 Thank you. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another interview with the artist and today I am very excited. Uh it is the man himself. Darren Latham is on the show. Designer for GW. Excellent miniature painter. Uh just all around hero in the community and one of my personal favorite painters of all time. How are you doing, sir? I'm good. Thanks, miss. The amount of hours you've put in, you've earned at least that introduction, my friend. So great for you. It doesn't show on my, you know, on my face. Now, it's a pleasure to come on up. I'd say it's it's nice to say I've been watching the show for quite a while now. So it's nice to finally, finally we asked, you know, to come on. So it was good. Well, you know, we had we had to build up, right? I had to convince you. So today we're going to talk a lot about miniature painting. We're going to talk about your journey as an artist. That's what we're here for. Uh and we're just going to kind of move through uh you know what you what drew you to painting, what you like, what you're still painting, what you enjoy. We'll probably talk a little bit about the tutorials and stuff since you've gotten into teaching on YouTube and all that kind of thing and and and you know, you're you're the journey that you're on your painting journey. All right. That's where we always start. So this is the this is what I want to understand. Where did young Darren first encounter uh I assume by the way you as a child looked exactly like you now. My image of you is like exactly the same just like two feet shorter basically, right? Exactly exactly the same way different. There you go. There you go. So where did you first uh encounter miniature painting miniatures like how did you first decide to say I would like to do this weird hobby we all do, which is pick up a paintbrush, get some miniature paint and put it onto a tiny plastic or metal man. Yeah. So it's it's a similar story to most people. I mean, I watched Garrison's interview. So his story was so similar to mine. It was almost a copy paste. Uh I brought an album of fantasy and stuff like that. We read the fighting fantasy books and things where we were younger. So there was a group of him and his friends at school that went into a classroom at lunchtime and messed around with that sort of stuff and maybe played some Dungeons and Dragons and things and then one day he bought home a white dwarf magazine and uh and I looked at it straight away and I just knew that whatever was in there was painted as well, but you didn't buy them colored, you know, right? You can do with lots of toys and things and I was like and I was always being quite creative, always into my art, you know, so I would always be drawing and things. So it was it just struck me that it was really interesting. So and then he started getting into it more and I pushed into the group a little bit. I was really interested in the rules and things because we were playing a few games by that point and I was always more interested in the painting. So I'd just be painting, painting single figures and things and like I said, we really started with hero quest and space could say just like many people about our age. It was the gateway, you know, and then it went into one of my fantasy battles and then so yeah, but it was always been the painting and it was looking through the white dwarf magazines because then we had the ever metal pages and they'd show just, you know, a gallery of awesome new painting models, you know, from the studio guys and from anybody else and it was just there was no rhyme or reason to it was just a space room next to another different type of model or next to an elf and it was just for hours and hours and hours. I mean, to the point where, you know, I got a little collection of paints and then it was I started sticking those on the wall, you know, most kids would have posters of other things and bands they like and stuff on the wall and mine were pictures of miniatures that were painted by the then every metal team and the studio guys and I just have them around for inspiration and I'm rambling that makes that's you're not at all. No, that's fascinating like I love the idea of you over your in your childhood bedroom having these posters where everybody else has their tiger beat posters you've got the every metal painter pictures it was it was just pictures I remember there was a gallery of elder ones I cut them out of black dwarf and just put them on the wall and it made over there I mean, I did it at the time just because I loved them but now I realize that it was inspiration right but then I didn't realize what I was doing I was just so cool that belong on the wall you know I had my Star Wars posters up and everything else and then I have those and yeah now it's like you know I think they've served as inspiration for me saying that was cool. Nice. So you said you were always creative always into art now at the same time were you you know so you you get into this are you taking any art classes in school stuff like that like did you did you do any formal you know for well let's call it quote unquote formal art training at the same time. Yeah well in school you have choices you know subject choices at a certain point so I obviously chose art because it was what one of the things I excelled in and one of the things I was passionate about and then I did and then I went to art college as well for two years and then I went out to study fine art at university for a little while and then I joined games workshop on that so it was a it was something that I was it was the thing I was best at the thing I cared most about it just I mean originally it was okay I'm going to university and then you know career in art isn't always easy to find so my plan was to become an art teacher because hopefully there'd be a job there and then I think games workshop sort of I found my way into games workshop from there at least that was my journey so art our education and then that led into part-time job at games workshop to support the education and then that led into full-time work at games workshop so it kind of flowed quite nicely there was a horrific year out which I had after school I thought okay I'm 16 I can do anything and then realize that the world isn't such a great place at that age and I was like I need to go back to college and do what I need to do so Gotcha, alright Pretty much it I mean it is an interesting arc because so many miniature painters I talked to you know first of all there ends up like one of the most common things that happens is what I call the gap years because it ends up being that well I was playing with the toy soldiers and then I discovered that there were girls and then I sort of had the idea that one would cancel out the other the matter and anti-matter it sounds like you had a much more even progression where you were still engaged in art that whole time regardless and so it's kind of fascinating that you never left the artistic pursuits No I think there was always creativity was always there bubbling underneath but I think I did drop out of miniatures for a little while and then found them again and you find them in your bedroom and you're like oh I remember that you said pick them up again and then before I left I thought you look back and think I'm a great miniature painter you think it's amazing I tried to do some painting again after a little break and realized how I couldn't even see the model or hold the brush properly again and that sort of sort of spurred me on to get back into it and try and improve where I left off so it's funny when you look back at your old paint jobs and at the time you think I'm going to win a slayer sword with this and then you look back at it now and you're like what was I thinking because in your mind it's completely different so it was that kind of thing it's a wonderful thing our brains do in smoothing out the sort of the edges of history of our own work absolutely so when you started miniature painting and then you continue on were you also playing at the same time or was your focus always in the painting part more than the playing part I tried to play because I was painting and I wanted painting miniatures I didn't get to play many big games I always tried to join in with the group as it were the guys at school but it was always I played a lot of Blood Bowl a lot of Blood Bowl because you really needed 11 or 12 models I actually love Blood Bowl but it hates me unfortunately and I played a lot of Necromunda the smaller games you didn't need as many models at the time and then I think I joined in with the 40k and the Warhammer as I could but it was generally just a little bit but it was only later on when I was working in games which are retail stores it was like okay I need to have a 40k army or Warhammer army and I have to play these games I've got to get involved and then painting armies in this store and things so it was then that I played the bigger games but my entry was like things like that and then the smaller games and it sort of gradually grew from that really but yeah I've always been if I'm going to paint a model I'll always do the best I can so I never really got armies done and then my recent army my space room army I really had to be strict with myself with the method and how to get them done in time and actually have something at the end of it to play with as well and I'm learning that now so there's always something to learn with miniature painting it's not just about being better it's about doing the tasking hand to the best of your ability within the time allowed that makes sense let's follow down that rabbit hole for a moment because I've watched this is your I'm going to say is it Silver Skulls is that right boom I remembered a space marine thing you have to understand my personal background is fantasy like through and through like for me you know you mentioned seeing the space marine and all over I've said it many times for me seeing the first Skaven miniatures I was like this is it this is my thing I must be I must be part of this right I'd already been playing a little war armor I had a little empire army that I kind of inherited and cobbled together but as soon as I saw the rats and I actually have your version of Iketclaw now the Arch Warlock up on the screen which I did a whole video about obviously where I talked about you know being able to look at miniatures and really so I did a whole hobby cheating where I talked about you know being able to see miniatures not just look at them and I use this example because it's such a gorgeous beautiful piece it's such a beautiful example of one of the best miniatures of that age like that time period where this comes out of and I think it's just I don't know who the original sculptor on this was maybe you do I don't know but whoever they are they're one of my heroes in life so there you go So the Iketclaw you're talking about that was sculpted by Seb Pervet and the original one was sculpted I think by Jez if not by Jez it was by one of the Paris Gotcha So forgive me if I'm wrong but yeah the one you're talking about is Seb Pervet he does a lot of the the Age of Sigmar range You know this is the second review in a row where I've learned that I owe this man so much of the toy that's in my life and I've never personally thanked him I'm gonna have to make a mission of that next time I'm over at an event because it's it's yeah this is this is great it was it was life changing for me to see these little guys Yeah So the but I want to follow this down you mentioned like setting a the way I think of it is you set a quality level for yourself for the silver skulls and I've watched your video on them and how you how you go about painting them for those who who for some reason are watching this and are not aware that Darren has a YouTube channel right now where he has a lot of really great tutorials what are you doing with your life where did you go wrong all it'll be linked down in the description along with everything else including his blog where he has a lot of great tutorials and you can go there how did you like how do you navigate that I'd love you to talk about that a little more because I know this is one of the things people often struggle with right they feel like they could paint to a level and they want to paint to a level but if they do that for the whole army they'll lose their mind and or never finish a thing exactly so I just it was okay so I knew I wanted to play the new 4k the new 4k being the one that was released a few years ago and I knew I wanted to promote a spaceman army because why wouldn't you and then I've got a post on my wall just up there which is all the spaceman chapters and I just looked to that and I'm okay I need one that I can paint quickly that I don't dislike maybe one that's got a bit of heritage and a bit of background and then it was going to be the silver schools I think all the iron knights and I know lead belt spray was available I thought okay maybe I can just spray them and then put a wash on and just pick up the details so I did a test one and it went really quick and the other thing was there was decals available those being the chaos space marine iron warrior decals because they're pretty much the same so I just it just sort of fell into place that way and then I also looked in the old road trader original 140,000 rulebook and they were in there as well so I thought this is a chapter that's existed since day one but I've not really seen a lot of and what I have seen a lot of hasn't really shown them in the best light maybe so I was like maybe you could do something with these and then even to the point where I contacted the the author of the Silver Schools novel Sarah Corkwell she gave me some background and some information on them so she was quite useful as well so but yeah then it was just so I did a few and then they went really quick and I do mean to go back to them and do some more tweets and add some trophies and things on them but there's so much to add anyway but yeah it was I tried I did one did a recipe I always write down the recipes if I'm doing batch painting like that I'll always forget so recommend doing that and then yeah it just worked out really quickly and I was just really strict so normally when you do like poor highlights I just cut it down to two or one and just did that knowing that as it looked okay as a squad then and they're just going to get pushed around the table you know so I didn't I wasn't too precious with them but as an army they look nice and the bases they do a lot for them as well as an army so I've seen a lot of armies where the bases can let them down a lot so if you just do a nice neat base it can make your army look twice as good twice as appealing on the battlefield as well so it was a challenge because I wanted to play some games and I do enjoy playing games a lot more now get a bit more time and things so just write down your recipes and be strict and then you spend your time on your characters and things like I did with with the other guys but yeah so it's tough but and you always feel like it's that things like if you can sprint why would you walk it's that mentality with painting sometimes it's like I can paint this better but I've got to you know cut it back a bit so that doesn't take so long my elder my elder armies was going to be the one which is like okay I'm going to spend a lot of time on this and it's going nowhere because it's just it takes so long so I'm like maybe I should have you know gone for something different with those but yeah it's a challenge with painting army anyone that can paint armies that's after it it's a really tough thing to paint full armies to a decent standard as well right because it's easy to and I think that it's easy to get caught up to say even if you get some initial part done you know at the beginning of a project like that you're real enthused you're hyped you're going you're spending all this time you get a squad done or a unit or a character or some mix of that and then you're like oh but now I've got to do the other 1800 points or whatever right and I what I found happens is you start making excuses not to work on that project right you'll be sitting there on your clean desk you're like okay one I need a new project like you do that thing that's going to be a lot of work do I really have the time do I really want to start one of those and you it's just so easy to make excuses for yourself so by like I think doing what you did there and saying like this is the recipe I use it's fast I can execute on it and I'm happy with it and that's the key right like you said you're happiness to that output level for doing the army to get that done it was it was that sort of so there was work and then reward so the work with a 10-man squad and then the reward was I'll do the redemptive dreadnought and then there was some work again which was maybe another squad and then I'd do a character so there was that so that really helped but I say what really helped was actually playing some games so started off with like a thousand points and maybe half of it wasn't painted to begin with but playing the game made me want to play more and therefore get them painted so that encouraged me even though I was painting with unpainted models which isn't ideal but it made me want to get them done because I was enjoying playing the game so right it would be to say I'm not showing up with these unpainted models again like I'm gonna or next time there'll be less of these on the table that's right I'm not I'm not doing that yeah it's no it's good motivation I gotta tell you a story so I was in one world a couple of years ago and I was playing a game and I think I had my whole army was just sprayed black it was a dark angel's army I had at the time and I was playing again these would have been very dark angels then they were just sprayed black yeah they were literally just assembled and sprayed black I've not painted them yet and I was playing just playing a one off game against one of the guys in the studio and his army was painted and you know people would walk around the tables in the world and they go and they just browse armies and you know they'd probably stop you for a chat sort of thing so this guy was walking around and he stopped at our table and he said to the guy I was playing he said nice army mate nice army and then he looked over at my arm he went ah don't worry about it mate I can't paint either and then from that day I promised myself I would never ever turn up to a table with an army like that ever again and this wasn't that long ago either it was just the way he looked at me and then looked down and went yeah I can't paint either that's amazing I love everything about that I was reminded about it still as well so it was very funny you want to talk about motivation yes that's good motivation to get going I was just slightly embarrassed well it is the one you're not wrong about worm world like every time I'm over there you know one of the things I enjoy the most amongst a lot of great reasons to come visit you all who you know live and work in that area that is your normal store the regular place the embarrassment of riches that you have of these amazing tables and you know everybody having space to get together but one of my favorite things to do is just walk around and look at everybody playing games it's incredible all the stuff that goes on there alright so so that's by the way one other thing I want to touch on that you made a point of something and I think it's exactly the same thing I do and I want to just draw it out real fast which is painting the units is the work the single model that's special or the character is the reward I do the exact same trick like all the okay I've got to get this battle line unit done fine I'll get it and you know you do it to whatever standard you do it to but then your reward is you get to sit down and like luxuriate in the single model right that's you just relaxing with it yeah I agree it's a good trick it's a super good trick so for those of you out there I mean I will say this from the perspective of somebody who judges a lot of painting events when I look at your army I'm not judging your units or your squads to the same level I'm judging your characters or whatever your centerpiece models right like when I people will look at things a little bit more yeah exactly like that's the I expect that your characters have a little bit more attention paid some parts of them so my intercession squads are all very basic and if there's a sergeant with his face exposed that will be needed to you know every metal sort of level because I know people will have a good look at it and it's what stands out in the shot so even that will be some parts of the models will be picked out a little bit better than others but yeah it's about playing the tricks on the models where you get the most reward for the time you're putting in but yeah it's just I think I got lucky with the chapter I picked really well then one of my co-workers and he did a silver space screen chapter as well he created his own and he did his very similar sort of way with a spray and a wash picking out all of some of the details and things and his army looks amazing as well so I've seen a lot of silver metallic primaris on this now it has such a wonderful nice I mean the advantage of it's one of the reasons I actually like using true metal paints for an army right like they just have a it has a naturally great look when everything's kind of together there it has that shine and everything has these natural reflections the paint is doing a lot of work for you exactly yeah it's doing a lot of work which is good right on all right so you're you're let's now let's we reset we reset back in time a little bit you're painting along one of the things that's interesting to me about this one of the questions I was asked is when did you make the flip the switch to start competing and this is interesting because you started working for games workshop at you know a relatively quick clip there as it were so did you you know I obviously you've competed up you have awards your your you are a dominant force in the years and like the open category when you're not judging where the GW staff is able to compete in the in the past years but like how much did competition become a thing for you was it just simply the journey toward display and that level of painting for its own right was it joining the heavy metal team originally when you did years back or like what flipped that switch into a more competition mindset where you really wanted to push right so I joined games workshop when I was 19 but a couple years before that I entered Golden Demon and that's the point where I thought I was great and I could win the Slayer sword and then you know I said you look back and realise painting isn't exactly what you thought it was right I think I got like the green sticker the finalist thing at that time that was the best I got and then I joined games workshop and it was only after I joined games workshop and then when it's the amount team that I feel my painting was at a point where I could possibly win something if I wanted to if I wanted to try you know to go down that sort of route and very quickly I got pulled into the Golden Demon judging panel so for many years it was sort of off the cards even to be competitive in my painting so it was only within the last five years where we did the smaller Golden Demons okay I won't judge this one maybe I'll enter that one and then it was like one of the big Golden Demons I thought I'd have a year out of judging and I entered that instead so it's only been a few times but when I did enter I went for it because it was there's a certain amount of reputation on the line you know if you're going to go from judging to entering it's like I need to make sure that I do my best for this and I don't sort of go in half heartedly so yeah it was just a few times so there was Space Marine Golden Demon there was a one of Fancy Golden Demon which I entered there was the main Golden Demon so yeah so it's only been like a few times but yeah it's fun it's really fun so it's sort of like because it was nice to have this because I'm always judging we can talk about that a bit later as well but it's nice to be on the other side of the fence experiencing the competition as the hobbyists and the customers do so then you can maybe you get a feel for it a little bit more and it's exciting as well absolutely so one thing I want to drill in on there and this came out of you made a really really great video that was about it was sort of like your tips for how to you know improve as an artist as a painter as a hobbyist right and one of the things you had talked about in there which loops back to what you just said of joining the heavy metal team in the early days there was form a sort of like a group like a mentorship group right like a brain trust I think is the words you used of people who have a good eye whose opinion you trust who are going to be honest with you right and who can spot and give you feedback on how to take the next step my understanding of how the one of the ways the heavy metal team works and maybe you can tell me if I'm right or wrong but is that like when that team is doing work and a single artist is working those things they're working on will often go around to the other members of the team and they'll often talk to the other members of the team and get feedback and see how to improve so it's this unbelievably positive feedback heavy learning environment that I think is just amazing so I would drill in on that a little bit yeah it's exactly it's exactly how it is so I think the feedback culture thing has grown not just with within the metal team but within loads of industry over the last 10 years I think when I first joined it was always quite isolated you just do your work and you finish it and then you hand it over sort of thing but I think you get constantly asked for feedback not just within the E team you're in like I mean the design teams we do the same thing but on the internet as well people even more so these days people asking for feedback and feeling like they can ask for feedback you know so and because that culture has sort of grown now because everybody can contact everybody so it's such easier you've got to be open to feedback you know even if you don't want to hear it the thing is like be open to feedback but don't let it affect you in a negative way just because they're giving feedback doesn't mean you have to react to it you can just go okay thanks for feedback and you can literally put it aside and some feedback will not be valid for you and the other thing is I found really quickly asking for feedback for too many people is very confusing so just we talked about the mastermind group thing and I think that's just it's more about people getting a group of trusted friends that are in you know obviously in the hobby they don't have to be in the same town they could be everywhere but just have that group I think and then be honest with each other about getting the feedback because I think people could create more painting groups I think that could be a big win for a lot of people the overall team they're great at what they do they're the best at what they do because they're the team you know they combine experience and everything together really help and they've got trust in each other so people can do that I mean there's like computer gaming groups there's groups for everything so I think like people just creating small groups and even giving names and things like that would be a really cool thing to see I know that there's like you know the British guys have got a group of Spanish painters that hang out together I think more of that sort of thing if you haven't got one make one you know and you'll quickly see your painting improve especially if you've got people in that group that are better than you if you're the best in that group you need to find a new group I think that's like such good advice having people that you trust who you know are going to give you valuable feedback and who you can go to and have that and by the way and you can act the same for them I think that like that kind of rapid feedback just you have to accept that what you're putting out is not going to be perfect but if you want to take the next step you've got to let fresh eyes see it because it's always going to be basically impossible to actually spot you know the opportunities in your work yourself with your own eyes you're too close to it right so yeah and I mean as a proof point on the heavy metal team not only like it's how well this culture works not just look at the incredible you know painting that's on the front of every box I mean that's just a proof in itself but you know one of the things that I know happens is when they get a big unit that they have to do for a box cover and then they're painting the unit you know it's not like one person will always handle all that unit sometimes they'll spread that kind of stuff out right and the fact that I could never draw a line I would say oh this one is this person and this one is this person and they're completely consistent and they're all to a gorgeous high level tells you that they've worked together well to actually like bring to lift all boats right the question of style thing is it's when they finish a project and when we finish a project it should look like it's been painted by one person that's the ideal for them but I mean they're just great at that it's just like they can adapt as much as they want with those sort of things I think like I said before in past sort of conversations like the other metal team is the best it's ever been and that's the way it should be the guys and the girls they're just pushing it beyond any standard that I've seen produce from the team before and it's just great to see really and what that does is there's a few of us designers that use to be the ever metal team and there's a few of us designers that like to paint it you know try and keep up obviously they're doing it all day every day so they're going to get better it's just the way it is so let's talk about that change that's there the next place I want to go on this journey you were you were with the heavy metal team for a long time you were painting both for yourself and professionally what drew you to sculpting did you always have you know did you always have an interest in sculpting or in design or like what what sort of tripped you over the line you know what I think this is something I'd really love to do yeah it was it seems like a natural progression for a lot of painters to start doing some sculpting or you know you'll heavily convert models and then you might try sculpting models but for me it's never been something at the front of my mind it was always I just loved painting so much and still do so I think I was eight years into the ever metal team at that point I was lead painter so one of the studio managers said oh have you ever thought about doing some sculpting and I was like I don't feel like I've achieved everything we've ever met or yeah I want to do some more there because at that point we were planning out the colour sections for the army books and doing a lot of project planning and things like that and I felt we were really going somewhere so and they were like okay cool and then you know two years later another similar conversation was the studio manager at the time and he's not there anymore so I'm going to have to mention Ben Fawcett because he was the manager that really gave me the shot basically he said have you ever thought about doing sculpting and I said uh I don't think I could do it and he said just give it a go so I took two weeks off work and I copied Brian Nelson's freelance tonight from Mordheim when I said copy I literally got I picked a figure that I love I love that figure and I just took two weeks and I spent two weeks at home just sculpting that figure trying to copy it and I took it back in and showed Ben and he was like you know you see you can do it and I was just finishing that figure it was really you know gave me a lot of confidence so and then really quickly I found myself over on like a trial three month trial with the designers by that team the design team was a lot smaller and we were still making physical one-to-one miniatures you know very metal and three ups for plastic and stuff and yeah so that was eight years ago now so things have changed a lot with the design team we just do digital work plastic miniatures now so yeah so that was my sort of transition so it wasn't really something that I was I wasn't really knocking on the door as it were it was it was something that sort of he encouraged me to do a little bit and then I because I always thought it was this mystical thing that I would never be able to do because it was right really unimaginable and once I did one I was like how you can actually do this and it was really cool and then you start creating your own sculpts so yeah so it was something that sort of went into and then Seb who I mentioned earlier he sat with me for three months training me basically with how to use green stuff in different putties and things and make armatures and all of that sort of the basic skills and sculpting miniatures and he said because when Seb joined again his workshop he was he was 18 so he was very young and when he joined he joined the every metal team and I was in the every metal team he said I helped him out a lot and he wanted to repay me by helping me because he's such a great sculptor so that was really nice of Seb to sit with me for a while so yeah thanks to Seb and Ben really for my break which sort of helped me out a little bit now have you found that as you've you know you've been there now you're obviously an experienced sculptor you guys are working digitally now and such but have you found that doing the design work has informed your painting in some way as well like do the this is something I'm super curious about just as a thing because you are a great painter you're also a great designer and sculptor of miniatures what do you think about painting the miniature when you're designing it and how much does design how much has you know doing the design informed your painting you understand I mean like do they do they look back at each other in any way have you found they influence each other yeah yeah quite heavily so it's because I when I'm sculpting miniatures for work I always think about what surface it is and what color it might be or you know what textures it might have and it does that surface bleed into another surface therefore is that difficult to paint so being a painter I always say like the destiny of the miniatures is to be painted and put on the tabletop you know that's what we're making them for and it's only like a small amount of those that really take these models and paint them beautifully and you know really take them even further which is great to see so you get to sort of consider that it's going to be painted and it's going to be seen on the tabletop and always keep it in mind I think sometimes when you get when we give them feedback to some of the other designers I remember it's going to be painted so that surface and then they're like oh yeah you know so right sometimes there's a bit of that sometimes we can lose sight of it so yeah and just keep it in mind all the time and I think it's really important really important yes basically no I'll say that I can feel that because it's one of the things that I very much I've always said this that GW miniatures feel like they were designed by people who paint miniatures right like that's the feeling you get because the surfaces seem delineated understandable you get the surface that's crockable yeah so no it makes complete sense yeah I think it's one of the other designers Steve he said to me when I first started he says you know it's important to paint your own models and I was like well I've just been looking at this for four weeks why would I want to paint it but he was like no it's important now when I get my models back I try and paint at least one of them so I sculpted this guitar for the debtors mechanicus he did some of those and I was like okay maybe maybe that level of detail could be a bit bolder or maybe next time I should do this so painting them is a great learning experience for the next project and then you know painting some Jean Silicourt works on those so always learning from that as well so like I said with the Golden Dima thing the position of the hobby is sort of customer painting the models that we make is doing the same thing and it's only going to improve the ones that come afterwards so and that's how it should be they should always be getting better so that's the only way absolutely alright so then you're sculpting and eventually like I said they pull you into into judging these are happening around the same time so how have you found it being a judge and obviously now Max is I understand it's like Max is heading that up and he's been doing a I will say an absolutely fabulous job and but how have you found judging this like I just would love to hear experiences of it because it seems like let me just talk from the outside here for a moment let me set this up for folks who haven't been there and I'll use the words like this from an outsider's point of view judging the Golden Demon you all seem it seems like madness because you are all given like at Warren Refest let me break down the schedule for folks so you can enter on Saturday but I would say probably 30% of the entries come in on Saturday 30 to 40 as it stands right now because the old history of it was you had one day the Saturday entry at Warren Refest is a more recent addition so a lot of hobbyists are still stuck in the everything's on one day thing but it's increasing every year I think on Saturday so but the general schedule on Sunday is like 10 a.m. you can show up you can register you drop your miniatures in they you have from 10 a.m. to noon to get them in the case and then you guys are that you're doing like final your first cuts I should say sorry you're doing first cuts as they're going in the case as you're looking this whole time you're making your first cuts and then from like noon to I think basically like two to 30 is what about the amount of time you have you have to judge all the categories there's 12 different distinct categories right you've got a set you got to do you've got to take the first cuts to a second cut to a top three and then you know then one two three of them and then you've got to decide any commended entries as well and you have to go all the way around do that and then at three everything's shut down and everybody thing moves over and then at 3.30 there's the award ceremony that is a break neck pace and yet let me be very clear here about this I have never felt like any of the judges were making wrong calls or rush or anything like that I want to be a 100% sure on that it amazes me how sharp how accurate and how like how much of a science you all have judging down to it just seems like the most stressful day in the world so I would just love to hear you talk about your experiences with it so yeah so I think it was like three years ago Golden Demon just seemed to go in the amount of entries obviously as the hobby has increased and it's got really popular which is fantastic for everything and it was we had one year and I was normally at the end of Golden Demon you're on the coach going back with the studio guys and the ones where you chat and you're really pumped about seeing all of the world's best miniature paintings that you know miniatures of close and you just want to go home and do some painting yourself it was like three years ago it was the most stressful Golden Demon I've ever had so I sat on the coach how's the Golden Demon I'm actually really stressed because we had so many entries we didn't know there was going to be that many that year and it was just really overwhelming the cabinets were full we got through it the competition was amazing but it was a different level it just seemed to go not only did the amount of entries go up the standard went up as well which made the judging even more difficult we had Max and I did a seminar a recent one more event talking about how to win the Golden Demon and it was really good actually we got some good questions and things and then we had a similar question are you ever worried that you might miss anything or you know because there's so many entries because like you set the schedule so tight I've been judging Golden Demon for many many years just with Alan and Alan Merritt who's left now but he was a great judge mentor as it were he was chief judge because I was a lead painter who met on my job pretty much and it sounds bad is to spot mistakes and as a Golden Demon judge although it's a positive experience afterwards you feel pretty bad about yourself because you're trying to find mistakes on the world's best painted miniatures because what you're doing is you've got a table so you've done the you've got the finalists and all of them on the table they're all amazing and you're judging for Gold, Silver and Bronze what you've got to do is move the ones to the side that you know I'm going to place so you're spotting mistakes on them or things that are not as good as the other things that are on the other miniatures so you kind of it's a negative experience in that regard from that point of view you're really looking for that sort of stuff and then you're left with maybe four or five or six models and then the debate starts with the judges about because sometimes there's a good well there's this and there's that and then if you really like one entry over another you've got to argue the case for it and point out the things that you don't think are so good on others you don't want to convince people otherwise to point out why you like this one more and the reasons for it and so everybody that's on the judging panel they're all experienced painters and what people that enter need to know is they all know what they're talking about and that might sound a bit like coming from me as well but you've got to have trust in the judges you have to have trust in the judges which is why we put in the commended entry cards as well because we felt that for the amount of entries that we had now just saying Gold Silver Bronze 1, 2, 3 wasn't enough because there were so many miniatures that were coming so close and getting that extra you know well done you nearly made it card as well as the finalist pin because the commended entries used to be something years ago in Gold Demon so I had a chat with Max and we said we should bring this back because then they can be labelled in White War on the website as commended entries as well and it's a nice little extra thing but yeah like you mentioned so I used to Alan left and I took over Gold Demon a bit but I was like I'm one man and it got so big I was like and I've got a job to do I was like Max you're the figure painter can you look after this and Max is way more organised and better than me that sort of thing so he's doing a great job with it Gold Demon is going to have strength I think so I'm still judging I took a year out and then because I really miss it so yeah I'm doing that but it's just to talk on the experience of it people always say why don't you enter you should be entering the audience if you get asked to spend the entire day looking at amazing miniatures I'm never going to say no I'd rather do that than enter because you never get to hold and see that many amazing miniatures up close and that just makes you a painter as well I'm being a bit sneaky it's amazing I'll never say no to the experience it's just fantastic but yeah very stressful hard work, it's a long day it's difficult reading social media afterwards as well sometimes you have to say I just hope people realise that it is a tough job and we're always trying to make Gold Demon better as well and I'm really looking forward to Gold Demon in America this year yeah we're coming Max and I a few of the guys coming over that would be great and then we've got UK Gold Demon as well so yeah it's just it's only going to get better I think there's always learning to be had managing the day so I think we've got a Gold Demon planned out really well there's a lot of time for that as well so you should feel a bit more relaxed hopefully I love Gold Demon and the simplicity of Gold Demon is so great I've had some people say well you could do this with it and it's all about making it more complex but Gold Demon is like the 12-13 categories and the 1-2-3 it's always been that way I love that part of the competition as well it's just it's how it is I love it it'll be good to have you over I said it'll be good to have you over yeah it'll be great I've never been before it's going to be a great time you will love ADEPTICON trust me it is singularly fantastic alright so let's talk about what right now with your personal miniature painting like just where you see yourself at what's the journey that you find you're on now what do you want to be doing exploring in your personal miniature painting hobby what are the steps you find you're trying to take in day to day right now when you're sitting down at your desk to paint a miniature you're not working on a tutorial it's nothing for work or anything this is you on your journey what are the steps only recently every time I paint a model I'll paint a model knowing I'm going to do something new so I paint it like the gobba pelusa goblin with this on the mushroom and I knew I wanted to paint that because it was going to have new challenging things on it the different textures I was going to try on it and I really wanted to throw a lot of colour on a model go for 80s 90s retro colour because it just felt like 80s since I opened some colours rather than just painting space for me so I was like I wanted to get some colours out so every model I painted was like what can I do new on this so it's about not just going through the motions again but more about what's going to challenge me and even at this point with my figure painting still trying to push myself and learn new things even if it's a small thing on the model I've painted the Lucia vein and I've not painted that much sheer cloth before where you can see the skin through the cloth so I thought I could do that try that so that was a new technique so it's always about trying to find something new as well as painting models I love but like you said before most of my my time some of my time is taken up by doing tutorials which I love doing as well I've got quite a passion for that as well yeah well it's funny that you've started back around you're getting to use that art education that you were there you've come full circle there so that's nice doing the tutorials it was an accident really because I did a video for Instagram I put it on Instagram TV and then people said can you put it on YouTube and I was like no no I just want to put them on here and then I put one on YouTube and it just you know it spiraled out really so now I'm starting to get scripted a little bit more but yeah I just it's been really great the feedback people have had it's surprising what informations out there what people are paying for information from painters and that's all good and well if information is worth paying for then that's fantastic but there's a lot of information that can be got for free and I'm going to put it here you guys if you want it and I'm just going to teach you the way that I paint and I just like it I like doing the videos and getting the feedback is really nice as well the most really nice is people showing me the results that they've had so I get a lot of messages or get tagged in posts I did this and I used Darren's tutorial and that's a really reward so that's a reward for me I just really like it yeah as of we're as of our recording of this you're working on a sort of paint along series I guess where you're working on is it the Blightlord or the Plague Lord or one of the Nurgle dudes this guy the Lord of Blights there you go that's who he is and bringing everybody along there yeah so that was I only get like my tutorials I don't want to spend too long on it so I give myself a couple of hours or something and then I'll edit it and put it out on the weekend so that didn't really give me time to paint for models I had a lot of people say we want to see you for models and then I thought maybe I could do a series because people, great painters out there in the world they do master class weekends where you go and sit with them for a weekend and then you learn loads of great stuff and you go away but not everyone's got access to that and not everyone maybe can afford that and I thought maybe I could do something similar so and see how it goes if it goes well then maybe I'll do more but really this is an experiment so if I say I'm going to do something I'll do it so this will get finished but we'll see how it goes basically it's going really well I had a lot of people posting pictures of their progress and everything so it's nice to get that feeling that everyone's joining in and it's forming that group right there that we talked about earlier instantaneously you're all doing the same thing you're all working together it's like having a spotter when you're working out it's somebody there with you to actually get the project and see it through and push yourself to not do a shortcut to not give up to put that next layer on whatever it happens to be the style of the videos is very different because I did the video and I put them on YouTube it was only after I started putting them on YouTube that I started watching other people's painting tutorials and I noticed very quickly that their style was very different to the way that I present and when I'm painting I'll not just do something I'll give the reason why I'm doing it so there's a lot of method there so this is the reason I'm moving the brush this way or this is why I'm adding this color and so it's really about I'm not trying to bore people to death which I'm sure it might be doing it's about education as well so learning to be a better painter not just painted red painted blue painted green because of this and because of this and really there might not be much to it other than me just teaching people how I paint things because I'm sure there's a lot of great painters that might look at it and go I didn't do it that way everybody paints differently so yeah this is just me painting the way that I've always painted and that's it No, don't feel bad at all as a fellow long-winded presenter who often goes on and rambles too much trust me we're simpatico on this one you've got no need to never change my friend, never change I like watching the other guys as well, I'm like Scott and those guys they're all really entertaining so be on my tour okay guys we're just painting today so settle down exactly no entertainment about you here just sit down I'm glad that all of that is available because I like a lot of different styles of teaching and for the reasons I like my YouTube subscriptions are basically a bunch of people painting miniatures and it's not like there's just one right way to teach or to entertain it's great to have all of that and to have all those people out there the more people sharing information and knowledge we live in a golden age when you and I were younger and first put paint on a brush the number of resources available to us was basically maybe your friends that you knew and a magazine you could look at and look at finished pictures but in those magazines it wasn't like there was really true blow by blow or explanations which is what you said why now I mean it's a golden age for that right exactly, I mean I've got the ever metal painting going on my shelf and I still look at it every now and then just because I'm getting old it took me years and years because I come from a small town and there wasn't anyone to talk to to get feedback and then the internet didn't exist so it was like my learning curve was very shallow it took me a long time to learn things and it was only when I started interacting with other painters that I got better quite quickly and nowadays like you said you've got direct access to the best painters in the world if you want it and all you've got to do is just put the hours in and you can learn so much quicker I've spoken to some painters, how long have you been painting this is amazing they're like oh just two years I'm like wow two years it's it's great but it's also it's not nice for me it's a little heartbreaking, it's a little heartbreaking yeah absolutely it's nice though it's great if people can just get you can go straight to that person they just ask them how they did things absolutely, alright so let's speaking of let's take a look at some of your work what we're going to do is we're going to look at some of the picks that Darren sent me I'll tell you what the the pick is on about and then if you want to share some stories about it what you like about it, what made you want to paint it just walk us through whatever you find interesting about it and I'll do some comments so let's see here, we begin so everybody should see this on the screen now let me make sure he's nice and big enough so everybody can see him and we're going to start with the Lord Celestant this is your non-metallic explosion as it were this is the Lord Celestant with the hammer cloak that is just like the richest and most non-metallic gold of non-metallic gold people yeah the reason I picked this was because it was the model that put me off painting non-metallic metal ever again this is the one that broke you right here this is the one that I was like yeah that's never happened again so I painted the Sanguinon you know most people you know seen that shared it to death everywhere on the internet and shown it everywhere and that was like the start of the non-metallic metal journey for me and I've painted a lot of non-metallic metal over the years but it was only so the Stormcast came out with a new version of Warhammer the Age of Sigmar and I know I wanted to paint one and I thought I'd look great non-metallic metal gold see if I could do it before everybody else did so I started painting this guy I love the model anyway and I thought okay let's just give it a go and it took me forever it took me so long and I just got to a halfway point I thought I can't give in now because I've spent so many hours on it I'm going to keep going so yeah I think it was just one of those models it's nice to see now it's just pain sure and I look at it I can't stare at it for too long I'm just like oh it's still so long but yeah it was a challenge getting the it's always a challenge trying to make something look non-metallic metal it's a 3D object it should be in metallic but we like painting non-metallic metal because it's fun and it tricks the eye and that's why we do it and then obviously there were some different things to try on there with the lightning effects on the hammer I thought that would be fun and the sword and then the base was fun to do as well I wanted to make a model because I normally paint models and then this guy I'd just do a quick base and then everyone would say oh you let down the base again so I thought I'd put a bit of effort into the base on this guy as well and I think it was just a statement I wanted to make where they just ignore as well to say this is the sort of paint for this version of Warhammer as well but yeah I just I think it's probably it's a turning point for me with non-metallics I still do paint non-metallics and enjoy it but I really started warming towards metallic paints a lot more now you can push a lot of colour in there they don't write they can really have a fantastic effect so I think there's a place for both but yeah this was one I think I just wanted to talk about how much metallic paint is what's a great example of you know so you have a great blog entry featuring the miniature you mentioned earlier about painting non-metallic metal a resource that I used originally and still will often reference and this is a great example because you can see where you've pushed the soft and subtle yellows and reds into the mid and low tones of the metal to keep it really rich and warm it's a thing where you make this feel very alive through a lot of that glazing at the end those filters that are really doing a lot of work as well as the light pops the white pops the light catches you know those things are making it feel more active yeah it's like a style thing the light spots the hot spots I think it was during the cool many or not years there was a lot of non-metallic metal being painted and it was it looked very wooden very brown and it was missing those reflection points right I started doing some non-metallic metal and started adding those in and doing those glazes and glazing the color in and things so which is why it's very rich in color because I painted it and before I glazed all the color on it it looked wooden it was just tones of brown so it was getting those yellow glazes the orange glazes and all those warm glazes into it that punches the color in them and convinces people that it's not just you know wooden armor you know it's metallic and then those reflection points you know they say okay this is shiny this is well really with non-metallic metal like in my blog I explain how I imagine four points of light around the top of the model right because as you turn it you want it to still be convincing as a non-metallic metal piece so having those four points helps you plot your basic highlights to start with which then informs the rest so rather than just making it up which in some cases you are you just got to really just give it convincing finish you know having those contrasts of dark next to light and all those things that help trick the eye to thinking something is metallic when it's really not so. Did you save things like the cloak and his little tabard and like the hilt and the wraps on the sword as like when you just couldn't handle the non-metallic anymore did you be like well I'll just go work on this blue cloak for a minute this soft cloth I need to de-stress off the non-metallic I wonder if you didn't use a similar reward system just with the one mini. Well normally when I paint a model I'll be like okay I'm going to paint the armor and I'll just paint the whole of the armor together but with this model I did it a leg then I did the other leg then I did the arm and you know I did it in pieces like that and I didn't normally paint that way but I had to because it was such a meal of a miniature so yeah I just did it that way really. Gotcha. I'll never do something like that. It's a singular achievement and beautiful and now we've got it for all of time so there you go. It's done. Alright let's go ahead and let's take a look at the next one so the next one you actually have a whole video about so people can reference that but this is a great miniature I absolutely love this I think you sculpted this is that right? Which one? Oh so I'm sorry this is the Blood Angels Captain that's a Primaris Captain but you've done it with the Blood Angels Captain I apologize. Yeah so I sculpted that one yeah it's obviously sculpted for work that one like you say I did a video on it it was from my brother for his 40th birthday a couple of years ago so he collects Blood Angels I wanted to give him a painting miniature for him and it was really his you know the fact that he brought that why I draw for him and invited me into his group of friends to play games and paint miniatures he's the reason why I'm in this world that we're in right now so I wanted to repay him paint him a model and I wanted to paint that model anyway because like I said earlier you know paint your own sculpts Sure also this is like a singularly great space marine sculpt like I'm not saying that just because you're the one who sculpted it I've said that before this is one I myself painted and have another one of you know ready waiting the page because I really like it I find it dynamic and it's a good position on it like it's just fun to paint Yeah the design I just wanted a classic pose because we've not had any primaris from what I could see in that classic because I love the old specimen captain with the power fist and bulk guns our straight you know the original one that Jess sculpted I thought we need a model like that because you know I know that you can go you can do anything you want me to propose this now but I just wanted something that just said classic space marine with the sculpting it was that but with painting I was like okay I'm going to paint David with the angel and I wanted to put that John Blanchard artwork from second edition 140,000 onto the model and you know print it over the model basically and give it that very retro feel because that was the addition of 140,000 we played a lot of so I think he is in a model that I sculpted I painted but it sort of harks back to a time when we had some great memories playing the game and I think yeah just just painting the model was like I said just getting those parts of color out again so that was really fun and Oh yeah because that is some bright yellow that is 90s I would call that 90s yellow right like that is absolutely yeah I just love getting those colors on there and it's like the problem is now obviously there's new painters coming in and I'm not getting any younger I'll post pictures of my miniatures and they'll be like I love your painting it's so modern and old school at the same time and I'm not sure if that's a compliment or just a sign that I'm getting old so yeah so I got a lot of comments like that about this miniature that it felt old school but still quite modern I think it's a modern technique but with old school feeling too so that's what I was going for it was just a great miniature playing really fun and then it was just a challenge getting all the markings and iconography from off John's artwork onto the miniature as well so it was a really nice exercise I think so yeah and I just knew that it was going to be a gift for Dave really so there you go you know one of the things you really are quite good at that's this recognize about your work much like is you're both very clean sharp precise right yeah and so I just wonder if you could share so like especially here's one of the things that jumps out at me the cloak of the Primaris captain here you've done this thin sort of magenta line down into this design right yeah so when you and that is a very very you know thin line that is clean sharp line and I think that mystifies a lot of people like that's something I think a lot of people find challenging in their painting so how do you attack something like that like what's your method of getting to a line like that for people so first of all I'd always draw out any if you've got a cloak or anything always draw out the design first that gives you confidence in what you're doing when it comes to painting so I drew out what I was going to put on the cloak and then used a very good brush and always sort of very thinly plotted in with very you know thin paint first don't just go straight on with a bold sort of line first and with like the design in the corner so what I did was I put plot points on first where the edges of that design were going to be so it was like a dot to dot I knew that you know those dots were in the right place because obviously you can correct a dot a lot easier than a line so I just put those dots on and joined it up so it was like a dot to dot so that really helps with any freehand work so wanted to do a video on that actually so it's just a yeah so really put the plot points down and then build up using very you know get your confidence in there first by doing a very faint thin line of what you want there first and then work over it but yeah having that steady hand is just something that only comes with time and time and practice but also confidence so you'll find that if you're worried about something or your painting doesn't mean you're not sure about it you'll actually start shaking or wobbling so just going okay I could do this be confident and be relaxed and it will help a lot more so yeah so the freehand thing and being neat has always been sort of like a trademark thing I think for me right the other metal guys would say I had a bionic eye because I do loads of tiny things like that it's just something that I really enjoy doing because I saw it as a challenge is can I do this on there you know that kind of thing I think one of the most difficult things that I painted was when we painted the space hook set for the box I painted the librarian and he had on his shoulder pad he had like a Romanesque style face but I had to paint on the shoulder pad and that took a long time and that was quite small I enjoyed doing it it's like the skull on the knee pad as well oh yeah right keeping your paint very thin and yeah obviously when I was doing that I made mistakes and when I was touching back up things as well the thing with paint if you make a mistake you can always paint over it so don't stress it's fine best advice exactly we're not doing anything permanent we're just using paint exactly right that's right alright so let's take a look at the next one alright next up we have this is one that I really love I got to see this one in person because this was one of your open pieces when I was over there for I think one of the AOS days and this is your Coradron Overlord little Endron master I don't know which one he is but yes I remember seeing because I was obviously I'm a designer when these were being painted and the F metal team painted them in the metallic colours and I just thought what would they look like if they were in the colours that you see classic steam trains in that bottle green because I just thought they really suited the aesthetic of the models the shapes and rivets and the cast iron and things on them so I wanted to do one in that bottle green colour and I thought and I love the Endron master sculpted by Seb obviously there you go there you go we call it Age of Seb Mara so the head is actually a custom sculpted by Seb so he sculpted the model and wanted to do like a head which exposed the face which you don't normally see in Coradron so I asked him can I please have a copy of that head because I want to put it on this model and very graciously let me have one so I painted up the face but like I said earlier doing something different on every model is what I challenge myself with now and on this model I did the the texturing effect on the armour I think that was the main thing exactly what I was going to ask you about the thing that a lot of painters we have fads and things like that the texturing thing is something that's nice to see that's been brought in a little bit more now as well and it allows you to see the difference between different surfaces more so when you're painting models you take a you go to the next level of painting when you realise that surface is a different material to that surface therefore I must paint that surface differently to the other surface rather than just doing it a different colour so cloth next to armour should look differently should have a different feel reflect light differently and that's the sort of thing I wanted to go through with this model as well I love the model and getting all of that that texture in and the contrasting tones in the green so we've got the warm tones in the shading with the pitted metal so I imagine if you're close to that metal it's just a really fun piece to work on and once again get some colours out so here you go Oh yeah, well we've got the bright escorpina greens in there and the hammer and his light that's in the middle of his chest plate his eyepieces the thing on his back nicely balanced around the mini there I love the oil can with a little drop I understand you added that separately that was just a little custom sculpting thing of all that going on there the oil can was off one of the vehicle kits I think one of the flying kits was just a piece off one of those you're talking about colour composition it's something I always plan my work it's one of the things I'm quite big on balancing the reds around the model and I thought this guy's got a big hammer which is essentially a tool you look in a toolbox and you've got the old wrench that's got red painted but it's all chipped that's it says a workman's tool so I thought okay he's going to have a red hammer people might think that's a little bit of a joke but it's it works on the model it works with him and it's about being bold with those colours and going no I'm going to give him a massive red hammer and it's going to look cool and I'm going to do the red goggles because it's balancing the colour around the model and it's holding harmony and your eye sits on the model really nicely and then getting white beard so that the attention goes straight on his face even though he's got all of this colour and light bouncing around the model you know you still look at his face straight away which is the most important thing so yeah so there you go I'll stop talking I love this guy I just I think like I love the exposed face that sounds like there's a product there in alternative exposed faces like an exposed face kit pack for for Coradron Overlords you did a great job thank you that was nice for the staff alright so next up we have Elluciah Vane which I don't know who on the community team put together the original like video reveal for this thing when this came out right with her and her crew against the audience or whatever but it was like maybe my favourite video that the community has ever done second to the slanesh reveal which was a religious experience for me so that's in a different category but this was such a awesome cowboy bebop video and I love this model so take us through why you wanted to paint her and what were you doing with her I think I picked this one it's a little bit I wanted to paint it and the kill team road trailer was a project that was many years in the making so it just felt like it was never ever going to come out sometimes it goes like that and then this model with the rest of her team eventually made it onto the shelves and I was like okay I really want to paint this model now because it's been so long since I made it and I wanted to put some pain on it and learn from it and try new things again like I said texturing on the skirt I wanted the skirt to have like a velvet feel so it felt different to the boots which are very shiny, like the red leather and then like the sheer cloth so you can see some of the skin tone showing through the cloth and then I googled some lace glove images and they all had the spirals on and you know the pattern so I even thought can I paint some of that on there and that will be a challenge but the main inspiration behind this was because John Blanch had done all of the concept art for that project I really wanted to give it the Blanch colours on it but still try and retain some of my styles so I had to look at some of his images I just googled John Blanch artwork, female and then pulled the colours from those images and then placed them onto the model and I gave this miniature to John was it last year for his 70th birthday? Oh that's awesome Yeah so it was a gift for him and I think the only thing he didn't like was the feather Too bright So it's too colourful for his style of the artwork I think but I think he said there should be crows feathers or something black or something like that I was like well I wanted to do bright but yeah so it was and we've got the Norma type metals on there again as well We were back, you tried to get out but it pulled you right back in Well this one was because I wanted to photograph it on a very specific background to make it feel like it was one of John's pieces of art so that's why I did it in Nomitalics because I wanted it to look like a 2D image in a photograph I think there was a bit of reasoning behind doing the Nomitalic metal on this lady as well and again just paint your own models learn from it and yeah there's a fun one, I really like the character on the model as well she's cool and this has got a nice story behind it from John's concepts to me making it to me painting it then back to John again so it was a nice sort of circle of life there yeah yeah a little bit yeah he promises me he's still got it so that's good One thing I want to draw everybody's attention to in this is for people who are looking at this I'd like to draw everybody's attention to the sword like right hip that she's that she's got her hand over there so it's she's got this metal like you've done this non-metallic sword or rapier whatever we want to call it right whatever her weapon is there and one of the things I talk about a lot is that when you're doing non-metallics especially silvers but golds as well any sort of non-metallic reflection is that you shouldn't be afraid to bring some of the light pollution in the color of the environment and of the world around into it it'll make it feel more authentic and you can be really expressive and it non-metallic steel isn't just gray and white it's gonna necessarily get polluted by the light around it and you have this red you've worked in where it's picked up the light pollution of her shiny red boot and there's a little bit of yellow above that where it's picked up the light of the gold tiger on the bottom of her dress and then the gray so you've traced these colors throughout where it's finding those reflections I really think that sells yeah it was the fun thing to do it's only something like you said I only realized recently is that within the last few years that's what should be happening with I don't think if you go if we look at the sellers they probably could do with some of that because it seems very stark compared to the gold so yeah this is a more recent paint job so yeah just keeping that sort of stuff in mind it's on the skulls as well and the knee the color on the tops of those and it just pulls it in and makes it feel like it's in harmony with the rest of the model a little bit so you're really just trying to convince people with any paint job so it's just trying to do that a little bit more really and I think just when we see like the reality is white gray and black paint is sort of the least visually interesting by its nature right like it's communicating the least visual information but it can but it does a lot it has this huge value contrast but it's not communicating much visual information to the eye or to the brain but when you suddenly put the two together with a little bit of hue in there now you've got a lot of work going on it just feels so much more vibrant it's just a small addition exactly and it's the environment as well because I knew I wanted to photograph a very orange sky background which I did do some photographs of that as well which is why I put the warm tones reflections on the silvers as well at the top because I knew that's why I wanted the sky to be so so thinking about the environment of the miniature it should be one of the first things you think of so we're painting the Lord of Blights example that we're doing at the minute so I always think that's going to be in a cold snowy environment so having that in the back of your mind or your painting will inform how the model looks so it's the same with the Lucia as well it's in a desert the base is hot or landscape so it's having that feeling sort of helps when you're painting it as well rather than just coloring in a miniature which is all good and well but setting a miniature in a scene and giving it a feeling is nice if you think about right at the beginning where's this miniature where's it going to be yep 100% alright so and then there's this guy earlier Mr. Colorful here so you kind of talked a little bit about this one but just kind of take us through the mini and what's your favorite part about it because you made some really interesting choices I think on this guy and he's just such a fun mini all of a sudden I'll probably lose a super fun but this guy is going to be scared yes who of course he's at it again and I've gotten the whole set but I just wanted to paint him and I wanted to go full I wanted to work on loads of colors what I did was I think it was Tom from the evermetal team painted the studio version and quick look at it and I was like that's really nice and I didn't look at it again until after I finished mine so I didn't want his color choice because I knew it would I didn't want his to influence mine so I just kept it completely aside and I just wanted my colors to be straight out of my head how would I approach it myself just going for that really bright, vibrant full on because he's basically hallucinating so the whole scene is in his imagination so I wanted to really push the colors and give it that vibrant sort of that feeling that things aren't quite real colourful as it were which will help reinforce what's going on I just love all the different elements the model is a mini diorama there's a narrative to the model he's in the mushroom then he's seeing things that are going on around him there's a little mushroom dancing around him with sticks he's a little bit scared and then there's the big bat mushroom that's going to attack him even his staffs coming to life on one side getting the color on the side the staff, the moon heads so one still solid one coming to life and sort of maybe talking to him and laughing I put a bit of color into that to make it feel like that side was slightly living and then I picked some of the little creatures and little critters and things on the base as well set the scene a little bit more like I said earlier most of the time I rushed my bases but with this one I put a bit of effort into it and I still got this miniature I still own it because it's the same with the carriage one as well I give a lot of my miniatures away as gifts but I kept those last two because I think they just took so long that I couldn't get them on yeah it's just playing with all the different textures I think the brain texture on the mushroom spider thing if they wanted to do that that was quite fun to do I even looked at images of brains and they got that mottled spotty texture and quite wet so I gave it that slimy texture that you might get so it's just really colorful and really fun and the hardest thing with this model was to balance out all of the colors and make it feel in harmony so I think I tackled that by having a lot of blues and purples around the model which pulled it together so there's blues in the goblin around the toes and things I was going to mention that I love that you called it out because it's one of the things that I noticed almost immediately is how well you've smoothed the blue throughout by adding it as a low shadow tone. He's also got very warm highlights so it works particularly well to have that nice cold shadow but it balances the mushroom above his head the two heads of the dancing guys around him there's also some very soft blue tones down in the base of the spider mushroom so yeah it's just really nice. Yeah, just keep if you've got blue in something on the model, put it somewhere else it'll just hang the model together really well. It's something that we're teaching I keep talking about this from Masterclass we're working on but it's a good example it's like if you've got warm tones in the skin, put those warm tones in the shading on the armor so the armor doesn't feel so separate to skin. You want the model to have a nice sort of feeling that it's not disparate or anything together really well so because this model was so colorful it could have felt really jarring and separate but having those tones throughout the model really helped make it feel in harmony. Yeah, he's great. I think my favorite part of this one is just in general of the miniature that I thought you brought it really well is the face coming alive on his staff. It reminds me of like Jacob Marley coming alive as the door knocker in you know Carol or whatever right and I love that you turned that into flesh tone but there's another subtle thing that's happening there is it's actually I think weakening the yellow on the side near him so it's not so much yellow up there right because the flesh tone is much more soft much more neutral so it's doing sort of double duty in both telling a story and compositionally it's balancing the piece right. Yeah, that's a cool model I love painting that, that was great. It was going to be for a gold imminent trick but yeah I ended up judging the original plan was to paint all of them and do them all on a big display base but this one took so long I was like yeah I'm done now. How often are our original plans not exactly where we end up? I had it in my mind and everything they were going to stack up to him at the top and all the other guys around him and it was going to go full on 80s what kind of celebration, mushrooms you know the lot then we finished the one moment and moved on to the next project. Hey look there's no reason you couldn't slowly do it over time and eventually build yourself into it you know the future is the future's not written yet there you go. Okay, maybe. Alright so lastly here we have our space wolf brothers with our fallen rubric marine down on the ground so talk to me about your favorite chapter of of space marines. Okay, sorry no the space wolves brothers are going to come after me and in hordes for that but you have to understand I was playing 40k back in third edition and I was playing Imperial Guard and you know we were lucky if we got like a slightly strong laser gun and here would come the space wolves who were like one handing full on bolters and just you know everything and I was like these guys are just cheaters and so you know it has a young man my biases were set. The first time I came across space wolves was my brothers that I collected when they first came out in like 94 they were the first ones to get the new codex and I was like I love space wolves these are great so but yeah I remember all of that by space wolves are my favorite chapter and if there's any that ever needs sculpting I just put my hand up I always say but the story behind this was so we were told earlier about entering golden demon so this was one times I did enter golden demon and this was the first time I think I entered the main golden demon and it was the first time I met a painter called Max Valle so you've obviously heard of Max he's on the elemental team now but then he wasn't on the elemental team he was entering golden demon so he decided to he was actually in games workshop so he was a staff member in the retail store I think at the time okay so long story short he entered golden demon with a diorama and I entered into the open competition with this mini diorama in yet and Max got golden I got silver and I was confident that I was going to do well like you know because I was like okay this is the first time I'm going to enter I put a lot of time into this and I came second and it was a great reminder that you need to always keep trying and keep pushing because although getting silver in the open competition is fantastic yes and you've got to be happy with that but it was having Max who's younger than me and he's very fresh to the scene as well I think for me okay I need to book my ideas a little bit and push myself and you know make myself aware that there's people out there that are always going to be better than you and whilst I love the piece and I'm looking at it now and I could change this I changed that I don't think there's a lot that I could have done to have beaten Max that year anyway because his piece was really great and that was the year that I dropped out judging and then came back again the year after maybe because I was a bit sore there you go that's the second place for that but yeah it was just a nice story just to rather than just saying like yeah I got gold it's like no I didn't get what I wanted that year everybody wants gold everyone wants to get the best but it was just a nice reminder for me that you keep trying keep pushing even though you think you're at a place that you're right the blood angel captain that we looked at earlier that was the one I entered second time I got gold with that which was and I think personally I think the blood angel captain was better as a piece and I pushed myself on that which is why it maybe did better you need those reminders to to keep pushing you even if you think in the best place I'm going to be with paintings there's always someone out there that's better than you you've got to keep painting you've got to keep putting the hours in and this piece reminding me of that it's an important piece for me to look at just to say yeah keep going nice I think I know exactly I'll minimize this down and we'll be looking at you again I think I know exactly the piece you're talking about that was the one that Max did with the two Skaven like Eschen gutter runners and he had crafted the sewer scene and made the ladder I think he used paper clips and some stuff and fashioned it all together it's great deserved a win as well I had a chat with the judges afterwards and they were like yeah it was a slick decision and I was like Max deserves it Max deserves it and I wouldn't have it any other way like I said you need things like that to ground you and keep you focused on trying to get better alright are you ready for some lightning round questions here so we can so we close out okay alright here we go first lightning round question who is your favorite current miniature painter or only allowed to pick one because we could all give 50 the world is full of amazing artists but if you had to pick one does it have to be current no current or past I'm sorry yes it can somebody from the past okay it's going to be Mike McVeigh I had a feeling that's where you were as soon as you said past I heard Mike McVeigh coming for those who might not know can you explain Mike McVeigh to folks Mike McVeigh is basically a professional face of the Evermell team he did the painting guys back in the 80's and 90's champion of the Evermell style he did some of the large dioramas that I'm sure you've seen before like the Emperor diorama he's alleged basically he's the reason why I'm doing this and why a lot of painters are doing this I don't think he gets mentioned enough these days and it wouldn't be fair to me to mention anybody else other than him especially considering if I'm judging a demon that's his name perfectly fine and I am a hundred percent accepting of that answer just because for those who don't who might be newer they might not even be familiar with Mike's work and it's so incredible I think people don't understand just how influential it was in that time period because again there wasn't a hundred different sources we didn't get to see a hundred miniature painters most of us couldn't travel to conventions there wasn't these videos looking at the photos from the big from the big miniature painting competitions but Mike's work was so singularly impactful the importance of having a mentor and Mike was my mentor when I say that I don't mean I've met him a few times and had a few conversations with him we spoke mostly over the internet but he was my mentor in terms of what I had access to the same as you really yeah people don't know his work just start looking at his work you'll be able to find out there it's which is why I still paint the way I do I think it's just that style comes from his teaching and it's ingrained within me now so it is it's a great pick alright what is your favorite color of paint again if you have to pick one your favorite color it's just red so if I have to pick a pop color it's Mephiston red I think a lot of people really hem and haul over this you're just like hey I'm red like to say years ago myself and Dave Cross from Games Workshop he's head of the hobby products team we've redeveloped the paint range into what the new paint range is now and one of my main things was nice reds and we worked really hard we worked really hard on the whole paint range because I love reds my favorite color I was like I need a decent red because I have a good red that goes over black so that's Mephiston red so it's my favorite color do you like the new contrast reds as well yeah I love the new contrast I've been playing a lot with the contrast paints now I've not been using them the way they've been intended which might be a bit naughty I've been using them as glazes same here I actually love them as glazes they work in a video about different ways to use contrast paints because they're great for beginners to get their armies painted which is what they're for but they're a really great tool for experienced painters to really go back and relearn some techniques which might have dropped out over time because the tools haven't been there but now these contrast paints are back it's really exciting again yeah see for me being the Imperial Fists if I that's my you know space marine chapter that the end in yellow I think it's just such a good yellow I use it all the time it's just like a little pop glaze to punch in color to things because it's really really rich it's great yeah just having a choice at the end of painting you painted a piece of them and you're like it's great it's well blended and I'm happy but it's just the wrong tone being able to just put a glaze on it and change it completely with one coat is you know it's really cool so those contrast paints they're really great for that right on final question you can construe the word type in any way you'd like but what is your favorite type of miniatures to paint you could say whatever you want whatever you see the word type of meaning here what's your favorite type of minis to paint probably more specific again it's the miniature that I painted the most after space marine I think it's the reason why what drew me into it even more than ever before so it's the the humble not so humble space marine I think I love painting space marines there's something about them that keeps me going back to painting more so how many how many space marine legs at this point do you have just a collection of space marine legs I've got a few going on now I've painted more than just legs but yeah with the videos that's all I can do with the time I've got well no it's also a great like it's a really good shape and it has good volumes and it shows well on camera so I get it it's just funny because I think if you're you must have like that workspace because I have some stuff like this too of just miniatures I've used for tutorials and stuff where they're kind of half finished and they just sit there and it's like the leg is a frequent thing you've used but yeah I just love paints but because there's so many types of space marines and you can give them a history in a background and there's enough painted so many different over the years and I never get bored of them because they're just there was fun you can do a tactical marine or you can do a chapter master and you can make them as exciting and as you want to be really so you can just have a lot and you can paint them any color you want you can just have some fun so yeah and the best miniature to learn how to paint on as well so I always say to people that how do you paint neat just paint space marines for a long time and you'll gain that bush control that I hand coordination and once you get that you can paint anything as long as someone tells you the information you need with colors and things if you can put your brush in the right place you're set, you're on the way I've always thought the same about the redesign for the for the Stormcast Eternals especially the original ones like the Liberators and you know those the sort of generation one Stormcast of the main chamber because they have a lot of the same feeling, shapes and volumes they have these very nice segments and so like I think that both of those things both those miniatures to me have always felt like the space marines on one side and the stormcast and the other they just feel like great miniatures because they can make build a new painter's confidence and skill but they can also be a nice palette with just they have a lot of just negative space that you can explore as you continue to grow in your journey right which is nice I'm sure I've said many more as well but it's a space marine not the most exciting answer in the world it is a perfectly fine answer that's absolutely great alright sir well thank you very much this has been absolutely wonderful as I said his blog is down below the YouTube channel is down below subscribe, follow, do all that stuff he's got a bunch of great tutorials out there in both word and visual form now so Darren just want to say thank you very much sir yes Vince thank you absolutely for all of you out there watching thank you so much for watching I very much appreciate it and as always we'll see you next time