 Hello everybody and welcome to another interview with the artist and today Very excited very very very excited to have one of my favorite Current artists working in the world on the show Wilhahn my man. How you doing? I'm doing great Vince. Thank you, man. I'm super excited to be here, but I That's I'm very excited. This has been too long coming. We talked at at Golden Demon It's the first time we got to actually meet and talk in person All right. Yeah, and so it's like this has got to happen. We got to get this going Will I've watched your progression over the past couple years from good artist to mind-blowing artist is what I would say and hobby cheating I'm sure I'm sure and So I cannot wait to get into the pieces to talk about your journey and so on and so forth man So thanks for being on the show today. Really really appreciate it Thanks for having me man. Thanks for having me. This is you know, it's it's funny to say it because like so When I kind of started kind of got into this into this journey this competition thing everything I've watched so many of these interview with the artists and I told come my buddy. So, you know, I'm gonna be gone one day. That's why I know I made it when I'm on Interest with vids. This is it Yeah, this is welcome to the big time All right, I see we've got some past interviewees in the chat. What's up, Ben? What's up, Eric? Good to see both of you So we're gonna we're gonna talk through some of your pieces But first, of course, we got to talk about your journey, right? And so we'll begin at the beginning where we always begin and that is like this is a weird hobby we all who do this collectively decided that the appropriate way to spend our time was not doing anything engaging or leaving our house or Spending paying attention to our families or cultivating lifelong friendships with other human normal human beings We decided to all join this weird club where we're only friends with each other and I'll talk about painting tiny plastic toys. So Tell me about how you got into painting tiny plastic toys I'm like so many of us my gateway drug was Warhammer and Came when I was kid Back in the I guess was the late 90s Little brother and I had some family friends who lived in Germany for a while They were exposed over there brought it to us and we're like, oh what a and The local store happened to carry Warhammer and my brother and I lobbied my mom to get us the Warhammer fantasy battles fifth edition starter set for Christmas and So who got lizard men and who got Bretonia? I took the lizards because lizards people are the best and I was not about to paint all that hair or heraldry So I totally pawn that off on my little brother. You made the wise choice. I love it I'm that fifth edition box that my entire Seraphon army is still made of stuff that came in that box I just want that to be known. Those are evergreen models right there So of them those are great like the old the plastic Saras with like the stone shields and like the the monopos I took some of those and I actually like the start to convert them to Saras with spears I took like bamboo skewers and like chopped the things off and I did like the whole rank and file with the Spears it was it was cool. It was so Great and I played fantasy battles for a while till early 2000s, I think like 2001 to maybe and then like so many of us that girls in gasoline syndrome hits and it's like, okay I want to go to parties and do all this kind of fun stuff instead of you know, paint minis in the basement. Sure and then Stop for a long time Fast forward like I don't know. I can't I've been up too long. So I can't do math my head. I don't know how many years until I guess This was 2017 I had been diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease. Okay, and Got to be a really bad case to the point that I was hooked up to Ivy antibiotics for like five to six hours a day every day and I was stuck on my couch Yeah, it was pretty gnarly and I couldn't do the Things that I was into, you know work became really difficult Honey and fishing was my jam before that and I just physically couldn't do it And I was going crazy sit couch. Just watching Netflix for six hours a day And I was thinking like, you know, what what can I do something productive or something and I Just Warhammer popped into my head And I'm from Baltimore the old US headquarters used to be in Glen Bernie and I thought about it It was the place I always wanted to go to when I was a kid, but sure my mom would never he's like I'm not driving you out there and You know I won it That was gone, but there's a place 10 minutes away and I popped into a local GW and I just I got hooked And it really helped me pass the time and get through a really really difficult time in my life So that's what really Jump started me getting back into it I Raised like I don't know like five or six armies in like a year. Sure, like Yeah, I was like it was like it was like four 40k armies and like two AOS armies like fully built painted I gamed a lot and then I think it was ever chosen. I did a bunch of Store painting competitions. I was always into the painting aspect of it as well as the gaming but It's definitely had that painter painter bone in me. I did some store competitions. So ever chosen rolls around and Local store managers like you know, you should you should really try try your hand You know you should enter so I painted something forever chosen. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna Just banging out units I'm actually gonna paint one model to the best standard that I can Yep, they're ever chosen I mean second my store. I was salty Because I'm also very competitive person But again some local guys said hey, this is a great model. Why don't you take it to Nova? I said hey, well, what's Nova? This is the first they actually last know that happened in 19 It was my first know by my first con experience since games day back in 2001 it told me to get the capital palette I Went to Nova signed up for a bunch of classes I entered capital palette and that many ended up getting a silver in the journeyman category And then I got a golden best in category for diorama on another piece I did that summer and I just was totally hooked just the atmosphere meeting everybody I got to see work from you and Swinson and Matty Pietro and Sam Lenz and all these guys in person and it just a Hookline and sinker man and I was and I shout out to Eric who's peace that year that took best in show was like an All-time banger. I really loved it. It was that 75 millimeters total hunters. Yeah. Yeah, yep She was fantastic. I Voted for it for fan favorite. I Yeah That's a fickle master fan favorite at a gaming tournament But um, yeah, and from then on I just I just kept doing and then and COVID hits right after that so Even the part where I was still kind of like a gamer at heart that kind of out the window because we weren't Meeting to play games anymore, but I couldn't really go up to the local store. Everyone's quarantined. So I'm like, okay Well, let me this bus Let me try painting this other stuff and then it just got further and further down that slippery slope I guess nice now slippery slope, but it's it's a good slope. It's a it's a it's look Not all slippery slopes are bad a water slide at a water park is a slippery slope and no one's sad Fantastic, yeah, that's a fun time. Okay, so yeah, so like, you know, it's some slippery slopes are good All right, so here's what I want to get into you Really like watching the evolution of your pieces over the past. I'm gonna say three years Okay, even though it doesn't feel like it because the last three years have felt like three minutes and also 300 years. I don't know how that is both simultaneously true time. Yeah Yeah Time is just a flat circle, but you have just like Rocketed in the sort of quality of your pieces and what you put out So what's been your journey in that way? Like like what has how how have you? progressed in You know refining your pieces and bringing the these really really Amazing pieces of art to life like what what have you been doing? How have you been practicing? How have you been focusing your learning? Apparently because it's it's so many things One I I'm the kind of person at like When I get into something if I'm not gonna do it to the best of my ability if I'm not really into it Then I'm probably not gonna do it That's that's part of it. That's just kind of who I am Dispractice COVID definitely helped because it's you know a lot more time to paint basically Not as much as I could have had because I have two kids that require a lot of attention, but Let me try to think here So it's either it's knowing where you want to go having a good story and then Any the knowledge and the practice with it because the knowledge isn't gonna help you if you can't apply it and The practice isn't gonna help you if you're doing the wrong things. Yeah What's that quote? It's practice doesn't make perfect perfect practice makes perfect because if you're just practicing You're doing the same thing over and over again, then you're not going to you're not going to improve One of the things that really kind of jump-started me was that first Nova when I started taking classes from other painters and realizing how much there was that I didn't know and I think one of those Biggest one I think that particular know was I took some classes with Matt DiPietro and he just The way that that he approached Miniatures and miniature painting was just something that's very different than what I'm used to you know coming from a games workshop background It's you know shade edge highlight or base dry brush wash And it was a whole lot of that and then just being exposed that it was just kind of this like sort of eye-opening moment and What I then tried to do is learn from as many different basically masters in the art form that I could whether it was videos patreon private coaching I just gobbled up everything I could and Tried to ingest it and apply it into my work It's was it's a constant push of getting that knowledge and into practice on your models painting every single day and With every piece trying to make the next one The last one gotcha for me every single one had to be a one-up And that was my benchmark Now granted there was a lot of failures in there and I know Eric will tell you this I've got my shelf behind me is like it's like finished pieces. It just whiffs Like abandoned abandoned projects. I'm terrible with it, but at the same time Band and projects Still learning experiences. So even if I don't have something finished. I typically learned something on So I Yeah, I saw this I was at a museum and I was looking at some Cezanne pieces and so What was interesting about it was it was drawings of an ear just bunch of drawings of an ear okay, and Like Cezanne if you so like if you look under Van Gogh's canvases, there's lots of like detail and Pence of work and stuff like that that a lot of things are balanced Especially in his later works where he was doing a lot of like pre-work and very carefully planning things out If you look if you if you like x-ray assays on there's nothing underneath except white canvas, okay? and What's that? So that blows my mind. Yeah, sure. I mean he's like one of my favorite artists of all time and So he has all these drawings that are just of an ear and I'm like what the hell is this? Right, and I look at the placard and basically what it is is it's it's his wife's ear Okay, or some woman's here. I remember his wife. It was some woman's ear his model's ear. I guess and yes indeed and He wasn't happy with how he was resolving ears In his in the figures he was doing So he was just he would do the ear to a super high level like the ear would be finished each one of them was slightly different as he was clearly like working out how to bring the the Complex geometry of an ear to life and then the rest of it He would just be like, okay, that's and he would just stop you just get bored with it and stop right So you didn't have the rest of the face isn't done. The rest of the head isn't done doesn't matter Right because that the deliberate practice that he was learning from there had been accomplished The goal was the ear and that was it Right and that's that perfect practice makes perfect. You're you're talking about there, right? Also, yeah, that definitely and that brings up another another good point is references and and key references Filling your brain with the right kind of material not only references, but like so real references and art from other artists and properly being able to kind of analyze their work and how they Solve problems I just I was going somewhere with that No, that's okay. I Agree like I think that there's you know I once did this very unusual hobby cheating that was just like it was ten minutes of a single slide And it was like an image of it something Darren Latham had painted right but you could do this with any artist any any miniature artists or regular artists and I Was like, okay We're just gonna stare at this for ten minutes you and I don't look away. Don't look at your phone Don't you know, whatever we're gonna work our way around the piece and talk about how the individual challenges of this were resolved How the volumes are resolved how the light is working, you know yada yada yada yada yada, right? And I think that's a really valuable exercise is to not just like Look at something but see it Right see it analyze and start to dissect it and that's something that I started to learn is as I got better I was able to Analyze way better artists like our degree, you know, there were so many times my life. I'd look at something that was done by, you know Sergio Calvo or whoever, you know, just just anybody at the top and It's just like you see that initial picture and then you're just your head explodes You're like, how is that even possible, right? Sure But the more that you get into it you can say, oh, I see how he accomplished this I see like not only from a theoretical perspective But from a technical aspect on how the paint's being applied how the process goes and how the approach goes And then you can kind of reverse engineer that and once you understand those things then like that The world opens up to you. It's kind of like the analogy I would put it is I like driving a car or like learning to drive a car like especially people if anyone learned under manual transmission Like when you first when you're there and you first get in it You have to like look down. It's like, okay, is it first gear is it second gear is whatever, you know Yeah, you're kind of futzing around with the controls and you're not looking at where you're going You can't but once you get to the point that you kind of understand like you can feel it and you can then you can look at The road you look at look at your destination and then everything kind of becomes second nature, right? You know, I'm not thinking about is this a good blend. I'm just putting the colors where they need to go, right, right? Yeah Yeah, exactly. I think that's exactly right. Okay, so that we we're gonna look at some of your pieces and see where you are now and But I want to know is Where are you wanting to go from here? Like what's your current drive? What are you aiming to in the future? You know, what's what's on your radar right now that you're that's that's in your mind Like what what, you know, is there a competition coming up here that you got your eye on, you know Like what's here? What's your future? What's your goals? Well, I've got a bunch of things Works, you know, I we were talking earlier. I just finished some of these chibis for the the Marvel Charity project, which is a fantastic cause for anybody listening. You should definitely check that out on Instagram It's a wonderful auction collaboration with a lot of people for a really good cause to benefit Ukraine You guys can find all about our insta I've got after that. I've got this pretty much wrapped up then I've got a couple I think I've got a couple of boxharks in the Pipe and then moving into the summer. I am very excited about project for Montesant Savino So that's be the next big Company that I have my eye on I Will be at Nova. I'll be teaching some classes there this year. I'm pretty excited about that and Personally now I know who's class. I'm signing up for this year. Awesome. Can't wait We're gonna have a good time buddy It's It's hard to quantify to sort of put into words what I'm really pushing towards because for me It become a very sort of organic process necessarily one thing Once I guess is something I'd like to work on more that might sound odd people listening to it but the Rating on on the emotion that a viewer will perceive in it that I paint and Be able to relay that emotion through color and light and subject matter all of it I'd like to work on I'd like to work on some more unique pieces Like I said the boxharks that I'm excited. I just I don't really I don't have a Set thing on where I'm going other than just it's still that constantly wanting one-upping myself Yeah, like oh, how can I improve? How can I make something better? And in the miniature world today? There's so many Mind-blowing artists and it just seems like every day somebody else is coming out with a new bomb You know, oh, yeah, it's like everyone's waiting to see like, oh, what's the next curel piece? What's the next new thing that aren't house painting or David a rubber or whoever, you know and it's sometimes you can get hard to hard to keep up because miniature itself is just being pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and There's so many people getting to this really really high level that it on one end It's it's amazing for the art form and that's something that I really enjoy seeing but on the other hand it It puts kind of puts pressure on you to Really up your game and really keep pushing. So that's kind of where I'm at right now is Yes, you know, I'm a baby. Yeah, sure. No, absolutely. I get it. I know absolutely. I understand Is there something is there a piece sitting either in your whips or in your box in a box in a shelf of shame Is there a Model that you're like, I can't wait to get to this piece something I really like something you really want to paint that you haven't got a chance to paint yet Because I got a whole ball To pick like any particular one But The most excited for are our future pieces that aren't here yet The one typically that's that's in the works for Monty. I think is the one that it's like This is it. This is the way you're you're you're stoked for this one. Oh, yeah, awesome. That's it Well, I can't wait buddy. I can't wait to see it By the way, if you leave when you lean back, we kind of lose you sometimes your voice if you lean forward I think it keeps your mic more. Yeah, you're good. There you go Just make sure it stays up because I think when it was falling near your code It was cutting out a little bit. Okay All right So Let's talk about some pieces man. I'm excited. Let's get into these. We got a lot of pieces We're gonna we're gonna go through these. All right, so I've got one up on the screen right now I have your this I'm gonna call him your red ony Up here now. I'm a big ony fan I am a I'm definitely a self-confessed weeb. So I'm here. I'm here for this So tell me about tell me about this piece man. This is this is this is an awesome piece. Walk me through it. I I love that piece. It was it was really fun to work on That was one of the biggest bases that I had kind of done it to date Honestly, I think the base like with construction and painting and everything probably took as easily as much time as the fig Especially working with all those little paper plants and stuff Aside from the paper plants, I mean, it's the whole base is scratch build I actually built the Tory arch in the back if you can like see through the trees There's a Tory arch back there where the ony is supposed to be like guarding their shrine Like I made that out of balsam wood The little signs plastic hard So this one I I kind of Try to figure out that this one I kind of started with like a General vision in my head and this was one of those projects that kind of developed as I kept meaning So the final piece like if you look at the whole the whole point of it is This is a journal. That's what all the little parts and paces pieces are at the bottom this is there are the journal excerpts of an unnamed explorer and each one details a part of his story Into exploring a this forbidden shrine at the base of the Aokigahara and The ony is the final journal entry This the piece is the last thing that he sees For he meets his end at the hands of the ony while he's seeking out the shrine that's in the back So yeah, this was For fun piece to do there are there are a few things on this that I playing with Just kind of some of the one like when I started instituting some of these techniques like the The Trumploy NMM freehand like the engraving like on the gauntlets and everything there That's work sure yeah worth in the end. Yeah, it is relevant to say those gauntlets are smooth on the model Yes, they are there's none of the none of the etching is Is actually on the model it was actually interestingly enough so apparently that was a point of contention at LVO this year I know I did this piece a couple years ago, but you know COVID it was my first chance to actually bring it to an in-person show and I was lucky enough to get third place best and show it Las Vegas open this year with him and Apparently the judges were they had a debate on whether it was actually free-handed or not and They're like like touching it like is it smooth is not they pulling up pictures the original model and That's what I know that I did my job right. Yeah, sure They can't tell that's what I want I want to be able to fool the viewer and make them question like wait was that is that actually part of my Was that just paint is that is that what? and I've employed that a couple times on on some other models and actually that's the subject of one of the classes at Nova this year is a Trump play freehand. So painting the illusion of depth whether be fabric or etching or something like that For that that was the first time I had done that type of model and then the other one is really playing with color and Focus on the piece as a whole so something that's really interesting about this model if you take the only off the base It at all like the folk off It's it's not nearly as appealing but when you stick that big red only in the middle of a sea of blue green It just absolutely hammers the focus. Yeah, and that Allows the red to be a focal point where the gauntlets with the minis by itself. They're actually much brighter. Oh That this is kind of the start of where I started toying with with some of those concepts that I've You know push more and some of my piece Yeah, I mean my favorite parts of this by far are You know the the the etching freehand that you've created but also Just really the the way the light is created and how warm you've made the the light coming down How how well it's directed like the way the sunlight is interacting with the skin catching those subtle hues of orange yellow Into the skin where it's going in there while still feeling like completely organic natural sunlight The shadows feel deeper where they need to while still having a rich hue to them I particularly like even just a couple of small things Like just treating the weapon as you did Where we have that continuation of that shaft of light being carried to a very logical place on the weapon And then and then bringing that bounce light around more toward the bottom on the next Step around on the hexagon or whatever Um, those little touches really do a lot to sell me on the sort of naturalistic lighting and the environment that he's in So I really think you did a great job handling that there And that's and that's another fair point like sort of to bring up is that so often it's the little Supporting details in a model that help bring the thing sort of together and sell sell the illusion as a whole and make the piece, you know immersive um Yeah, man. No, I was that was a cool model and um, the other thing with that is that I think this is this is Was sort of a glimpse of it another thing that that I've sort of I've been trying to work or recently especially since I've been working with alfonso, um was Being able to alter reality so putting your Highlights or Shadows whatever into places where they wouldn't actually physically go on the model like if you look at it It's like well the light actually wouldn't hit here. This isn't really physically correct But it's aesthetically correct and I'm the kind of person that has such a I can have a very logical mindset like I have to kind of understand something before I can Screw with it or alter it to make it look convincing So it took me a while to really understand all of the concepts Um before I can now kind of Alter that a little bit to be convincing and that's something I'd like to Be able to rely on more now that I've gained a little bit more confidence with that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, sometimes it's the right choice for the overall feel of the piece even though it's not physics I think a lot of people get trapped up in that Right 100 exactly how the physics is working. It's like no no no no That's not that's not what we're doing here. Right. It's easy. I've been guilty of that. Yeah, I mean I've definitely been guilty of that But it's one of those things where you've got to learn the rules before you can break them Right exactly. Yeah Yeah, like you need to know how the light works so you know when you can some rules are meant to be bent Others can be broken. All right. Yeah, I mean it's just yeah Okay Awesome piece man I'm I dig the heck out of it and and Eric said he thinks everybody talks about the gauntlet He thinks the weapon is the best part and I I tend to agree with him because the weapon actually does so much Not only in the microtexture, but in selling the overall Scene It's between the lies. Yep between the way it's treating the light the way it's made clearly made of a different Surface just by the way you've reflected the light like or sorry different material. I apologize um that it has a different sort of uh reflectivity to it And that it completes the the light line of how my eye is being drawn across the piece Not only because where the light is but also because of how their weapon is directionally placed Right, it's selling the the movement Of your eye through the piece by creating those those lines that are in line with his uh, right knee And the way the light is right effectively. We're getting a triangle a movement triangle out of a light shaft A knee and a weapon Yeah Okay, very good Yes, yes it is. That's a model. All right. Um Okay So, uh beautiful beautiful piece Let's uh, let's talk about this bust. Okay. So next up we have uh our our space wolf bust here and we're gonna look at it this under a couple different sort of lighting conditions because Um, this is a thing. I think you enjoy is creating different lighting conditions Uh around a piece. So it's sort of a dynamism to the piece in the round, right? Um, so and again, so I'm gonna I'll I'll give you just a second here because I before you go into it There's a couple things I want to call out to people here to really hone in their attention on too Um, the things that jump out to me on this piece are actually The texturing. Okay, so You Like we see the texture in the places where I would normally expect us to often see the texture The bone on the belt the leathers and stuff like that and that's all treated well. I'm not trying to downplay it I'm just saying like it's it's there. It's certainly very well done. It's extremely credible to me. I have no issues Looks good But the texture to me that's actually doing so much work is the micro texture on the armor The fact that it's not just a smooth enameled surface But that there's this different treatment of rough to scuff to scratch That you've captured that progression on what is a sort of warrior figure Like the space wolves are a pretty rough and tumble crowd And so it like it's part of the overall narrative that his armor is not this perfectly polished thing Yeah And I think that actually does a huge amount to sell the feel of the piece Even if you don't immediately notice it when you look at it, right? Like people might not even be immediately cognizant of that when they first look at it But they're their brain is right like subconsciously. It's communicating a feel By having that there. So that's what you're all audience. Yeah. Yeah, no for sure And I'm actually I'm really glad that you picked that out because that's one of my favorite parts of this model Like that's what as far as like when I look at this like the Parts of the model that I think I executed the best is that armor is towards the top of of the list Um, so like I said, I'm really glad that that you picked that one out Yeah, no, that's cool So this piece um and actually interestingly enough I actually did um, I don't I don't write a lot of tutorials Or do any of that type of stuff, but this is a there's an article in figure mentors magazine that details all of that and basically the process that I used to create that armor which is kind of this like wet blendy vomit of brushstrokes and values and Kind of knocking it all out and it all explains like the type of different brush strokes that I use whether it's stabby or stibbly or Or longer strokes and then basically kind of creating an organic texture and then coming back in with Glazes and a fine detail brush to accentuate that texture So to hammer in certain shadows or just the little points of light Whatever you need to do to basically, um sort of sell it The other thing that I really like about that armor is is kind of the juxtaposition with the That surface versus the the gold trim and the other areas that are a little bit smoother. Yep To kind of sell that, you know, he's still rough and tumble, but it's it's a different material like in this ultra hard, you know Space gold. Yeah. Well, there's this like progression, right between the very rough armor the still rough but smoother uh Gold or whatever we want to call it like the the edging of the armor and then the weapon head itself Right, which is like perfection incarnate this ultra smooth surface because Because he cares about like this is the thing that matters Right, this is his axe. This is the this is his personal Power acts like his weapon Right, absolutely that 100 and and the thought in my mind also as well that I'm thinking that this power axe is made out of some other Type alloy that's harder some unobtainium as much to yeah unobtainium exactly. Yeah unobtainium so I painted this um Or it was for that figure mentors article, but this the the model itself was uh sculpted by Ivan Mada Instagram friends and he's a super super talented sculptor Who's really blown up the past couple years and he did a super limited run of this and he happened to give me one to to Um, and I just really wanted to take the opportunity to make this really cool and really special um Funny story about this model. Um, I actually the face was like Eight painted and then I kind of felt like something was sort of missing So I green stuffed the mustache And the whole top half of the beard Of the paint job and just painted right back over it And so normally he has like an amish setup. He doesn't have the mustache. He only has like the beard No, he has a straight up amish setup It's like it just kind of goes goes like that and I I filled out the beard on the cheeks Yeah, and sculpted the mustache in and then I filled in some of the areas Um on the hair to make it smoother so I could paint the hair texture a little bit because this is a hands Gotcha, gotcha Yeah, I'm always a fan of like if I could get wasn't as smooth as what so many are Yeah, if I could get hair that's just like one solid piece You know almost like are or just big solid pieces This would be the perfect world to live in the more strandy it is the more I dislike it Caspino hair the way lukas gulps hair is the way just that's the way it should be done. That's it It's just perfect. It's perfect. Just like that. Um I'm not turned out really cool and um, I did enjoy, you know doing the different lighting setting on the front I wanted to be kind of like this I pictured him on like the ice planes of feneress like Cold dawn over with the night of his back and that's where on the alternate view you can see Yeah, so I switched over to the building out of so people can see the the dark side It's like I when I and I wanted to really set that up because we flipped this other picture And obviously you're using a different background, right? But when we flipped to this other picture people are going to be like wait, is this the same mini like What do we do go to a different mini because it's such an extreme Difference you've you've done here right between like him leaving the night behind and stepping out over like I picture him stepping over a ridge Right into this uh into the sunlight of a morning dawning. That's literally exactly what I was going for um, so I'm just whenever whenever Gets exactly what I'm for that's that's when I know I did it right and that's what that's what I want to hear so hearing all this like You describe what you feel when you see the model and that matching up with what I intended it to be That's it's moved to my ears man. It makes me I'm grinning ear to ear inside me So the black background on the photos also have to do with this Because it's painted much darker putting it over a white background. It just doesn't do the model justice Um, it's about those, uh, you know the relative values. Yep You know, um in order to really see it. I did have to do it over back a black background Yeah, I mean that's just the human eye right like the human eye is really responsive aperture control and we'll try to We'll try to fix the lighting situation to what it thinks it's supposed to be so yeah, it's no issue It's actually um, you know going back to things that I'd like to work on that's another thing that that's kind of been like mulling over in my head, uh and kind of how to tackle that is how to paint that as an effect so Painting like um how we would perceive You know very stark opposing, you know light sources Um, I'm trying to figure out how to put into words And I have how our eyes would be adjusting as As we read the model man. I am just I am just uh, I can't talk today. You're fine. You're fine. It's all good It's all good. I got you. Yeah working like actually using how your brain is going to Is going to trick itself to your advantage, right? Be having different Functionally direct ambient or environmental lights clashing with each other, right and then working like working within that space Yeah, yeah, I got you exactly that's exactly Something that I'd like to do more of um I actually really like the um The shoulder pad too. I'm super stoked about that that freehand on there. Um If you guys have a picture of that one, yeah, there we go. I'll flip over to that one Yes, you're talking about the right shoulder pad because you've got freehand on both shoulder pads Like you and I mean the legion icon the wolf. Yes the wolf. Absolutely. So yes, that's what's on screen right now I was I was pretty I was pretty stoked about the wolf when I when I did it took a few tries My first my first wolf looked It didn't look didn't look very good Doing the wolf straight on is actually really hard like any long snouted Creature is actually a really challenging thing to do like straight on They're much easier to do in like profile Oh, absolutely. Absolutely Um, like, you know, just just doing doing the like the end to outline this baseball flag on there It's like on the seven backpack. It's like bloop. Okay. Cool. Sketch it out. I'm good And then this one like is this so I worked on that for for days, right? I don't remember how many how many renditions it went, but it was just it's that Keep keep screwing with it until it looks good, you know, look at your reference Look, you know, what did I do wrong here and keep going back and forth? Right until you kind of get it But um, that's that's a part one of the parts of the mini that that I really like because I mean, you know I do enjoy painting freehand, but I don't I don't Everything and it's not that often that you can that you have a model that it really calls for it. Sure You know like a It's an actual night or a, you know, a sprain or something with a big banner then like that's when like it's that but um It had been it had been a little while since I had done some good quality rendered freehand on a model And I definitely took the opportunity on this one with that big shoulder pad just waiting for something. Yeah, man It's great. It's great I dig it I super dig it just so everybody's like let's go over here Um, this I've just got it with your hand in the frame there so everybody can see how big it is I've got that shot, but that also gives us a quick view of the freehand the the sort of uh pattern They almost like pseudo Celtic knot uh that you have on the On the other shoulder as well and yeah, I agree like these kinds of pieces Are super fun Exactly what you said like with imperial knights or or stuff like that the fun of them is Doing those details, right? That's the fun. It's like hey, let's go ham Right like this let let's get nuts with this absolutely um, and that's uh, obviously another One of the artists that um, you know when I got Getting that just marveled and drooled over so much as as richard gray. Sure, you know um, and his The way he does it's nuts. So and I I've actually had the opportunity to be coached by him as well He was one of my mentors. So um, it definitely took a lot of that opportunity to learn as much as I From him about freehand and apply that when I can so sometimes when I come to these models and I have that opportunity to paint something I I definitely take it like actually the all I did for golden demon. I know we're gonna talk about that later It actually originally had a banner and I was super stoked to do freehand on it, but I just didn't have time You're you were better to do so Uh, because there is a sneaky rule of golden demon that is extraneous banners never help um, they I am I have seen so many amazing banners on models and None of them ever win because they never they don't want a banner on something that doesn't have a banner As part of it. Oh, that makes sense. I Could have been a good thing. Maybe so there you go. Yeah, like it's good Like I can name you pieces that I know for a fact I'm not going to but I like not here But like I did there that I know for a fact Did not win solely based on the nature of the banner that was on them And when you say that though, I can believe I feel like it would it would Really have a lot to do with what's on the banner too Oh, sure. And these were all blow mind blowing banners man. I'm telling you like like straight up Straight up topic for another day. It is indeed. It is indeed for another do a whole different show. All right This guy's great. Let's uh, let's jump over here to uh continuing on the ony theme. Let's get over to ronan and Yeah, uh So I like ronan. This is I like first of all, we've got now we're dealing with a tighter background here And this is one of those things that I really enjoy. I love the mix of the real tree with the painted trees Background, uh, it's great. I got no issue with it. I love it It's like you get to you get to get out your bed. You get to get to do your bob ross Right when you get to do those those things it's super fun I'm actually when I I'm going to start with the more I had the sort of more distance shot up But I'm actually going to do the zoom in here and we'll leave it here so we can talk about him because certainly we've got some more of the Your freehand situation on the the his uh hat Because I don't know proper names for anything as well as the kind of domestic steel that you've captured in the sword um But the the thing I want to talk about is actually just I really like The red armor doing red shiny armor is legitimately super hard um, it's just an extremely time consuming process and I like and I can see How you were doing it and my guess is it's one of the things about this piece that you like Well, I like the way it looks but I wish it like but I but I looking at it now I'm like man. There's so many things I would touch up or change about that at the same time like I Looking at it. I I I can feel that it's going to be one of those things for you. That's not me In any way judging your work. It's me saying. Oh, no, it's good. Yeah that like I know you look like looking at where you are and what you accomplished I I know you'd look at this now and go I like what I was doing with the lighting and kind of wow is capturing the shine But man, I wish I changed like these little things about it or had this be a little more smooth or something like that, right? Because red reflective armor is like it's just it's all-time tops of like a tough thing to render And I would have there's a lot I would have changed on the red armor. Um, I've learned since doing, um Oni and this one and some of the other pieces and you know red is obviously it's a hard color to paint And it's a hard color to paint. It's something that I wanted to practice. Not only that is that red is just It's such a a bold and emotional color that I think it can be There's so many things that you can do with it. So that's one of the reasons I really wanted to learn how to paint red. Well, and this is just one of those steps In my process and that journey of of learning. Um, so there's As someone who decided to do I would I would change like 65 of the red It's on this model like at least Um, I do like the demascus. Um, I thought the demascus like for where I was the demascus turned out really well Peace I think the if I'm like analyzing the best two things that I did are probably one is uh, the ambiance and two is the hat free hand My my favorite things things about this. Um ambiance and story. Um, so funnily enough, I actually Wrote a hat for this piece as cheesy as that is. That's awesome That's not cheesy. That's awesome So on the um On the plinth There's a piece of parchment because I this was kind of I did this one after I did arnie And I kind of wanted to do a can sort of a continuation of this series and the third part of the series is A model in pieces on my shelf that I forgot to but um Not quite a triptych. We're all we're like a dual dual tick It's a two out of three there. Um, but uh, so parchment. It's like I think it says it's cursed. He walks alone. Wait, how I can probably read it Oh, yeah cursed. He walks alone in the warriors winter. There is no respite Nice nice. What's that's not cheesy. That's awesome To go, you know go with the whole ambiance him, you know standing there in the cold wintery forest You know really exaggerating no shirt on in the middle of the snow snowy shirt His is if you look behind him, there's the footprints in the snow. Yep, where he walked up alone because yeah Truly one of my favorite extra things to add into models with snow is footprints in the snow Right like it's just it's a little touch and I love when when you do it and then people notice it and you're like, yeah That's right. Look at them footprints. This is this person walked Yes, absolutely and just teleport into the middle. Um Doing oh my gosh trying to do the footprints in the in the actual snow goop that I used was that was kind of a nightmare So what did you use for the snow goop here? What was your snow? Goop recipe it was some a k stuff that I had never used before and I just said hey This looks like a good product. We're gonna use it. Here we go. You know balls out and um It it was but it just I definitely made made some mistakes in the process You know, but you learn you learn what to do by learning what not to do and screwing up There you go but um Yeah, the snow could definitely be a lot a lot better and actually funnily enough That's why I I've I've never taken this to a show and I never will take it to a show not only because I it's Not at a level that I'd want to bring but also because I used um some of this like the aka snow powder is like the micro balloons to kind of get this sort of Texture on top But I found that whenever I fixed the material to the base it lost that initial texture So it's really just dusted on top of the snow and for pictures and then I left it there But if you breathe on it the snow just goes Yeah, sure. So it's in this little box right here on top of my shelf It'll never come out of it because if anyone breathes on it the snow is just gone That's amazing Uh, look as someone who decided to do an entire age of sigmar army in red non metallics Uh, and and has that has basically broken my sanity. I am more than uh, uh, Uh, I believe me. I I empathize with you on the journey here You know, I there's actually a little thing we haven't talked about. We're gonna go to the helm. We'll ask the army though, man Oh, thank you very much. There's I the there's a couple little things that I actually want to talk about here That we haven't mentioned yet that I actually think are are really important so Here's the first one. It's very small, but it's very important The treatment of the scars on this guy There's a couple scars like pronounced on his chest and I actually quite like how you decided to set them in a in a more Almost like what I would think of as a traditional moving toward a more traditional flesh tone brown tone integration of brown yellow it It actually makes them color-wise Compositionally it brings them more in line with the leather That you have a wrapped around his wrists And that's just an interesting little component because it it Told me about the toughness Of his skin that his scars basically become this toughened leather Okay, there's just a little tiny piece of the overall story The other thing that oh good. It's interesting that you did you say that because Honestly, that actually wasn't necessary attention That wasn't the way I kind of thought about it, but it's just that whenever I do like whenever I do paint Something with kind of a more of an unnatural skin tone You know green or pigments or whatever. I do like to add some of those more natural tones in Yeah, and I did that on I know we don't have pictures of him, but um Carg Was a the blue Orc guy from hair models that I painted He was my recovery many after I cut my finger off last year the one I painted six weeks after I did the same thing So it was like on his elbows and the other areas I used a very pink flesh tone for For that also because it's nice and contrasty to the skin stuff It's just kind of that extra layer of of pop to it So this piece overall like I wanted to keep it Except for the red. Yeah, so it's a De-saturated tone, but it's on the other end of the spectrum from that green. Yep Yep And and that's I want to dive in on the red because it's not just using a red But it's the red you've chosen here, right? It's this highly saturated Scarlet Right, it's sitting in a it's a very particular sitting in sort of the red because like red There are many different red pigments that get used in reds and absolutely and you know people would do well to sort of kind of like Uh Understand the different red pigments and how they act like especially if you like Single pigment artist paints will actually list them which is so beyond helpful because then you can actually figure out Kind of the different tones but to me This scarlet that you've chosen is so good because it has such that strong blood Vi-tie punch It's got this life that just kicks out of the piece right And that's part of the thing that I was talking about earlier with red being Such an emotional color, you know a me tied to aggression tied to life vitality So many things so That's It's really kind of hinges on that juxtaposition and the use of the red versus the cold atmosphere Which is this isn't you know the only piece that i've done that on i've done that on several others because i like doing it Sure, I think it can yield a really cool result and it works really well with with the ambiance So there was definitely when I did this one I was thinking a little bit of that whole frank miller vibe but more render not just black and white Right, but it's that That whole mentality that that spot color that our ambiance. Yep, by the way I just want to give a quick shout out here and say look People out there you've got excuses about why you're not painting or why you're not improving this man Has had he went down for months It had to get you know with with uh with Lyme disease cut his finger off Delt through the pandemic two kids in the house and he's still producing this work. What's your excuse? Okay, like i'm just saying like you're You better go through some stuff here, buddy i'm coming up on the um actually i'm It's today the 28th. Yeah 28. Yeah, I think um The In two days Think it's like literally the one year anniversary. I mean I cut my finger off nice nice Eric said don't play with routers kids. Just buy your plans. Yeah, I assume Exactly. Yeah I knew a new Eric is going to come in with something Let's before we leave this piece behind I do want to look at the helm I work because because it's obviously Stand out So i'll just let you talk about this one for a little bit because I've switched to the shot That's just the top down of the helm here. So just talk us through this bad boy Uh, all right, I'm sorry Vince. You cut out for just a minute. I couldn't hear you. No, no, no problem I've switched to the shot that's from the top down. So just take us through the the helm here and and and you know What's going on and what you did here? there was um originally this um This model it comes with like this sort of straw hat texture And I had it on there and I was I was painting and I was just struggling with it um because this was The mini itself was definitely not my favorite mini that I painted or the easiest one to work with even though I love this project, but there were a lot of obstacles to overcome One of being the hat texture was really rough and this was another one that it was mostly painted And I just I actually took a knife to it and I just I Just cut all of the hat texture off Took a paper, sanded it down, and then I took a Varnish and I just did layers of varnish over the top until it smoothed out flat enough that I could paint over it I said, okay. What do I do with this big blank surface? No, I don't freehand on it and sweet And then what better to go with you know this theme than a than a dragon and I Ended up just I looked up a bunch of reference photos. Um what I like to do with reference photos I mean sometimes it's you know an option, but if I'm doing freehand what I like to do. I don't like to copy It's already out there. I'll take a This is like um Say like a dragon take like six or seven different Dragons that are done in this style and I'll kind of like put them up on my computer screen or somewhere that I can see them And analyze each of the different pieces and then based off of that draw my own or paint my own um And then if I just started doodling and I came out with this dragon and added in You know the extra pieces and just kept refining and refining to get the depth and again make it look etched this is that You know, this is basically the the the next stage the next time I tried that trompe l'oeil freehand You know only being the first this one being the second um And just kind of pushing that aspect a little bit more and it just Turned out to be a a really cool little little peep On the model. Yeah, it's great. It really does make it stand apart and you you like it's The I think the the important lesson there for everybody to learn is like There's no such thing as the sunk cost fallacy with miniature painting You were already through a bunch of it. You didn't like it. So you changed it. So change it Like who cares? Right, like just do exactly You know You know, it's you you put the time in any if it doesn't work You you didn't lose the time you you learned what doesn't work. So now you have to do something else Yeah, it's just part of the process Yep, absolutely All right, so now we're on to golden demon 2022 USA silver winner in the vehicle category I don't know what her name is, but she's the lady in the war suit from sisters of battle. She has a name But I don't remember what it is. It's morwen ball. There you go. Thank you I appreciate that and uh, so take us through this piece and how you were paid to get in your hotel room for the Like three days of the convention you walked in you and I chatted for like 10 minutes and you were like, all right, man I gotta go paint Gotten in I literally like right before I saw you I had just gotten in from from baltimore to chicago and I Checked through my hotel went up to kind of you know check into the convention I got my badge and I immediately went up to golden demon. I went up to golden demon I'm hooked the case. I'm like looking real quick. What's in here? What's in here? What's in here and I make my way around and then I saw you I'm like Vince hey, I'm well like if we finally got to meet in person instead of just chatting online and um Yeah, we got to talk for two minutes. I'm like, all right time to go for you to go finish. Um Yeah, you were like this spectral presence by the way hanging over the whole time We were talking about you a bunch because like I was talking to minniac and john And I was like, oh, he's got a banger coming. Don't don't worry about it. I was like, where is he? I haven't seen him. I'm like, he's painting dude. He's working on it Me me and steve both we re both did the same thing. Um And that's one of my favorite pictures from from the convention is that chris sir He took the picture of steve and I both together like last minute right before the deadline submitting our our stuff um so life has a way of you know Things in your way And um, I had planned on starting this like the january early february And part of my own decision I in decision. Um, couldn't really figure out what I wanted to paint and I also just kind of got bogged down with other projects Sure with work some family things happened. I take an unexpected trip um I basically just got put back and all of a sudden it's it's march and um, my wife could tell that I was visibly stressed And you know, we talked and um, she's like, you know, what's going on? I'm like, hey, you know I've got that big competition in chicago. It's it's golden demon and um kind of Get out about getting a piece done, you know, I've got you know, like three weeks and Then normally a model for this like I would want to spend at least like two months on right and she was just an absolute boss those couple weeks and She helped watch the kids. She helped me take care of stuff in the house and allowed me to get in extra studio time I switched my schedule normally a Before that I would paint late at night after the kids go to bed Sure, and I was like, you know what? I need to maximize my time So I started waking up at like five six o'clock in the morning Uh sometimes four and that's when I started to get my studio time in and then I would go Until I had to go to work and then you know do it again when I got home or if it was a weekend I just worked through the day and um Cranked out a massive number of hours to try to you know knock this thing out and Being a perfectionist it was in pieces When I drove to adepticon I um I was supposed to get there earlier And I canceled the kill team tournament. I was going to play in on like 30 day or whatever. Sure. So I could drive and then no, I'm still not far enough along So I canceled the stuff I had to do on friday so I could drive And I drove in friday And um like I said be the whole story I came in met you I went back and I think I ended up just Dinner and then going right to sleep and then waking up at four and then I just painted all the way until Headline until submitting it and I actually turned it in with wet paint on the plinth Because when I went to pull the nasty masking tape off the plinth It to the primer off the plinth And then I like oh shit. I gotta be there in like 20 minutes. What am I gonna do? So I was just like dumping primer in there put in the case There and fortunately I had already filled my forms out. I got my forms the day one and like fill everything out like fill your forms people Yes, I thought about it. I was like, you know what knowing me. I'm gonna be there really late and I'm not I don't want to be there without the forms um many um It was kind of deciding What to do, you know, um, there's just there were so many options in this You know, that's out now for for gw that like I thought could be really cool. Um Dex sasa the uh talent slanash the demon lady that was really high on my list I thought that one would have been super cool to do. Yeah, um, didn't make the cut Um, probably a good idea because that one I would not have finished in time Uh, definitely too big. Um, she got a lot going on Yeah So what really I thought the new system models were were super cool. Um, I like painting NMM I think NMM is one of my strengths. So I definitely thought something with a lot of metallics would have been good. Um There's this picture in the war hammer It's the art of war hammer 40 000 the black library book And I can't remember her character's name, but it's like, um One of the inquisitors, um Quizzer sabbatho Female inquisitor and she has this custom suit of terminator armor Sure, and there's a lot of aspects that are Really similar to this and I actually picked this model up thinking. Hmm. What if I do a conversion? and Do this character like from the artwork And it ended up just kind of being a nightmare. So I ended up with this instead So I just took the morphing ball kit. I got a the um, the regular war suits and I just started Moving around reposing. I wanted a nice flow a nice, you know Done this as much as I could because The war suit chunky and they even when you chop them up, they don't really want to bend certain winds, but um I used It's uh, the shield from morphing ball had so much of that already sculpted detail on it that I I didn't particularly like So that's this is one of the shields from the um the dominion storm cast And I ended up using green stuff to convert the front to match the uh, original Morphing ball shield and then I used uh, the gun is from the morphing ball kit, but A lot of this model was So it didn't look like it was really converted, right if that makes sense I wanted it to look seamless like it's that That kind of that um, like what maxine panel did with with the troll, you know, just it looks so natural And you just think it's the kit Yeah, yeah That was my intention to do that here. Um So like even on the base like if you look at the the thing that she's standing on The top of that ruin is part of the revol kit, but the bottom half isn't got you so They dremeled off the flat base that she comes with Found a piece of sector imperialist train that I had that matched the other one green stuff that in and spliced it together to make it one long seamless Seamless bit The majority mismatch Miss mish mash of the paragon stuff storm cast bit original morphing ball kit um Bunch of green stuff like I added the florida leaves on the other areas and on the like on the halberd That's one of the storm cast acts. Um, I made them out of press molds and green stuff and uh You know just to kind of capture the battle theme all the way through um the Turned out really well, you know going back to that talking about that trump like freehand um In red, I guess, you know learning how to paint red Yeah, sure. No, absolutely. I mean the the again just to like really there there are things I want to draw everyone's attention to here which is that There is no pattern on her Tavern robes skirt, whatever. I don't know it. I don't know the name for it. There's no there's no pattern there That's all created through your your freehand. Yeah um So the kit has some really awkward like angular folds um, so knowing that I was going to do something with that area some type of freehand I Shaved it shaved it all down filled it in with green stuff. Yeah, just to make it a easier surface to paint on um Yeah, that was that was part of the conversion, but Um, I knew I wanted to do so so much this has that very gothic, you know, sort of nightly vibe to it So that's why I chose that quilted pattern um Because I felt like it it really fits. It was some way for me to showcase something different You know use the you know canon colors that kind of that crimson That that the um The sisters have um, basically it's doing My most creative thing within the lines and the rules of golden demon because that's what golden demon is You do whatever you want The lines in the lines. This is in the lines. Stay in the lines. Stay on the ip Stay in the lines. That's right. Um Oh Man, uh, turn out to be a really a really really cool piece. Um Pretty happy with with the nmm This one. I think it's it's coming along. We're getting better with it One thing I want to point out to everybody is again working with this sort of dual lighting situation Um, your lights from the front are more warm more rich Uh, whereas if we look at the back view Which is where I started here here. It's much colder Right. So here in the back. We're we're lit by a blue light. So again, we have somebody coming, you know, she's like stepping out of darkness Uh, the the pose to me feels very victorious or rallying kind of thing Uh, like as though an engagement has been you know one or temporarily one or there's a brief respite And she's like rallying all her troops to victory and so she's like leaving this darkness behind and stepping out into the light Sort of thematically and so that's captured here by taking the tones On the back and we've sapped a lot of like the rich yellow out of the gold We've turned the highlights more cold Right same with the steel that kind of thing But we still have those subtle earth reflections also coming up into the bright, you know highly reflective steel where where appropriate like this little I don't know what this thing is on the backpack, but they all have these little backpack circles a little engine or whatever um But again, that's such a great surface for doing that kind of environmental sky-earth capture right where you have a little bit of that ground light reflecting up So yeah, it's just great man. And I'm glad you You because that is exactly what I was going for kind of to hammer in that ambience that like her pose everything all together that kind of victorious or you know Emotion and so the the light change that's something that that I mean It's it's pretty consistent through a lot of my pieces something that I do a lot And that's because I've really been working on the concept of color constancy Which it's Quite as simple as just a mother color because you that's where you start Sure, but the whole idea that you can paint the perception of a color Without painting that color right and that's where like I've been working on this for like a year and a half man And it's still it still messes with me because it's a hard it's a hard thing It's a hard to get like even like um, I'm sure so many people here are familiar with you Gurney's colors and uh gurney's color and light right right So the page the page on color constancy like if you read it it's It's it's literally just a page and he basically says like yeah, you just really have to practice a lot to understand this Right. It's like It's basically it. Um, and it's been a lot trial and error. Uh, and I think that I'm I'm grasping a little bit more um Yeah, definitely come here. Yeah yep All right, awesome now Last piece or no, I'm sorry. We have two more. Apologize. I forgot. Okay. So first, yeah, we'll we'll talk about this guy We don't we we we can spend a little time on here. I'm excited for the last piece Um, so this is your uh, this is our This is our orc guy Um with his big axe again doing the real background becoming fading into the painted background Right. Um, I like this guy. Uh, I again like There's he is simpler uh in in sort of like concept than some of the other executions that you that you've done here But you still kept a really interesting ambiance around him Um, there's little things I like here in kind of the built up base These little touches of like having all the little sticks and twigs and tiny little Uh, sort of like dead Growth that's around that really sets the feeling Uh, and I just really love how much his Face and his axe become a focal point of this miniature like if you step way back It's like face center of chest axe. It's the three things you notice. It's where the action is. It's drawing your eye It's smacking you in the face hard The most important thing with every every model is you know, you know, it's face You know as long as the model has a face, um, and then weapons or then any other story element that you're trying to draw attention to but typically whenever we look at anything it's just The face is where the emotion is like when you talk to somebody you don't like look at their Shoulder their foot, you know, you look at their face because that's where we perceive emotion from so um and and doing that in a More limited or muted color palette is where things can start to get a little bit tricky So that's With this piece, you know, that's I'm glad that really comes through and one of the things that helps is that big golden star Oh, yeah, sure on on the top that just says hey look in here And that was part of that color choice too um So funny thing about this this model this was I was kind of in like I was a little bit of a slump Towards the end of end of last year and um, I feel like I feel like Eric's gonna chime in here soon. Um I um I was like, you know what I just need to paint a middle Paint a mini I just need to paint a model. I need to stop overthinking things about all these other projects these abandoned things that I've got on my shelf um, I'm just gonna paint something and I had just gotten this guy from the harrick Kickstarter and um Eric had done the box art and I'm like, you know what? I really want to I really want to do this This is just such a cool model. You know, he's big. He's chunky. He's a bunch of metal on them They'll just be fun to paint. So I painted them. I like I don't really like it need something else. I need to do a base So I started building a base And this base becomes this giant portal with rocks everywhere Huge rocks. Okay, and then there's a big opening in the back. I'm like, okay, this doesn't work So I gotta do a painting background. I'm like, okay. Well now I've got all all these Rocks like I need to add other elements to it like so and it just Just just grew into this huge piece and he's literally like one of the biggest things on my shelf Besides ony and it just kind of kept growing and growing and growing Into something that I personally really like and I think he turned out pretty cool. Yeah Yeah, I agree. There's there's a lot of little life in detail in here Things like just the extremely rusted sword sitting over at the side by his foot again creates a nice directional line In the other way down because you have you have an action line coming here through the light reflection The sword creates a composition line going the opposite direction So it's doing a lot just by its existence in the piece even though it's not a huge attention grabber Um, I I like the way the like I like how you resolved the rust Uh on the the I don't know flat of the axe. I guess let's call it the non the non cutty bit of the axe um I think that that feels very uh Eric just paint a simple figure will See I told you I told you There you go. So I like the way that's resolved. Uh, I think that's good. Yeah I also a little little small little small element I like shifting the you could have resolved that metallic sort of steel armor he's wearing in pretty traditional blue black white tones But instead you shifted it a step over into this yellow green gray Each color. Yeah, and I really love that palette for this armor. It's a totally different feeling By just taking this slight jump to the left Also really helps with again, you know working in these these muted colors It helps him pop from the base. Yes, because it's a cold color You know and and and muted relative to the environment It's it's warmer and it's brighter and that's what's helping draw the attention there to him so sometimes those I I try to To work on is is color relationships in in a piece And it's about understanding those color relationships to be able to work in those subtle condensed palettes um And that's something that I I really tried to employ here and I've I've kind of been working on If me panting and you know muted muted palettes, right? Sure. Sure All right Yeah, let's move to my favorite. Yeah, let's do it. Here we go. Boom Okay, like this piece My god I love this piece so much. I just like Will this is the piece that you did That when I saw this I was like Oh wills for real Like wills for real. That's it That's it. This this this just got real Okay Because this piece is some next level right here. Okay, like this is beyond All right, so take us through through this. I my god in heaven. I love this piece She's definitely my favorite too like by far and it's hard because in Even the picture in the pics like the marble probably looks a little bit better than it does in hand But the red isn't even close Like I when you when you hold it the way that the red just kind of explodes is It's something that makes me really happy. You know, especially talking about working on painting red Fit For people who don't know this was the witch horn Um, it's based off of artwork barge el brahm and it was put out by mine work games Um, as soon as it came out. I'm like man, I love this fig. I want it. I ordered it I got lost in the map And I just kind of I waited for you know a few months a few months and um He ended up being You know like four months after or something like it had been like shipped and the tracking company finally said like It's not just on the way. It's it's gone. We don't know where it is. So I emailed Mateo to diamond who owns mine work and told him what happened. He's like no worries, man I'll send you a new one. He sends me a new one. But in this time frame This was a very popular figure and a lot of people Aided this figure really really well and there are some really awesome versions out there. Yep. So By the time I got it, I kind of felt like all right. Well I'm not going to paint something that everybody else did. I want it to be something different, you know, sure and um Kind of thinking about things and no one had done a red Look really well And I was like, you know what? I think this is the way to go and this is one of those Pieces that I kind of had a vision of in my head. Um, it's got such great Lines I wanted I wanted to so the composition itself. I wanted to Kind of show that and then I chose to do the gothic style architecture in the back Again, just a really Sort of dark contrast between like something traditionally associated with you know a church Or a cathedral something like that with this demonic witch lady, right? Yeah Have that background kind of flow into the figure itself and then using the Old powerful red again so many emotions there to really make her Stand out from that background the inside the black actually messed with that black 3.0 that like super matte black stuff Oh, okay. Got it really kind of push it push it back It's actually a piece of black plastic card that's curved So it doesn't really the point that it would actually reflect light if it does catch any it's going to be behind the figure So you wouldn't really see it. Gotcha. So in that effect of keeping that hole really black The base itself is entirely scratch built out of plastic card or milliput Wow, okay. Yeah, I was going to ask you. Yeah, did you build that yourself or did you Did you you know like have it somebody because like Now I suppose you could have somebody 3d print something like that pretty easily as well, right? That's the world we live in now It's the card of milliput. I went like on photoshop I did did my shapes I cut them out as a stencil my stencil them on plastic card And I cut everything out by hand and then a bunch of little different shaped tubes And I bent the tubes with hot water glue them in smooth everything out with milliput and several stages to and I built it right on the figure And Major thanks to Eric. Hey Eric. Thanks for cutting the base for me because The front to make the plinth, you know, Eric says stay away from routers will So I did staying away from powder power tools. This was the summer after I you know had the finger accident So I was actually um, I was down in virginia beach and he helped me out and used his bandsaw I cut the block of wood for me to come home and finish making the piece So I I owe him for that one. Um But this um Love how this this turned out and this is where I started experimenting more with the Not just you know painting red, but the painting the red They're experimenting with different pigments as well Like that's something that you touched on before that It's one of those colors that it's really useful to have all of the different Different red pig like there's that's that's one color that I like to have a bunch of And what I did here was I actually used fluorescence to extend the range of natural Saturated red. I was having problems just even like my boldest red pigments like a pure naphthol Red yeah pure pigment, which is still didn't give me the effect that I wanted and then I said I was a brainstormed Alfonso and he had the idea of fluorescence And I basically took and ran with it and I used I actually used fluorescent magenta as an undertone then Fluorescent red over the top But I used the magenta to keep the red colder because if you use something else like a yellow or orange or what not It's going to get too warm and it'll it'll break the whole piece And then I used so I used that whole process and extended my what would have normally been my most saturated red Into more of a mid tone. Yep, and that's Red is just so explosive It's fantastic and and I think it's easy to get lost in the red and to think that the rest of the piece is black and white But it's really not Glad that you noticed that because so many people have said the same thing It's like you did a great job in basically three colors And I'm like there's way more than three colors in there Oh, absolutely Like you're actually using a lot of very soft very subtle Yellows greens blues all over that skin. It's just they're so subtle in there as to how they're working But they're creating a lot of actual action In that non-red space They may if the skin was literally just black and white we wouldn't see that same level of visual interest We do but instead the lighting feels you're exactly right Yeah You're you're 100 correct and I'm I'm so happy you notice that Notice that makes me so happy But yeah, there was there was there is a lot of a lot of tones that went that went into there's there's normal flesh tones Flesh tone glazes in there, but it's just really really soft and just really soft, you know color shifts Towards a certain direction to give her life because if it wasn't in there And she would look too dead, right even with like a model that's Undead, you know, you need to have some type of Life in there to show that the animation, you know, yep to show that it's sort of alive Yeah, and I think that Yeah, it's great Man, it's it's just an all-time banger Uh, like literally this piece will live for the rest of my life in my head rent free I want you to know that like there's there's a selection of pieces from from from history from that I that I that you recognize that stay in your mind. This is one of those for me. It absolutely is That's awesome. The hard part is going to be one up again now. I gotta The thing I got to make a new one a new one. I can't wait. I can't wait the top sir, man All right, she's she's definitely my all-time favorite. I know we've been going for a while here No, you're good, man. We're gonna we're gonna get what right now what we're gonna do is we're gonna jump into Lightning round lightning round. That's right, buddy. You know what it is. Okay So now it's time for the lightning round questions Okay, here we go. You're really bad at this Lightning round question number one and remember you must pick one and only one thing To answer all of these questions. You cannot waffle or pig. Give me like a will this but also this no One answer One answer alone. Okay Question the first Who is your favorite miniature painter living or dead currently producing or not? Who is your favorite miniature painter? You must pick one So many implications with that God either or person Uh, you made to find this however you like Okay If kirl Okay Okay, kirl kanayev. All right. It's it's a it is a reasonably often heard pick on this show Yeah, but Realistically if I did not have to pick one there are a much longer list for other reasons Of course, shut up now. All of our lists would be a hundred long. That's why you've got to pick one. That's what makes it tough That's why it's hard Okay Question the second that I think I already might know the answer to we'll see What is your favorite color for miniature painting Red Is that she said it didn't pick it up Oh green. Oh green. Okay Green. All right. I wasn't expecting it. Okay. I Green green is my favorite color and it's in some shade of green love obviously I love red but um really like green blues Probably one of my most Used colors even if I'm not using red. I'm still probably using that Got it. It's a good. I mean the human eye can distinguish more tones of green than any other color in the spectrum Uh, so that's an advantage, right? We've got more to work with. It's going to be naturally recognizable there Humans have spent their entire evolution Distinguishing greens because it's what surrounds most of us every day So it's it is like from a sort of scientific point of view It's the one that you've got the most space To play in not only just with its place along the wheel But then also going up and down from all of those as well, right So, okay cool final question fantasy or sci-fi? What was that? Fantasy, okay, you're Yeah, I think it's your noise gate like it picks you up in a second But if you only say one word it doesn't catch it Uh, okay Yeah, there we go. Yeah, I think I have to go with fantasy. I love I love sci-fi but um I've I've always been drawn More to the fantasy side of things like I mean when I got when I got into it. It was warhammer fantasy battles and I actually like there's this there's a big spot in my heart with It that that still lives in and so much A world world return. I mean ages sigmar is great, but I I miss the old world But I mean I've always been a fan of A fan of all things, you know Agans and orcs. I love orcs orcs hold a special place in my heart Um, you know wizards and elves and all that all that kind of shit. I love it. I love it. Nice Awesome. Well will thank you so much brother for coming on and sitting down with me and talking. It's been absolutely fantastic Uh, thank you all out there for watching. Don't forget to hit like it helps other people find the show It helps everybody find will all of will's Stuff Instagram All your things all the places online people can find you will be down in the description Go check those out follow will will any final thing you want to spruke or direct anybody's attention to or anything like that before we call it a night here Um, well, I just want to say I haven't man. It's really it's been a blast. It's been super great to be here. It's just finally sitting chat with you and um Right for tuning in, but um, I mean right now the big thing that I you know, I definitely want to plug is the been over raffle Uh, that's going on right now. Uh, so definitely check that out. The collaboration is going to be insane Whoever wins this pot is going to be a very very lucky person um there is probably I think there's 40 plus artists from around the world including like uh, May Eric Swinson uh, Dave Caldwell mark masclans david aroba arnell azzaro All painting little marvel chibbies in one single pot and it's all to benefit The refugees in the ukraine right now And that goes live on may 15th. So that's a big one. Um, I think there's a couple seats left in my classes at nova And then right now, I don't really have anything else on the schedule because I do have a busy schedule I'd like to have some workshops and everything come up But if you guys follow my insta or anything whenever that happens when I start doing some workshops or Like that it'll that's the first place that it'll be Nice. I will I will link all of that down below including the nova open charity That drive so that'll all be linked below For all of you out there. Thank you so much for watching. Like I said hit like subscribe We'll be doing more interviews with the artist here in season two We've got our next one being lined up already. Uh, so we'll thank you. Absolute pleasure all of you out there Thank you so much as always We'll see you next time Yes