than like three people entering which we did And so it evolved over a couple of years and finally after the second year of being in the main game hall I was able to To negotiate getting the space that we're in now which is upstairs and away from everything. So it's better lit It's quiet. It's the best air-conditioned space for the whole weekend Which is very important because it's a weekend that is often, you know, over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. So um to have the best air-conditioned space for painters is important um And then it also just allowed it to grow into more of like a community and a club Feel like to me it feels like just a really awesome club hang out for a whole three-day weekend Um, which was what I wanted. I wanted it to be a space where people could come together Paint together who don't normally get to see each other, but we all know each other online um share ideas Uh get critiques off of each other because no matter how good a painter you are you can always learn from somebody else You know and so I My whole aim with the competition was to a create a competition that kind of filled the void when golden demon left Because that used to be the one big annual get together for Australian painters and when that left sort of competition and display painting kind of Went by the wayside And a lot of people missed that but the felt in market is included in this He felt that he didn't only have anything to paint or some white paint and you know A lot of people have ended up turning to either video games or just doing more tabletop gaming and less painting so um So yeah, it I took on a lot of suggestions from people and so there's a lot of criticisms from people and Kind of just evolved crystal dragon into what it was And I also took some of the experiences that I had when I went and competed in and with teaching in Europe for a couple of years I took the best parts of those shows and brought them back I and incorporated them into crystal dragon. So I quickly realized that you know, we're never going to be a competition that's going to have you know hundreds or thousands of entries so I just do away with categories And that way you're just looking at the quality of the painting and if the quality of the painting is up Just not then you get an award I didn't want to have a first second and third place competition because I feel like that breeds a certain amount of unhealthy competition right As opposed to a cooperative competition and we're such a small community here in australia and also in new zealand That um, it's more important for me to foster the friendly competition rather than the Uncooperative type of competition Makes total sense. No, and I agree you can feel the difference When it's in something like an open system, you know, which you went to there's really much more I because there's a couple I go to a couple different competitions here in the states And some of them are top sort of three and some of them are open system And there really is a whole different feel to the open Yeah, I definitely I think so and you know that's after What 10 years of competing in the u.s. Where everything is pretty much just per second and third and then going to Some of the biggest competitions in europe Which are all open competitions from the park and it's a huge difference like all of the competitions I went to in europe pretty much feel like just a gigantic party with a painting competition Tax on the end of it Like it's more about the community coming together and having a good time and having that camaraderie rather than You know actually one up in each other and beating the pants off of each other, which is how I feel My experience were in the american competition scene was that you know, everyone was sort of Delight to each other to their face But then there was a whole lot of talk and you know general nastiness that went along with That's highly competitive Sure makes complete sense All right, so are you taking back over next year is uh is 2021 are you are you running it again the show again? So I brought trends on a couple of years ago When I started having some health problems and I just couldn't keep up with it and it was Stuff that I was having trouble getting a doctor to diagnose So that I think was one of the best decisions I made though. He's really really really good at organizing things Because that's essentially what he does for a living is he organizes things and people Um, so Trent will always be involved with organizing the events But um mark sabbatian and I are going to be back As judges next year So this was just our one year that we wanted to have a little bit of a break to allow ourselves to paint entries Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your viewpoint mark and I made the decision to buy a house And um, it's a hundred year old cottage So it kind of needed a whole lot of work and our painting studio was kind of packed up for about seven months So we didn't really have the opportunity to paint much of anything for the competition It's a couple of things I did paint before we had packed up our studio our piece of competition Because um, but I was glad to see that said actually took the opportunity to not only paint something But sculpt something. Yeah, and his piece was unreal. Yeah, it was it was fantastic Yeah, unbelievable. Um, I still don't like for somebody who doesn't paint all that regularly anymore I don't know how he can pull off the masterpiece like that and he's like, yeah, it's nothing. It was fine It's just so humble about everything All right, well speaking of pieces uh that are amazing and inspiring and masterpieces. I how about we take a look at some of your work All right All right So I'm gonna go ahead and bring that up. So the the viewers can't see you anymore. They can only see your your work here Uh, all right. So, uh, we're gonna start off here We've got uh, and and I've seen this big although I will openly admit I don't remember his name, but it's the dwarven explorer type of guy He's like going for his sort of his knife or his long skimitar type weapon This is such a good such a good fun piece like there's a lot of little details I want to draw the The viewers attention to of course the first thing that jumps out is the the wonderful Resin work and the sign and the wonderful weathering on the sign where you can just see it saying keep out Uh, but also the pants. I don't want the viewers to miss all that wonderful Beautiful like plaid detail in the pants. So so freaking fantastic Uh, so this is great. What what uh, what uh brought you to this piece? Why do you want to do this one? What's the story behind it? So, uh, this piece is called random encounter and like the actual name of the model from fair miniatures and I have used this model for the last couple of years in my beginner's classes As the class model and so I've painted several renditions of him and This particular incarnation was a class model Um, so that's what drew me to paint him. Um The the reason I use him as a class model is because he does have a lot of really good surfaces to try And paint throughout the weekend. So, you know, he's got basically plain clothes that you can paint with whatever texture you want Um areas where you can do lots of freehand. He's got that majestic beard for painting hair He's got enough skin that you can, you know, work on painting skin and then we still have metallic So for me, that's what I'm looking for when I'm choosing a class miniature Just having a diversity of surfaces so we can try a bunch of different things in class um Now since I have painted this many so many different times I tend to let the classes dictate what I paint. Okay, so That's like I'll ask them, you know, how do you want me to paint the pants or, you know What kind of hair color do you guys want to see any paint? Like what do you want me to demo essentially? so, um, that's how the The color choices came about essentially was just letting the I think I did this one Actually, it was in a private coaching but again, that was still a class Right. Um, I had two people that weekend and so they chose some of the colors and I showed them that freehanding wasn't scary by doing the plaid on the pants Which is actually a lot simpler than people think it is um And then from there I was like, well, what am I gonna? What am I gonna base them with and I'd already done one that was like next to a big tree and kind of looked you know happy and summery and Just very nice since I thought I'd go kind of the opposite direction and go with something that felt a bit more swampy and dangerous His name is random encounter. You know, you never know what you're gonna come I just kind of had fun when I did the base and just We did something different that I hadn't done for a while Nice. No, I like it. I like that the bird is like looks like he's about to take off too You get the impression that like what he's reaching for his sword for and the bird about to take flight Is all a very connected moment. We're just on the precipice of here Yeah I dig it and obviously be something dangerous in the water with the keep out fine. So There you go. Uh, I do have to give a full thumbs up to the color choice as well Uh purple and uh sort of cyan teal, whatever you want to call that is uh, you know right there That's that's uh, that's my wheelhouse. I love what I love what you're doing there I also love the naturalistic color of his outer cloak, right because he is out in the wilderness out in the This place where he'd want something that's much more natural colored, but I love that he's still bright You know, he's got he's got a bright personality He likes some some some uh some kick and clothes, but he's not foolish He still wears like something nature oriented for his outer cloak. It's great Yeah Yeah, he's he's a little flamboyant But he he realizes that he still needs to have some camouflage in order to blend in with his surroundings Like as you were alluding to earlier There are colors in the base like with the colors of the mushrooms and some of the foliage That even his clothes that he's wearing that might seem a bit flamboyant or brightly colored They still fit with his environment Absolutely. Yeah, I love it. It's great It's a it's a really good example because the purple obviously purple can often be an intense color But the extra elements on the base really helped to balance it out spread it around not to mention up in the bed Roll on his back, which also has some of that purple hidden in there. So it's it's really wonderful. I like it Okay All right. So next up Uh, this is Ariel. I think is the name of the miniature and uh, I've seen uh, this is a pretty uh A popular miniature for lots of people to do renditions of but this one's really really impressive just The plinth and the background and how you've integrated everything together here. I think is absolutely magnificent So, uh, tell us. Yeah, tell us the story behind this one. I especially want to know Where did we get the background piece like where did that the sort of octopus's garden piece that's on the window in the back Uh, come from like what how where did you come to this because this is just such a cool creation Okay, so this piece is one of my favorites that I've ever done. Um For a number of different reasons. So it's a bastion archer who obviously I'm friends with he sculpted Ariel Um, and he when I said I wanted to paint He said that he had seen lots of different people paint it But he had never seen anyone paint it with the traditional disney colors for ariel So I went with it and I just happened to grow up, you know when the little mermaid was all the hotness and um Had a soft spot in my heart for Ariel and so it's a sort of natural um A natural process I guess to to use those colors and to come up with a more modern day story for her Um, so that's that's the reason for the color choices on the model itself was it's the classic disney ariel color scheme but modernized a little bit and then um So I figured well if I had ariel and she you know She has a weapon in her hand and she looks like she's about to do something pretty badass like getting ready for a pose and Make a stretch spin out a little before she's about to go on the attack She obviously has to have you know some sort of enemy So, um, I decided that instead of trying to put an enemy on the base itself like next to her that I needed to have something a bit more dramatic And so I decided that I was going to freehand the octopus on the base and the octopus being Ursula Nice nice. No, I love it. It's so it's so creative too because The the plinth is off is black often plinths are black right as it is here when they're not just naturalistic wood And it feels like it's suddenly like when you put the octopus in there, it feels like it's just deep sea right? it's down in darkness away from the light and We've got the the octopus reaching up and and even crossing out into sort of reality there Uh on the edge of the base, which is amazing Yeah, so um, so also the the color scheme for the base itself came from The little mermaid movie as well You know when she's in eric's kingdom and everything is so brightly colored and fun shine everywhere And so I took the colors from those scenes of inspiration for the colors for the sort of aerial secret garden as you put it And thought about you know, what would it look like if I were to just take a little slice of maybe a public garden out of kingdom and Put her in it. So the the piece The window piece that um, you were asking about that's actually just a jewelry medallion from michael's craft store Nice Jewelry can come in very handy. I have a whole box of beads and different pendants and things like this because you never know what you could use them for Um, and then otherwise it's just a piece of plastic card that it's been Glued to and I used uh speckle to create the texture Nice That's awesome. I I love like repurpose like that because it doesn't it does not feel like that that feels such a distinct Like set piece of this world. Um, it doesn't So it like it doesn't feel like that's what it originally was something else. That's great How well it's all integrated and I think that's what I like about this the positioning of it is really Uh, it's really strong too. Just the compositional elements of where Um aerial isn't centered, right? She's off center some and that gives the octopus a lot more space the holes and sort of the Holes in the base as it were I just I really love the The way that the lines in this piece work between where the octopus tentacles are reaching up and then where she like the sort of Slightly contra posto position. She's in and then the way the mirror or the window connects to that. I just it really flows well Uh, awesome. Okay. Well, this said super cool And it's so funny too because I hadn't connected that it was aerials actual colors, right? Until you said it and then I was like of course in it. That's why it like that's but it clicked Like when I saw it I was like it just resonated, you know The colors worked and then as soon as you said that I was like, oh, that's there you go. Boom It was it was appealing into my childhood disney brain and I didn't even realize it I honestly, I think that's why this piece is a favorite for so many people But even if they may not realize it like you is that it does harken back to our childhood Like, you know, so that was such a important film in my life I love I've always loved the lumbermaid story even the actual traditional release that depressing one right I've always loved it And and yes, so it was just kind of a like that a natural piece to come up with and one that I had a lot of fun with and I definitely learned a lot during this piece. I want to say this was one of the first pieces I did after leaving private care press where I was just about to leave Um, and I did this piece specifically for a dead icon one year. Oh, okay got it. Awesome. Uh, okay so Uh, next up we have our this is a pretty recent one. I think this is our our dwarven female fighter with her two axes I I was lucky enough to see this one in person down at uh at can con. So, uh, yeah, take us through this, uh This this badass girl here So, um, since we talked earlier about how I didn't start on the wargaming side of things that started with, you know Dungeons and dragons and um doing character minis and stuff. Um, so for me Reaper is to me what space marines is to a lot of people Um, it's my bit of nostalgia It's the it's the Reaper minis or what I tend to go back to and I just want something kind of fun To paint and not worry too much about what what I'm doing or coming up with the next You know masterpiece in the world. Um So that's what this one was and I had converted it a long time ago to actually go on to another Um composition, which I've you know, it's still kicking about maybe one day I'll get to it That's a pretty big one Um, but I just wanted to sit down and paint and paint something that I knew I was comfortable with and I painted this miniature previously um On a different incarnation and so I just yeah just picked it up again And at this time I had been playing um a lot of Skyrim Skyrim is one of my I guess hobbies you could say in that I so seriously mod Skyrim um that it's almost a completely different game And in the way that it looks in it and in it plays and um, so I had been playing in Skyrim and in the area called Markarth, which is like the Dwarven city and so I guess I took some elements from that as my inspiration specifically when I was creating the base and trying to come up with something simple yet Looks like I've been there for a while and had vegetation growing over it That's essentially like the area of Markarth used to be inhabited by the Dwarves of Skyrim But now it's taken over by humans Gotcha So Yeah, that was the inspiration for this piece and then otherwise Just doing something fun and a little different No, it's so fantastic because so one of the things that I think really resonates and actually our viewers can see it on on both of the pieces that Um, I have a veers of onscreen right now in the in the Dwarven in the original nightingale that that we that I've had Up the whole time Is you do such a wonderful job with skin tones and working in a lot of soft Uh gentle colors of hues of like magenta and these purple tones and the yellow tones of light It all feels very naturalistic and the skin that you create and you can see it on both of these These figures is really so naturalistic and yet striking And I think this girl like her face just is absolutely the center of attention here Um, you know, that's often a big focus a lot of times I find myself giving feedback to people saying like you don't really you're not really drawing attention to the face And here it's just you can't help but look away between her eyes Which are so amazing and blue and like i'm actually going to zoom in here for our viewers on this because they're so unbelievably bright and Uh and the face and the way the lighting set up. I just think it's absolutely wonderful how how you do that So is is that kind of is working the skin tone a fun step for you? Do you like working in these kinds of uh of colors and stuff like that because I think you do a really good job with it Is it something you enjoy? Yeah, so painting skin and faces and hair has always been something that is a lot of fun for me and also metallic That's something else. I like to do true metallic um, and so those are the areas where I think I tend to design On models, um because I enjoy painting it so much. It's just it's a part of the you know, it's a relaxing part of the painting process when I can really sort of just vent out and um, I don't really even have to think about what i'm doing anymore and having for many years I just kind of go into the autopilot and just sit listen to my audio book and paint Um, but like you I often give people the feedback whether it's in class or you know after I've judged crystal dragon um Night the focus hasn't been brought to the face enough and in classes I point out that a lot of times, you know, people will um not think about how they're highlighting and shading correctly And so you can end up having uh areas on many is like the boot for instance, which might be as brightly highlighted as the face But you know, maybe a different color So that's where your eyes ends up being dragged to and so you want to make sure that you're not doing that You always want the attention to come to the face not to the Boobies not the butt not to the feet not, you know Nothing like that you want it to be on the face first because that's where we as human beings are You know, that's where we want to look naturally is we want to look at faces and then work our way down the model so so I do tend to spend a time on the face and In particular the eyes that's not really important I do want to point out really quickly for anyone who's wondering what scale this is This is a 28 millimeter scale model and it is a dwarf so it is actually shorter than 28 millimeters Um, and I still manage to get eye color and an iris and a reflective dot in there. So There's there's only to a certain point that either too small to get a lot of information into Um, but a lot of the reper figures and particularly things called to bag burner clock, which this one is Um, he has really great eyes and you can get a lot of information in detailing and which helps give the character More of a personal feel Yeah No, it does it does and the eyes are really so nicely shaped on this and you're right on a lot of the reaper minis So that's it gives you actual space to work with and it's it's the window to the soul for a reason Like human beings naturally not only want to look at faces, but we want to meet eye to eye Right, like that's one of our sort of defining things how we know we're looking at someone and if you're looking at me Then there's this sort of immediate trust established. You're not a predator You know, it's that kind of thing. It's somewhere buried deep in our uh, our dna, right? So when we when you have eyes that are very colorful, they're very grabbing It just makes the miniature sing. So yep. Yeah, and I will Say that when I teach how to paint eyes I often tell people that um, no matter what the eye color is that you want to go for You cannot go for an ultra realistic color unless we're working in a much larger scale So for me anything that's like 25 to 54 millimeters I always make my eye color much much brighter than they actually would be if they were a real eye color in real life That way you can still see it because the eyes are so so tiny That if I were to actually put like a realistic blue color in her eye, it just wouldn't read properly It wouldn't read as blue. It would just read as a as a dark eye Right. Yep 100 percent Uh, all right awesome So next up we have the flower night So uh, tell us about about this this uh, obviously the flower night is I'm sure people have seen Uh versions of this miniature around because this is such a wonderful striking figure And uh, yours here is just surrounded by this these wonderful bright colors that that culminate in the eyes Of the night itself with that almost fluorescent green, frankly, right? Uh, so so talk about this one Um, so this is a piece that I did for competition. Um, it was for Jen hun, I think the last one of the last gen cons I went to actually And um, it was at a time when I had done only a little bit of freehand. I hadn't only done a whole lot of it Um, only because at this point in time it it had kind of intimidated me and um, there were so many bright American Painters that were awesome at freehand marica rhymer being one of them that um, I always, you know Felt like I just if I tried to do it. I would never be up to snuff Um, but one of the benefits of uh, moving to seattle for private care press was that I was now within Driving distance of marica rhymer and she started inviting me and a few other local painters to come to her house for hangouts and um, I had asked her One day I said so, you know, like how how do you come up with your freehand patterns? Like they're always so intricate and they always look amazing And perfect and I'm like, how do you do it? Like what is your process? And I kid you not her answer was um I don't know. I just think of everything as squiggles and dots. Yep. Yep. I'm like Okay, right. We're just gonna go with a simple answer Excellent and so I you know picked her brain just a little bit more and then um while I was at her house I had a different mini with me wanted to practice on I started trying to map out a pattern with squiggles and dots and her tricks that she told me um, which Really made a lot of sense once I thought about it was that you only paint the full pattern a couple of times on the model And then otherwise the rest of the negative space that's left you paint literal squiggles and dots And as long as they're the squiggles and dots are in Ordered in such a way that they can relate to the full pattern that you've painted Then your brain will feel in that information as being a repeating pattern. Yep. Just a visual confusion Will just your brain will make it work, right? I did so um, so that that was Essentially one of the things that I did with this model was on all of the slash Fabric there is actually a repeating pattern But the pattern is probably only fully painted about six or seven times on the model itself And then the rest is just squiggles and dots, but it helps make it look like it was a rotate sort of fabric and um, so this model for me in particular was an exercise in trying to make different surfaces Look like different materials. Right. Oh, I didn't all of the fabric to look the same I wanted the metallics to have a different color and shine the quality than what you normally see So that's that's where I pushed myself like this and then he's holding a butterfly in his hand and um That's for the idea to the butterfly on the base came from was um to have you know, the glowing butterfly in his hand and then we'll if he The story is kind of ambiguous. It's whatever you want it to be essentially But I just thought it would look really cool to have to think of him in like this is dark forest setting Where um, you know, he walks into a clearing and maybe there's some ruins and stuff. That's why they're from the Tiles and stuff on the base And then to have these glowing butterflies like he's just walked into that butterfly sanctuary essentially and he's connecting to them Somehow he's like nature spirit or a nature guardian Yeah, I love it. Can we can we talk about the the armor versus the sword a little bit? So so you are Truly my great inspiration in working with true metallic metals you mentioned it Already and I know that I spent a lot of time reading your blog back in the day and trying my best to understand everything you were saying and practicing and practicing and practicing because You always imported the lessons of non metallic metal into true metallic metal and taking control of the light and doing that sort of thing right where you you Using metal paints, but in a very sort of I think certainly what even to this day is still a non-standard way, right? Uh in working in other colors Um Yeah, so again this is this is something that's been informed by my experiences in the american painting competition theme So when I was competing the main things that were important to have on every entry you ever Put into a competition what you needed to have really awesomely paint the skin and and usually a Scantily clad female figure at some start was probably your best choice to go with That way you could also showcase some freehand whether it be a tattoo or if she had clothes You know you did a repeating pattern somewhere and then you need to have non-metallic metals because non-metallic metals are the best It's the ultimate It it showcases your ability as a painter It's the thing that you must learn and you must do and you know, I would like these were some pretty stringent Like rules they were just never generally accepted like Um, I wouldn't say that they were ever officially put into you know, print or anything But it was just something that was just widely discussed at the competition scene at that time And I learned to paint non-metallic metals and I didn't really like the process myself And I didn't really like the way it looked in the end Because no matter how I painted and this was back in the day when Non-metallic metals really kind of came out pretty cartoony Um, as you know, things have changed now. There's awesome non-metallic metal work that's going on in the community That I just don't even know how people are achieving I would love to take lessons with like land studio and kerel and All of the awesome non-metallic painters. Um But you know for me at the time it wasn't a process I enjoyed and I didn't think that really looked like metallic and I felt that it looked a bit too close to my skin tones or my Fabrics in terms of the finish of the material So I always kind of stuck with true metallic because that at least looks like it was a different material than anything else on the miniature and I didn't really see a problem in marrying the two like if you like Really really if you paint one you can paint the other it's just whatever you're comfortable with So I can paint non-metallic metal I just don't think that or I don't like what I come out with when I paint it as opposed to when I paint through metallic So I paint true metallics, but it still shades them with non-metallic paint and I highlight them with this little bit so brighter colored metallic paint But you can glaze in whatever colors you want into your metallics You can even mix in ink to pinch your metallics if you want to get a different metallic surface The armor on the flower night in particular is actually a color shifting pigment that I then suspended in a cloth Coat and painted it on and then just treated it like it was a metallic paint right It came out wonderfully. It's like because it just it feels copper Bronze, you know, it's it's it's so much in that space and it just it reads is that like 100 it reads is that period boom Yep, so yeah I don't really see like I guess it's a controversial topic, you know, because there's still such a divide about Whether non-metallic separate than true metallics, but I don't really see an issue with accepting both Like I don't understand why there's a division within the community. I think we should accept Any technique as valid any ways that you want to put your paint on your mini as valid As long as it reads as you want it to read like that's the most important part of the execution If you can put metallic paint down on anything But if it doesn't read as a metallic surface Then or a well executed metallic surface Then you know, you still need to go back and practice whatever you're doing whether that Using metallic paint using on metallic paint to try and convey that something is a metal surface 100 agree 110 agree All of the agreement Let the division die. That's what I say like it's it's And I'm just gonna say here you're here for all of you guys watching out there You're hearing this from somebody who is a judge and has been a judge for the last, you know, five six years of my life If I see true metallics on an entry, I don't view it as being any less as something that has non-metallic You know, both are equally valid and it just depends on whatever you like whatever you're comfortable with And I even saw a question recently, you know Is there anything saying that you can't use non-metallic and true metallics on the same model? And the short answer is no There's nothing saying that you can't use both on a single model And you just have to make sure that you execute both so well that none of it looks how to play Right. Yep. Absolutely Okay Next up we have a very very fancy lad this guy Uh, so this is Lancelot. I believe he's our our steampunk Duelist knight. I I love everything about this guy like this guy is dapper Uh, this is such a great figure. Where did this come from by the way? Okay, so this is another Sebastian Archer figure. He sculpted it and it's for his Um twisted games that he has developed over the last, I don't know how many years now six seven years Um, and he when I first moved over to Australia. He asked me to do some of the block start for him and um, so I this was one of the pieces that I did and unfortunately, uh from From memory, I think Seb said he kind of got smashed up in transit a bit Even I know even though we lived two hours apart Somehow australia's post managed to completely angle and destroy the things that I sent back So some of it says this piece is really kind of a collaboration between Seb and I because he ended up I mean to put it back together and then touch up a few areas of it Gotcha but But I love the way that they came out between the two of us working on it and um It is one of my favorite pieces and I do still have another copy of this to do for myself as well as his Larger scale Lancelot that he did um a year or two ago that you can get now and uh Yeah, it's just it's just a fun piece of the first time I had really painted anything that was like so truly steampunk. Um You know like because privates here like to say that their models are kind of steampunky into a certain degree They are but this guy's just kind of strange like classical Victorian steampunk to me like it's it's What I didn't like I could I could easily imagine this guy being cosplayed at any steampunk convention essentially Oh, yeah a hundred percent. I that is very accurate. Yes It just feels like something that is quintessential steampunk So it was just a lot of fun and then again, I you know, I let metallic work and this a lot of him Was metallic work and I wanted to really showcase that metallics are you know true metallics are a valid Um technique that's the valid paint to use. There's nothing saying that you can't use it Whether it's box art competition whatever Um, so yeah, that's that's more or less the story at this piece. He's just yeah, he's just one of my favorites I just love his his jumpy little pose there. He's just so casually like are you sure you want to say that like He seems so relaxed about it right like kind of the position of his wrist with the sword He doesn't feel threatened, right? That's what you're yet. There's such a confidence to him Pretty much. Yeah, he's just so sure in his abilities that he's going to totally mess Whoever it is on the other end of that sort of That he's just like, yeah, okay. Let's do this. Whatever. He'll entertain me for five minutes Yeah, and and so there's there's a couple things I really want to draw the audience's attention to because I think they're so cool on this Many the first thing is just your execution on the purple of his Interior vest because the the highlights and your your color use on it is so masterfully perfect It feels like silk Like I assume that's what you were going for because it just reads as like this perfect silky vest that he has on that's so Like very classy Yep. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going for. So I wanted the um vest to look a bit different than the pants You know, so I wanted the pants silk a bit more Like they were a thicker or rougher fabric and his his vest I really wanted to make it feel like it was a slick satiny silky fabric And I think that I was pretty well achieved I was pretty happy with Yeah, 100 the other thing that I I want to call all the audience's attention to because this is another thing That I talk about all the time like you shouldn't be scared of bright colors You just need to make sure that when you use them You're using them intentionally balancing them where you can or drawing attention to something where you're You know, you're you're using it to draw attention to a space you want attention in and I think that's a story of of your Your bright blue here very much so where he has this Uh, I don't know what you call that his little necker chief or whatever it is That's in this wonderful bright blue. What is it? A cravat I guess a tie You're right cravat. It's totally a cravat. It's a hundred percent a cravat. Yes So he has his bright blue cravat and one that's drawing attention up toward his face because one of the challenges of this figure Is obviously his face is very blocked, right? He has this big sort of mask on but still again You put a nice bright edge on that so that's still the brightest point But the blue naturally draws the eye because it's such a stark color And yet it's it itself is a little arrow pushing us up to that But it's also in balance Where the sword line has a bit of that bright blue and again the line that the sword's creating Is pointing us right back at the face Through that bright blue and then balanced with a little bit of that blue glow on the osl Of something and is in his little adventures pack down there So we've got our standard sort of triangle color balance and everything is bringing our attention Right up to the face That's an important thing. I don't know if you Talked about it. I'm sure you have in one of your many videos, you know, the triangle of composition Where you need to which can also be the circle of composition depending on which school you come from but essentially you need to have um a certain number of points On any composition whether it's 2d or 3d that keep your eye moving around the piece So the fact that we do have those three bright blue spots on the model it keeps your eye roaming around The important part of the model and bringing it back to the face Which is what you constantly want to bring the attention back to Yep, um, I would also point out to all the viewers that all our areas of like Really heavily saturated color are tended to be grouped here around the upper torso the center of the model Like it's that that saturation is also drawing us in because you you know your pants you went this very It's sort of a very desaturated light khaki color the soft gray black Uh socks or whatever he has on like his fancy dapper shoes Even the ground cover you went which is red like he's on some kind of you know Brick or stone or something like that, but even that is a very desaturated kind of red earth type of thing like very uh because red is obviously a very eye catching color But it's so soft and you have green mixed in so naturally then boom We've got these two contrasting colors that kind of balance each other out and help the background the base Kind of fall into the background where it should be and makes the brighter pastel colors Take all the attention up top Yep So Really really fantastic. I mean just I I want to point all this out because It's it's such a master class in composition on what's really not a very big figure, right? And yet you're doing so much work here Yeah, it's just it's just a figure on a base by you can make even just a figure on a on a little gaming base Interesting, you know, I feel like a lot of times people get hung up on Like all really good competition models need to have these elaborate faces and Need to have like this full story flashed out and I don't know for me I mean maybe just because of the amount of Painting I've done to people over the years and in studio years and stuff that sometimes I just want to sit And paint a model like I don't necessarily want to come up with some elaborate Story for it. I just want to paint for the sake of painting I'm maybe while I'm doing that I'm trying to push some aspects of my painting But I don't necessarily feel like you need to tell a story or you need to create a masterpiece Everything you paint you can literally paint for the enjoyment of just doing it um, and You know, so you can but then the the trick is that if it is something that you like at the end And you want to keep as a display piece in your cabinet or for me I take the classes as examples for people to look at and to handle. Um, I still want it to look into me I don't want it to be a boring composition. So that's when you have to start thinking about your color composition rather than your structural composition Absolutely. Yep All right So next up we have I think most people are probably going to recognize this gentleman We've got magneto. He's up and floating Such an awesome You're using like the floating metal effect here of the pieces really really well like you just you get hit the sense of power here Right away. So uh, talk to us about magneto All right, so magneto was actually a commission. Um, one of my friends who's also a sculptor for privateer He's still golfing for privateer. In fact, he's just doing it on a freelance basis now Um, he he asked if I would paint that because he always had he had to get he always loved it and he wanted to have it in his um, his nerd cave proudly on display and you know, he's the comic book video game type collector and and so this for him was something that he really wanted to to have done nicely and so, um Him being a sculptor he offered to clean it and put out there and all that because he had noticed that there Were some issues with casting so I was like, yeah, sure that's fine You clean it you put it together and then I'll paint it and enter it into Adepticon and We'll just see how it goes from there and it was a completely different genre than I'm used to painting Um, I this was the first real comic book Piece that I'd ever done And I grew up with the X-Men and cartoon not necessarily the comic So I mean I was familiar with familiar with X-Men and The movies and all that stuff. I knew who Magneto was and He's always one of the characters that I actually like even though he's I guess a bad guy Depending on your perspective, you know, it kind of comes and goes. He's he's often a good guy often a bad guy often somewhere in between. That's fine I think uh, I think chris clairemont had said that uh when he started writing Magneto in the first couple issues He put Magneto into He said that by issue 300. He knew Magneto was going to be like that is to say on issue like 20 He knew that by issue 300 Magneto was going to be leading the X-Men and be a good guy Like he had that arc thought of that took 10 years 12 years to get to so that's a little both well That's that's good man. Anyway, so, um, I I um, I actually didn't put the the Plastic card on for the metal sheets and all that that was that was brian He did that and I was one thing that he wanted to add to it because I think In the block art that had been painted it showed something like, um, you know, the metal bit floating or he had seen it I think he'd seen it somewhere else and um Anyway, he wanted that to really convey like Magneto was flowing and using his powers and and add just a bit more drama So that that idea was all him. I just had a bunch of words painting it and then for me the aim of this was to try to Take my style which a lot of people have described as cartoony over the years, which I'm totally okay with that's totally fine It's my style tends to be a bit more. I think like graphic and like graphic design and and brightly colored and um, you know cartoony rather than realistic um And so I wanted to take that and then still try to make it look a little bit more realistic So that it was like he was a comic character coming to life Right and I like I I achieved that as best I could at the time because this was uh, this would have been What the Not the last depticon I went to but the second to last depticon I went to I entered this in um And I was right after I had or right at right after I left private here. Yeah, it was the year after I left private here and um, uh Yeah, it was just it was a it was the biggest piece I had ever painted. Um Yeah, how big is this guy? So this is 75 Millimeter scale. Okay. Um, but pretty sure everything all up. He's probably closer to like 90 or 95 because the height of the cloak Right Like I mean, it's huge. It's an absolutely huge thing and so to go from, you know, painting 28 to 32 scale For the majority of my career in my days as a Commission painter to doing something so huge like this like it was a huge huge challenge and the cloak and killer I was so terrified of screwing the cloak up because like if you don't get it, right You're really going to notice it, right It's such a huge part of the model. Um, so and at this time, I didn't really know how to airbrush So this was the piece that I learned that I used to learn to airbrush is um I can see that I can absolutely see that And and it was a big decision to go that way. It took a few tries to get it right But in the end, I feel like this was probably the best result I could have achieved at the time with my skill set and um my limited knowledge of air brushing Nice, so he's got in using his powers here You've you've you know created this sort of bright blue osl effect of him reaching out with the the magnetism Uh, and it looks like you've brought that over into the individual pieces of metal where his His power affecting each metal is causing a little bit of like Blue glow onto each of them and my especially around the edges where that's being reflected out. Am I reading that correctly? Yeah, so there so the three major colors on the model, which is the red the purple and then the blue There are hints of that in all of the metal pieces And that's do I mean, you know for compositional harmony of it to make sure that there's color that there aren't just extraneous colors That are introduced into the composition Everything makes sense and then altered to have that reflection of yes Everything's being affected by him and his power and the metal is at his mercy essentially Yeah No, that's such an awesome touch like it's it's something that jumped out at me right away because I felt like It felt like they weren't just floating kind of to float right but that but that he was having a direct effect on them It really connected him and the world around him in a very real way. So that's that's such a nice touch So this along with aerial this piece is often a fan favorite And that's when I get asked about most often when I go to classes Do you still own magneto and if so why didn't you bring into class? So Apparently I need to paint another one at some point for myself just so other people can see it. There you go. There you go All right Have you ever let's let's let me pause on that real quick If you were to tackle him now, you know given where you're at Let's imagine you paint another one of these guys, right? What do you think you would do differently? Well, I do have another copy and it is in my to be painted stash and I have to talk about that because Do I just try and redo this color theme and this idea just now with, you know, six seven years down the road? um Or do I try and go for something different? So I have spoiled around with the idea of doing him as dark magneto You know where everything is black and gray and maybe some hints of blue and just keeping the whole composition pretty dark and sinister. So bad guy magneto not good guy magneto, right? Um But yeah, I don't know. I think one of the things that I haven't really saddles on an idea Nothing's really grabbed me when I have thought about it. So he's just tucked away Since he's a model that you really can't get anymore and He he's sitting there along with um, I have gambit and flat cat and a couple others that I'd like to do at some point Gambit was always one of my favorites from the cartoon. I just always loved his He's on character design. So he's he's one that I've had some Interesting ideas for and I have a feeling that if I were to pull gambit out and tackle him then it might formulate some more Strong opinions about what to do with magneto. Gotcha. Look if you didn't love gambit in the cartoon I don't know what's wrong with you, but you shouldn't be you shouldn't be hanging out on this channel Let me just tell you that right now I tend to agree. He was like he was literally one of my favorite characters him and rogue. So Absolutely Yes, all right At that that cartoon left an indelible impression on all of us of a certain age cohort. There's no doubt. No doubt That and Batman the animated series those are like my after school tv choices. Yes. Yes All right Uh, cool. So next up we have a bust. We've got uh sansa Uh, so tell us about her um, so A couple of years ago. I went over to europe to teach and while I was there I also took advantage of having such amazing teachers at my favorite kids that I wouldn't otherwise have So I went and did a private coaching with roman pot and um, I wanted to learn more about his Philosophy in regards to you know, like using colors to create atmosphere and to um, really Tell more of a story because he just does amazing things with his color choices With his composition and he's somebody that I do Really like seeing his work and his whether it's his work in progress or his finished minis And I like attitude as a miniature painter and and the fact that he wants to have such a positive Influence over the community and he's done a lot for the community So he's just somebody that I really I really respect and I really appreciate his His talent and also his attitude towards painting and so This was the first piece that I did after I got back or no, it's not for the second piece I did after I got back from class with him and so it was my first time where I really tried to utilize Under painting in order to create an atmospheric effect So she was primed in black and then I used my airbrush to create a gradient from like a dark navy blue up to A really really really really pale Teal color to reflect she's like in a cold environment and You can really see hints of the blue kind of peeking out in places including in the hair Which often blows people's minds until I point it out and say like the hair itself is highlighted with a light blue not a yellow And then the skin tone has a lot of blue tones in it and it's just a lot While it still has warm colors in it and has the skin tones that I like to paint It has a bit more of a cooler feeling to it than a lot of my other work has previously So it was just a fun exercise and trying to Think more about how I'm getting atmosphere in my pieces and how I'm using that to tell a story No, I That absolutely reads she feels like she's in such a cold environment Right like it it comes across And I think the skin again just to go back to you know what we talked about earlier I think there it's it's captured really well Especially when you look around her cheeks her eyes her neck right like it's just you feel that that that color tone Feels like it's in a cold environment in those spaces It really really sets the larger ambient But then at the same time the the highlights don't have that like warm yellow to them as much right they're much more De-saturated much more pushed into a cold light Yep, so um, yeah, that's pretty much the story with this piece. It was it was a fun one this one now resides in a private collection and uh, I I kind of sometimes wish I still had it in my own collection, but again as I said with magneto I guess I just have to paint another one for myself at some point. There you go. That's right Okay, uh, so let's say on the game of thrones here and uh here up. We've got of tywin lannister Uh, obviously one of this is one of my favorite characters from the show. I mean you had to love tywin come on. This guy was great He's one of my favorite characters from the show and also from the book So, I mean I've I haven't read the books. I've listened to the books probably about four or five times and um, I enjoy All of the lannisters. I I just I find each one of them to be um, just, uh Interesting characters. I don't like I definitely identify them as being um more on the uh bad end of the spectrum between You know good and bad, but they have some interesting motivations and the road sees and um They're just they're they're interesting characters and tywin I've always um found a bit interesting in the books and then I really really Saw that like it's perfect casting for charles dance. I couldn't imagine anybody else is tywin now, right? Oh, absolutely to be able to paint him as tywin and really I've more of the um book description of tywin rather than the way he books in the in the tv series And applied the colors that way. So I made him a bit more blonde than I think he looks in the In the tv series and then I went with the bright red because you know lannister red and gold Where they felt it went a little too muted in the tv show Um, the story with this one though is that this was the first bust I have ever painted This is this is bust number one. That's what I'm hearing here, right? This this is the first one This is the very first one and um, I so when I was painting it I had game of thrones on in the background and then I also had a few um pictures of charles dance printed out So I was actually using the him as reference for painting it and trying to get um A bunch of the different colors from the in and also from the atmosphere and this is before I did the atmosphere class This was like years before But I was really trying to get everything that I'm seeing in the images that I took of charles dance and apply it straight to the bust and I feel like I did a pretty good job And um, I was really pleased with the way his face came out in particular. Oh, yeah I mean it it looks like charles dance playing tywin lannister. I mean like it really does It's and I can see the difference in the hair and the beard But nonetheless, so you talk about you know going to the book But nonetheless, it's still which which reads perfectly fine to me. Actually, I think it reads really well Set again. I think if that was more muted, I'm not sure it would be as good against like the red and the gold and everything Uh, so I think it's actually a stronger composition with that that color choice Yeah, I mean, I agree and even with the um other iterations that I've seen Of people painting this bust more like charles dance from the tv series I always feel like there's just something quite not quite right with the color choices And I think that's just because he is primarily like so fair haired in the tv series But then he has such dark muted clothes and armor and everything it just he reads is almost too Too bland like he doesn't have enough Going on he needs something and so I don't know By I like my bust the best out of all the renditions I've seen I mean What I do Nothing wrong with that at all nothing wrong at all. No, this is truly great This this piece um Was on my blog for quite a while when I before I moved it over to my new website that I've had for two years now And um, it was how to paint red because people aren't always terrified of painting red But for me red is one of the easiest and most fun colors to paint even though it's not my favorite color to paint um And I just kind of wanted to demystify the process of painting red. Um Because a lot of people seem scared to let red Go up to pink when you're highlighting it like that's the huge no-no You don't want it to go pink But in my philosophy of painting red you you shade down to a mirror black And then you highlight up to pretty much a pure white and you have this horrible level of contrast That just looks gross and disgusting And then you go over it with red ink and it brings everything together So that's I showed the step by step of this and I explained what I was doing as I was doing it And I actually posted it on arcane paint work on facebook Like day by day what I was doing every time I did my step and then I condensed it all into a blog Which unfortunately I have not been able to port over to my new website So it's not married anymore. Um, but I remember the reactions when I was painting this like people are like Okay, I'm like sure you think you know what you're doing, but I'm not convinced you actually know what you're doing They were There's so many just kind of negative reactions of people Just holding their breath and and watching how I was going to screw this up And then when I put the red ink on and showed the process of how it all changed I'd think it just blew a few people's minds and um Because that's how you get such a highest contrast, but highly saturated red Is you really need an extreme level effort and then when you put the right ink over The area I like to put it over everything the highlight in the shadow And it just brings everything together and brings that that saturation back in most people are looking for 100% the exact same advice I give so often on how to get good highlights and good shadows into red. Yep. Yep. Yeah And that's not my technique of doing it. This has been published in many different books across the decade and if anyone has Hador or scorn Faction books and privateer. That's that's how they paint right in the back of those books in the painting guide Like that's the easiest one that I can think of to get a hold of but there's also, you know historical How to paint books and stuff like that that describes this this is an old Old technique. It's nothing new. It's not fancy It's it's just the best way to get a highly saturated but high contrast red. It's the easiest way Yep, absolutely agree. Yeah All right. So last up we have uh this figure. So this is our valkyrie Woman on a on a on a horse here. So tell us about this one All right, this is zora best and this one was also painted for a desiccant linear and It's it was the first time I had painted a horse of this size um previous to this painted a horse Was it a horse and it just fell out from the privateer figures So I hadn't really had a whole lot of practice painting animals But this one was definitely a bit of a challenge because this horse is um Well, it's huge Let me just say if you threw this model at people because it is all metal like he would definitely cave somebody's skull in like it's It's enormous. So this is uh, this is a deadly weapon in addition to a beautiful miniature is what I'm hearing here It's a deadly weapon. Um, so Yeah, this was just trying a bunch of different things again on a scale that I wasn't really comfortable painting at this point in time because I this was After I painted magneto, I think this is like that's the direct the next project that I did right after magneto um, and so I I had had magneto finished and then I was like, okay I'm going to try my hardest to get this one finished and I remember working around the clock and stayed up as much as I could you know before passing out and stuff and I just no matter what I did I couldn't get finished in time So I still have the base that I made for this model That she's not I didn't have a chance to get it finished. So the the piece that she's actually mounted on Um, was just the block of wood that I had fixed her to for painting and I wasn't planning on using as a base But I ended up having to take her to chicago with me pretty much Like 75 percent of the way done and then I had to finish it while I was at the convention and um, so the base is made entirely up of Uh, a couple of graft tuffs Some birch pods for leaves and then everything else on it was literally taken out of a flower pot at the convention center Now that is some a plus Scrounging right there. That's amazing And I kid you not it was probably like I had just done the painting it was raining outside that day So I didn't even have dry basing materials to work with it was wet and um, I glued it on hour before the deadline Painted the vegetation for an hour put my graft tuffs on to a couple of birch pods and you know strategic places Suck it in called the good and and somebody bought it off of me at the convention and uh, it now was in Los Angeles Well, there you go. How about that? Yeah, it's um, it's a super cool piece. I think the horse came out great. I love the subtle blue blue grays I love the texturing to it capturing the like the fur where the horse is, uh, You know like, uh, I don't know. It's actually I guess it's hair or fur or whatever it is Where that fur is being reflect is reflecting the light out. I think it looks really nice. Yeah Yeah, it was so Um, like I said, I never really painted a horse at this scale anyway So it was um, a bit of a challenge in that aspect because I was aware of you know, like they do have fur And you know, how do I get that to reflect and then if I want it to read as a black horse then You know, you can't just do black with you know gray highlights. You have to have some color in there So, um, there's actually dark purple in there for the shadows just to give it which is more on the red side So it gives a little bit of an earthy and also, um, some hints of like flesh tone like there's blood Blowing through the horse, which is just a subconscious cue to our minds and then otherwise the highlights are a light um, a light de-saturated blue And um, the color scheme that I I used for this was heavily influenced by the movie 300 Sure, the very bright red cloak. Yeah, I can see that. Okay Yeah, but everything else is de-saturated other than the most part and so that was it. I don't know. She just kind of struck me as being like a an angry goddess coming down from, you know, Mount Olympus or whatever and um So I kind of just ran with that theme So I had 300 on in the background when I started painting this and just kind of went with that Nice, uh, somebody in the in the audience asked, uh, can you explain the choice for the skin tone? It looks very natural, but what what made you what made you choose this particular skin tone? Um, so the skin tone I chose just based on the colors that you see in the movie 300 So with Xerxes, he tends to be a bit more of like a golden color And so I wanted to bring that tone in to you know indicate that she's Of at least a partly divine entity Nice Nice. Okay. Good answer. All right, that brings us to the end of that. So I'm gonna I'm gonna minimize this So you're back on camera now All right. Hello again. Okay so Let's uh, let's go to some q&a If anybody in the audience has any any other questions you want to ask feel free to put those in now Uh, and we'll we'll do a couple of those questions if there's any out there that people have But first we've got my lightning round questions. Here we go Are you ready meg for the lightning round challenge questions? I don't know. I don't know if I would be ready man, but shoot anyway. All right. Here we go Question one and you must answer with only one answer. That's why it's challenging. Okay There we go. Who is your favorite miniature painter past or present? yourself I don't have one Zero answers Yeah, uh, and that's only because so I kind of like my um choice in the music I don't have bands that I follow. I have songs that I like. Okay. So it's similar to your painting Like I enjoy individual compositions from multiple artists. I don't necessarily follow any one artist All right, that's fair enough. So you told me that you don't follow bands But you get but you like but you go for songs particular compositions and I'm gonna flip the script on this question I'm not gonna let you escape that easy Okay So what is your favorite single piece from an artist then because if you if you like the songs, there's gotta be one song that stands out And you brought this on yourself Yeah, I mean I I did but um I mean again with music. I don't necessarily have one Ultimate favorite song. It it really kind of depends on my On my mood. Sure. Um And you know, I mean those pieces like New pieces being produced every day by hundreds of people around the world. Like, how do you how do you choose just one? Sure So give give us one that struck you for some reason or had an emotional resonance in your life somewhere All right, so I guess like one that always seems to come to mind if like people ask me about, you know like what are what are with my top 10 essentially like one that always comes Is um Tommy souls flower night. Nice. Okay. I know exactly the flower night. You're talking about Probably the first time I ever saw really like excellently executed Um non-metallic metals like ever in my life and thought that how non-metallic metals needs to be done Not this like super ultra cartoony anime way that you see most of the time Nice that is a very solid answer. The fact that I immediately I knew the mini you were talking about It could conjure it in my mind and agree with you completely by the way Um, he has a bunch of nmm stuff now on like instagram and on his youtube and stuff So it's it's worth it worth the check out All right. Not to mention He's just a cool guy like he's he's one of the um, you know eccentric miniature painters that I really enjoy following Anyway, so he's just yeah, he's a bit of fun. Yep He he is a very like I've never had the pleasure of meeting him, but just following him. I'm like he seems like a really cool guy like it just He's somebody you could sit down and have a beer with right right, right exactly Okay, next one next next lighting round challenge question. Here we go What is your favorite color? I mean can I have two or do I need to have one? Uh Give me at least a first and second place Even if it's only by smidge Okay, so first place would probably be like signing in teal, you know, that was sort of green blue and then second place would be purple I support both of these choices. They are a plus choices Uh, were you ever on the re-performs back in the day? I was not now, so um in in the forum for those of you who you know have been born like Forums died. Um Like little signatures and things where you could upload uh images and banners and you know, you can have silly things just posting in there And so um, there was one person who went around to be performed and and based on your recurring color choices You would be inducted into the cult of purple and teal And so I had I was inducted into that cult because of my use of purple and teal Nice, I feel like I would die. I'm simpatico with all the members of that cult. Yes, I would get right along All right, uh Last question of my lightning round questions. Here we go. You can construe the word type However, you like okay, like I can mean anything What is your favorite type of minis to paint? um So, I mean, I think most people would probably agree that I tend to gravitate towards female If we're thinking of gender as a type Yeah, and uh, I mean for for me, I really enjoy painting Um females that again have some armor or some interesting clothing going on Usually in a strong stance strong pose of some sort and I feel like um Recently we're seeing more of those types of minis being sculpted with one previously when I first got into many like 17 years ago um That that was definitely not the norm for female figures Nice. All right perfectly fair answer. Okay So a couple questions from the audience. Um, I would I would probably say ugly duckling Here's a question that you might want to reach out to meg about but I suspect I I know what the answer is Uh, but it was the class in March in brisbane Uh-huh Somebody wants to know what happened with that. I suspect it's probably a uh, uh, a covid situation there So, I don't know Like that he's reaching out on here. Um, so I I am planning on emailing everybody today after this interview I went ahead and got everybody's email addresses last night that has signed up in the class Because I had like half my registration split between email and facebook So I just needed to get one contact point for everyone and um, so I will email you guys later today So that we can discuss the situation and figure out what the best method is Um, I mean to to that degree if you don't mind me talking about it just for a few minutes I don't mind at all. Please go right ahead While it's a serious concern here. I don't think it's as serious as like the us in europe at the moment We had as many cases and Our population is a lot more spread out than it is in the us in europe Oh, like where I am there has not been a single case. We've had multiple people tested for it within our community Um to give you guys an idea of like how small a town I live in though There's like 25 000 people here and that's considered big from areas that I live in like We're the city for the farm towns um So we're still okay where I am. Um, and I have been sick with a cold for the last two weeks, which I'm sure you can hear I'm a little snuffly still um So I've been on on self isolation for I was on self isolation for like 10 days while I was getting over it to set my doctor's orders And that was more to mitigate my exposure if anybody in our community had contracted COVID-19 um But you know Yeah, like I I've been watching things on a on a daily basis I don't usually watch the news, but I've started watching the news, you know morning and night just to see what's happening So I can make the appropriate decisions for class. Um, they have not been domestic travel here So that's still okay. However, they are talking about being domestic travel. So I'm waiting to see what's going to be said either today or maybe on monday at the latest to make a decision On whether or not we're going to postpone the bridging class again, because it was already postponed once So I was trying not to postpone it again if I didn't have to but um, I've got this class in brisbane and marchman another class in perf in april and um We we just may have to postpone it till later in the year Completely understandable. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I had to delay two of my own classes for the same reason It's it's what happens, right? Like that that's it's where we are right now And this is the time when it's often better to be a little on the safe side Let's all you know, like we'll we'll all get through it and then it'll be fine It'll be back, you know, we'll be we'll be back and teaching and sharing and gathering together But uh, we get to that point faster if we do the safe stuff now. So Yeah, that's it and um, I mean, I also have had a private coaching that was scheduled for um, the school holidays here. So there's regular school holidays like every Three months the kids have two weeks off so I had my schedules for during school holidays just coming up in a couple weeks and um, even that person contacted me recently and said, hey should we Can't pull this part on it You want to go ahead and I'm like, well, you know as long as both of us are healthy and we've not been around anybody who has the virus like I don't really see Any harm in going ahead with one-on-one like it's just not my house. So Just one other person so that's all I guess that's also an option for anybody who may be within driving distance of me Who has been healthy and has not been exposed to anything if you still want to get some miniature painting lessons in Where we have our studio set up I can accommodate a couple of people at a time So if anyone is interested in doing a private coaching, I'm up for that because most likely we're all going to be Walked down here shortly for a few weeks. There you go. All right So I think this is an interesting question to end on here. This is this is a great last question And so marco asked is there a moment when you realized you were good? However, you defined that at painting I find this to be such a fascinating question because it's like was there a mini you painted almost how I'd rephrase is the Is there a mini that you painted that you were Happy with you thought oh, okay Like yeah, I achieved what I wanted there or something like that Like was there ever an aha moment for you or was it boiling the frog kind of thing? so, um I don't know some people are probably gonna say that what I'm about to answer with is a bunch of bullshit, but sorry that's one allowed I'm always happy when I achieve what I want to achieve on a miniature and for me I usually sit down with the idea that I'm going to prove upon one thing every time I paint like that's that's how I set my goals. I try not to set you know too much from that from the start Otherwise, I'll get overwhelmed Which I think Trent talked about when he was on with his article that he had written recently About setting bite-sized goals don't try and do too much at once. Right. Um So I'm happy if I just achieve what I want to achieve if the miniature comes out looking something like what I had pictured in my head And I recognize I'm a decent painter, but I don't necessarily sit there and go. Oh, yeah, I'm big maple. I'm the best like I'm such a good painter like I Don't and then the funny thing is I have been accused Over the years of thinking I'm way better than I am and I'm like you guys really don't know me That's what you think I think like I I just I paint and enjoy painting and a lot of people have just said they get You know a lot out of coming to my classes and and I think my real ability is I'm able to deconstruct and explain how processes are Completed in miniature painting. I can reverse engineer things and I can teach it in a way that people understand it I think I'm stronger at that than I am actually a miniature painting itself. But miniature painting is just something I like to do I think there's always a bit of that I've talked to so many and because one I feel that myself When people ask me like are you an artist? I may have as my constant answer is no I've never felt like that And there's always that thing where I I feel sometimes happy, but I never feel satisfied. I guess it's kind of the way I put it, right Um, I'm like, I'm not satisfied with your painting. You would stop right. That's a yes. Thank you. Yes. That's exactly right, right? Yeah Like this is this is the problem with so with that sort of instruments. You're definitely an artist I People who are constantly in the pursuit of Improvement, I'm not going to say perfection because I think that's the there's negative connotations there But we're always beating in in our abilities And we're never a hundred percent satisfied with what we produce. Yep Yep, I completely agree. Well, that's very nice of you to say and I'm going to turn that around and say Meg, you're not just a good Miniature artist. You're a great miniature artist and you should know that Because that is absolutely true Uh, as I mentioned in the beginning and I'll reiterate now you really have been Someone who's inspired me so much in my own hobby and I I don't I there Anybody who listens to me regularly who's watching the show Will hear you say things and they'll be like, oh, yeah, sure. That's like, you know, vince Just say a lot of things because it's simpatico, right? Like there's probably it's transmuted there. Yes Yeah, I mean and so I'm glad to hear that I've had such a positive influence on somebody out there I mean, I know it's more than just one person, but it's still as somebody whose goal is to teach and to try and better a community and um foster A cooperative community as well. Like that's always a good thing to hear that What I'm doing is having the effects that I want it to have Absolutely. All right. So meg. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you sitting down with me All of meg socials her site everything, uh, is going to be down below. So please do go check that out Uh, as meg has mentioned, she does teach plenty of classes, especially if you're in australia Go check out crystal dragon if you're going to be anywhere near that I cannot recommend that enough So, uh, please go do that check that stuff out meg. Thank you one more time for being here No worries. You're coming back next year, right? I'm coming back next year. Yeah I've been assuming they let me fly to australia. Assuming this is all past I am there and I'm it's not a thing I'm going to miss and I'm going to have my schedule better suited to where I've got a Whole day at minimum to just sit up there and chill and paint. That's what I'm looking for I just advocate just coming just for crystal dragon just for everybody else off And hang out with us for the whole three days like that's fine. It's a it's a good I'll see what I can get away with Uh For all of you out there watching. Thank you so much for watching Don't forget hit that like button because the more you hit like the more that stuff happens the more engagement The more youtube recommends this video and more people find it and see all of this that we've talked about today Which I really appreciate and the artists that I interview really appreciate. So please do hit that like button It means a great deal to me. Uh, so thank you very much everybody for watching meg. Thank you again And as always we'll see you next time