 Hey everybody, it's DJ V and it has been a while. It's just been a really busy year. But that being said, I wanted to do something that I've wanted to do for a really long time. So I put a poll on my Instagram and a couple of you guys answered your burning questions or questions that you wanted to ask me and I wanted to film and put them in my YouTube video and I'm hoping to do this every once in a while. So we're gonna dive right into it. I got quite a few questions. Favorite OF model in your collection? That's a really hard question for me to answer. I do feel like Alvarozo is kind of one of my favorites ever. This isn't my personal Alvarozo. He actually lives in my living room. This is my second Alvarozo that I'm hypothetically supposed to paint but he's in really good conditions. Like I'm having a hard time actually committing to painting him. Like I don't really care about the collectability of briars. I purely collect briars based on what I like and I just feel like his sculpture is really anatomically correct and quite possibly one of the best briar faces that exist in all of the models. He's just really proportionate and he's really expressive. I just like his nostrils. Like they're even too. He doesn't have any weird warping or weird seam lines but my second runner up who is really close is Nikoda and you can see I've pulled him from the staff. They go out of frame here but I have a large Nikoda conga and this is my favorite briar. This particular paint job and release on this briar is just, he's just stunning. And then if I had to pick like a third top it would be this guy. Do you have any tips for drying horses like you do on canvases? I feel like my canvas art doesn't get as much credit as I would like it to. I love painting on canvas and I use painting on canvas as a release. If I'm having a really stressful week or a stressful month or I'm feeling really anxious or pent up or even creatively blocked I will go to canvas painting because I don't set any rules for myself when I canvas paint. I just let myself throw paint out of canvas and I don't care if it's drippy I don't care if it's messy I don't care if it doesn't really even turn out. It's just the process of like creating something but not worrying so much on making every little detail perfect. So I find it very therapeutic. As for drawing those on the canvas sometimes I freehand it. For the most recent piece that I did which was like for my bedroom it's like two giant full size canvases. I sketched that in Procreate put it in an illustrator, stretched it cut it down to eight by 10 squares which is what my little printer can print and then print it all of those out and kind of transferred it onto the canvas by charcoaling out the back of the paper and then drawing lines over top. Ideally, I actually need to just buy myself a projector. What is Fable breed-wise? It's been driving me nuts since she's really hard to show as a grade mare. I have this problem with all of my work. I find that I don't actually sculpt to a breed stand. I actually kind of just sculpt a pretty horse. That's why my stuff doesn't always show very well because it's not really breed type. So Fable, she's just a cross. Like she would be a pasture horse that you would have or a Mustang. If you go to Briar Fest next year will you host a workshop? I am not technically allowed to share any of that information. Briar keeps everything under wraps until a couple of weeks before the festival so I can't announce anything pretty much early. I don't really know how I feel about the whole like in-person workshop thing. I think it could be really overwhelming for me but also at this point it's not really official or not for me if I will be attending Briar Fest. That is something I would like to work towards. That is something I'd like to do in the future. What are your current passions in the hobby world or things that you've lost a passion for? I think I really love the tutorials and that really brings me a lot of fulfillment. I'd say the whole hobby is kind of my passion. I don't have one area that I love more than the others. I like that I can jump from the sculpting to the painting to the videoing to the editing and all the different realms of everything. I find that really exciting. I think I've lost passion a little bit for the collecting side of things. I think it's shifted for me just growing up and having more responsibilities and being more of an adult. I don't buy as many Briars as I used to. I don't find as much joy in showing the OFs either. I think it's fun and I usually end up doing it if I'm already going to the show but I don't need to do it anymore. I think that the custom and the art side of everything is really exciting for me. I think another area that I've kind of lost desire in is painting stablemates. I don't do that as much anymore. I started with the stablemates and I started only painting and now it's kind of evolved and I'm reaching a point too where the drastic customizing is phasing out a little bit for me as well because I'm into the original sculpture realm and the casting potential of that is much more exciting than just creating one of a kind piece. I'm aware that that is happening and I'm going to do my best to make sure that that doesn't happen because I still wanna have drastic custom pieces. I wouldn't say that anything has really died for me. I think I'm still really passionate about everything that's happening and I'm really grateful and humble. I do feel like at some point in my life I may not be doing this. I don't see myself doing this forever until I die. I think I'll always do some form of art like this until I die. I just may not be a complete business or self run as I am currently but I sure am having fun at this current time and I don't have any intentions of leaving or losing that desire anytime soon and I think one of the things I need to do is push myself a little more into fantasy work as well like just have a little more fun kind of like the canvas painting, throw caution at the wind instead of just super hyper realism all the time. If you could sculpt a companion animal, not an equine, what would it be? I would probably sculpt a goat. I grew up with goats and they're really cute and their anatomy is really interesting too. Maybe I should work on that. That would probably get some good traction if I made like a little mama goat with little kids. How cute would that be? How do you find good inspiration pictures for coat color? I find that Pinterest is amazing. If you just go into Google images all the time, you'll see the same photos over and over but if you go to Pinterest, it's a really good reference board because they pull from lots of different places. I find also DeviantArt has a lot of stock images that are really, really great references. I also refer to sale ads a lot. I spend a lot of time on Kijiji and Facebook on different horse sale pages and whenever I'm on social media I will screenshot anything, save anything that I like. So I'm always saving photos. 50% of my phone storage is reference photo and then I do take time and I compile all of those into a folder on my computer. I refer to that album when I'm looking for inspiration. It's harder for me to want to start something and have to sit down and find a photo that I want to create. I find it way easier if I'm just casually scrolling through Instagram and I'm stopped in my tracks by a photo. Those are generally the photos that I will use to make my next original or to make my next drastic. And I think that's kind of a metaphor for life is generally when you're not looking for things is when the good things happen. That's relationships, reference photos. It's the same vibe. Favorite pony slash draft breed. I like both of these horses and all of them. No bias there and same for ponies, no bias there. And I like ponies I think more in life because they're less intimidating to me. I'm quite a small, light person. I like my horses to be a little bit smaller so that I don't know, it's just more manageable. It's easier for me to get on and off of them. I find them funner to ride because they're quick and catty and so that's Drifter basically. I call him a pony. He is a horse. He is 14 three, but he's little and he's fine-boned and he has a tiny little head. I don't think I would ever really want a draft horse to ride. In my older years as I age, I would probably prefer a draft though because their brains are amazing. Best way to cut models up for resculpting. So the fastest way is using a dremel and using a dremel cutting wheel and I've demonstrated that in some of my videos. But I personally have a love-hate relationship with my dremel. I love it, but it also terrifies me and I'm a very nervous person when using power tools. So I actually spend a lot of time just using a hacksaw on my briars and I bought a really good hacksaw from Home Depot, the Husky brand and it's a good arm workout as well. I find that it has more control. Please make a video on how to paint Cremelo slash Purlino. No. If any of you guys know me, this is like a thing. I don't like Cremelo horses. I'm sorry. I'm not interested in dilutes. I love a good buckskin. I love a good palanino, but I will not do Cremelo. I will not do Purlino and I will never paint them. How much planning do you put into sculpting or customizing your models? A lot. I think if you don't plan, things will go wrong very quickly. I will either start with a sketch that comes out of my own brain or I will start with an image that really inspires me and then generally I'll convert that into a sketch. So I'll always have a sketch and I'll always have a photo or a combination of photos to create that pose or idea. And then I will take time to scale that photo and illustrator, print it out in briar size. I'll take time picking the model I'm going to choose to customize. So there's a lot of prep and even if you're starting with a drastic custom, there's a ton of prep in picking the model, finding all the cut lines, deciding what needs to chain. If you're starting an original sculpture, there's a ton of prep in building the armature. There is always a lot of planning that goes into all of them. Would you ever want to make a life-size sculpture someday? I'll do the sculpting, I'll do the slap on a clay, the like armature stuff, that's really difficult. Understanding how much weight could go there too because if you're using that much clay. Is your main art sculpting style inspired by any other artists? And if yes, which artists are in particular? My inspiration is from all of the things, Raven Maddock for her hair, Kylie Parks for her overall persona of model. I love the way that Stephanie Blalock paints. Her apolluses are really shaded and dynamic. I really, really enjoy horror studios. Like pretty much all the big names, like I love, I love everybody's art. I really do. And I pull inspiration from a lot of those pieces that I really like. How are you so awesome? Because I follow my heart. My word of advice is always follow your heart. Not your head, so your head is annoying. You have to listen to your head sometimes. Most of the time, listen to your heart. Favorite horse breed, Mustangs. I would say Mustangs. I love that they don't have a archetype that they need to be. I would actually really, really love to own a Mustang one day. It's kind of a long standing goal. Dream horse, Drifter. Biggest hobby pet peeve is publicly shaming people. I don't like this current trend and it's not just from model horses. It's kind of as a society. We feel like it's okay to publicly shame people over social media and share a post or a really bold opinion publicly so that everyone else can gang up on the post and say really nasty things. I worry for the people who are starting out. I worry for the young generations and the kids and you guys that are just looking to learn and you want to share your stuff because you're excited about it because you want to learn how to make it better. And there's some people out there that will completely take it and squash it. I don't want that happening to anyone. And it's happened to me before but I'm established enough that I understand that I shouldn't worry about it. I want this to be a safe space for newbies and beginners because you gotta start somewhere and we all start somewhere. I want you guys here. I want you guys sculpting and I don't want you to be ever afraid to post your work. What's your favorite color to paint? City, buckskin. I could have one briar in every mold in city buckskin and never get bored of it. From a fellow Canadian, how do you spray primer and finish in the winter? I think the biggest thing is humidity and where I live in Canada, we don't have any humidity who are really dry and I try to avoid those really cold stretches. My biggest thing is I will take the model outside, spray and immediately bring the model inside so the model will cure and dry indoors. I do try as a general consensus to prep and prime models in the summer, warm months and then I have a lot of stock to paint over the winter. What is something that inspires you to create and also keep going on your projects? You guys, like no word of a lie. People still continue to send wonderful messages and comments and fan mail and emails. I've never done it for the compliments but it really does keep me going and it makes me feel inspired. My art is loved and that my style is loved. I love knowing that there's younger people looking up to me as I looked up to these kind of people that were doing this when I was a child. I find that really inspiring and it's something that's like so deep inside of me that I have to do it. And so that always drives me forward but knowing that it's so supported and embraced and loved and I've created this community and this name for myself and all of these different extra elements on top of like just loving the art of it, it makes it so special. I literally am in this state of euphoria because it's such a unique thing that I've found here and it's a passion and a love like no other and I couldn't have done this without you guys because if no one was there to purchase my work I never would be able to potentially do this as a career. So it's really, it's you guys. I know when I started the Instagram I made a pact with myself that I would reply to each comment and I did that for a very long time. There's too many comments to reply to but know that I would if I genuinely had the time but if you ever wanted to reach me personally and actually chat with me, send me an email, send me a message. I always reply to all of those. Not so much comments just cause there's an influx of them. What is your process with commissions? What do you prefer commission versus sale? So I have done a bit of both. I prefer sales pieces. I prefer the less pressure but with sales you're not a guaranteed payout. I like that sometimes because I wanna be able to create stuff, choose if I wanna sell it or not, decide to sell it or keep it for a few years and then sell it, show it and then sell it. So I like that flexibility. Whereas commissions you're guaranteed a payout and generally I can charge a bit more for commissions just because it's taking my time and actually committing it to something that's not a personal piece. But I don't love them in the sense that I don't find as much inspiration and joy from them. So there was a time where it was just I took commissions first come first serve and I think that's the flaw in that process. So since then I only take commissions that peak joy or spark interest and that way I stay committed to them and I want to do them. There's certain colors I won't paint, there's certain molds that I just don't love the vibe of and then there's other molds that I'd love to paint but never would have the opportunity otherwise. How did you start collecting briars? I have an entire video explaining that and I think that you should check it out. Have you ever done a custom to look like one of your horses? This is like a long standing thing for me. This is my marigold custom start. Not as like simple as you would think it is and she looks wonky and I know she is wonky but that's marigold. She's got an extra long back, she's got really prominent hips. Her shoulders are kind of wonky. But Drifter and Yoda, I've thought about making them as actual original, be able to cast them. That is something that I would like to work on. And the last question of this Q&A video is how do you keep the inspiration flowing and deal with burnout? I am pretty good at managing my time. Knowing how long things take and budgeting myself enough time. So I think the biggest thing is never overbook yourself, never promise timelines to anyone. So all of my commission work is on a no guarantee turnaround and all of my logo work is the same. I try to do things as fast as I can and I end up doing them in a timely manner. If I'm ever feeling overwhelmed, I can take a break and not feel guilty about it because I'm not on a timeline. Now that being said, I do set timelines for myself and I make sure that I'm doing things enough per month, per week, but I don't overburden myself. And if I have to let something go, I let something go. I definitely try to take breaks. I drink lots of water. I would preach drinking water while you work. It helps you concentrate, it helps you stay in the zone. So I try to like not do the same thing all day. If I'm feeling that burnout kind of start, I'll switch to something else for a little bit. That being said, inspiration and all of that comes to me really easily and that's just because I love this so much. And that inspiration is always there and I'm always feeling it. But I do think that you need to keep yourself healthy as well and that really helps because if ever I'm feeling like not mentally 100% or not physically 100%, I can't create to the extent that I can normally create. So I do try to get outside an alpha. I do try to ride my horse or go hang out with my horse. I find even just going into town for Aaron's help. This has been really fun. I think it's a really interesting insight. Thank you so much for watching and tuning in and this has felt amazing. I haven't filmed a video in so long. This has been DJB and happy customizing.