 Hello everybody and welcome to another interview with the artist and today we're sitting down with a man I am I could not be more excited to be talking to my Truly, you can I've said this on a show before one of my all-time heroes the person who's inspired my personal painting more than anybody else Someone who I'm constantly trying to emulate in all the best ways. I hope It's Richard Gray. How you doing sir? Not bad. Thank you. Hi Great to have you on the show wonderful to sit down with you and talk obviously Richard has won a host of awards in painting over the year Golden Demons galore as Well as many other competitions You are well known as a master of many different things I would argue that probably what many people know you for is the Stunning freehand that you often incorporate into your models the artistic flourishes and embellishments. We're gonna look at some of those later on But hey, it's great to have you along Thank you for having me So we're gonna talk about lots things today. We're gonna talk a little about Golden Demon We're gonna talk a little about Sort of your career in competition and judging and I want to talk about cult of paint as well all that kind of stuff And but of course that as we're gonna begin it's important with all of this to to begin at the beginning Alright, so we're gonna we're gonna it's a it's a standard question, but I think it's a good one How did you come to miniature painting like what was that? What was the inflection point in your life because we're all weird, right? We all decided as adults We all still decide every day to sit down and put paint on tiny plastic people This is not a normal thing that most people do in their lives So how did you decide for the first time? This is what I'm gonna do I'm gonna put some some paint on a brush and put it on a tiny plastic or metal person Well, I think my starting point is fairly common. I started with Hero quest and space crusade And if you ever played those games and you look from the side of the boxes that had like the painted models on there I just thought they look really cool And I wanted to try and emulate that I I came across a white dwarf around a similar sort of time Which obviously had some amazing painted models in That really hooked me and so I immediately went and got some completely inappropriate paints A terrible paintbrush You know like in mammal paints Yeah And it was you know a terrible mess But But it hooked you all the same. Yeah, I mean it was it was just it was just fun like I've always been into art You know from a very young age. I was in drawing and painting things like sci-fi and fantasy So I found like it was just like a natural kind of progression to To paint the cool sci-fi and fantasy models Nice, so you were into art So there that's a that's a good place I want to drill in on because I'm always fascinated by people who weren't art and then get into the hobby So this is a this and I'm jealous of it because you know, I I don't have an artistic background Like I like to draw as a kid I read comics and I would try to draw some people that were in the comics every so often poorly as many of us did But you know my my formal art training, let's say is highly lacking So did you do any formal training where you just into it yourself? Like did you take our classes in school beyond just sort of the required one where we all sat around and you know mess With some watercolors or something How much was that a part of your life? It was a big part of my life actually Originally I wanted to do kind of like book covers and things because I was into games workshop so early I love the the covers on codexes and all those kind of things and just fancy book covers in general I was always like art was always my my best lesson at school You know I was getting prizes and things in the class And that kind of like just encouraged me to try more sure And then I took a degree in visual communication specializing in illustration And I think that probably is an element of where the free hand comes in a little bit I mean people always like oh you say you're an illustrator That's why you do freehand. It doesn't necessarily translate that well because the scale right so different But certain You know elements do work Are important like if you want to create realistic images and like just depth and lighting and stuff But also the illustration work Is really handy in just painting models as well, you know for creating the lighting and light placement and things like that Well, and so you know another thing that you're very known for is some really really eye catching non-metallic metals a technique a style of whatever you want to call it A a method of painting that I think confounds a lot of people and a lot of people find challenging Did your 2d? You know kind of background because obviously that's where that comes from right the sort of non-metallic metal evolves out of two-dimensional illustration My understanding of it is going back to I guess Chinese art and stuff like that Some of the first places that it was it was seen and then it moved its way west and stuff like that You see it a lot and obviously the old masters paintings and things like that Do you feel like that influenced it because you were comfortable with those colors and in creating these lighting effects On a two-dimensional canvas. It was just natural for you to bring it over Yeah Very much that Also, it's kind of strange because everyone calls it non-metallic metal and things like that But in two-dimensional painting It's just metal. Yeah It's very much a miniature focused thing for calling it non-metallics Which is just always something interesting because there's always this debate about true metals versus non-metals and things like that But because of my background in 2d painting Like I actually I'm not that keen on painting true metals And because like if you would try to replicate anything else So you're painting leather or ceramics or any kind of material You know, you paint it exactly the same way as painting a metallic effect And it's it's only in model painting that this true metals Discussion comes up and like that you have to replicate metals in a completely different way Yeah, it's it is interesting that we like we have these You know often aluminum powder mica powder paints that that reflect like that And so it becomes just the way to do it Oftentimes like when when many of us start it's simply like oh, well, I want to paint metal This paint says metal on the on the on the pot, right? So that's what I'll use Uh, that that's sort of the way we all we all you know started you used this one says flesh tone Okay, it must be flesh like this is what I will use a is for b got it check. Yeah. Yeah Uh, and I imagine so that but that's a sort of an interesting rabbit hole. I want to go down as well Uh, your flesh tones are often really colorful and vibrant And that's another place where two-dimensional art often will vary Wildly from how we think about miniature painting. Maybe not in the same way But I find that like when exploring flesh on when you look at flesh in Uh, traditional painting it in it in just every color in the rainbow will often work its way in there, right? Yeah Yeah, and yeah, we tend to be very neutral So do you find that to be the same sort of thing where you just you know Go nuts you can work in any color and still feel free to have it read Yeah, I I do actually get very frustrated with people always asking the exact color combinations and things on which Specific paint do you need to do some things like that because a lot of the time when I'm picking colors? I I can sometimes I just say all right I'm gonna pick some random colors and see what I can come up with and things It's a lot of it is to do with the application of the paint right, um and things like that and You don't have to worry about having the exact color. You can you know You know just get by with whatever colors you've got really, right? um Yeah, it's just I I think maybe it's from like the the game's workshop style of painting because um You know to help people they have very specific stages And you know they do the layering and the edging and things like that and so people that kind of learn that method and You know to get a very specific look, but I don't Which makes is something else that makes it really hard for doing painting guides. I don't work like that I don't have a very specific step one step two step three because I'm going backwards all the time you know, so like oh does that need a little bit more color there or You know all sorts of things like that and so it's much more kind of natural and kind of dynamic the way that you you paint um But it does make it harder to do kind of PDFs and things when people like oh, how do you do this? Right, right, right. No. I think that overall Here's here is a statement I would make and I this is something that's come up on a couple of different past interviews I'm always fascinated by it. I don't find recipes Valuable more or less at all other than Very broadly speaking if somebody says well, I used a pretty reddish brown And you know, I wanted something warm So I kind of picked a warm white yellow or something like that that kind of idea right like okay And I could probably unpack most of that by looking at it, but that kind of general tonal Uh instruction is about as useful as I generally find recipes to be Right beyond that like never a specific paint. Oh, it had to be you know, ice yellow or something like that Well, there's 10 different, you know, kinds of paints like 20 different kinds of paints like that. Uh, you're right I got a dog too. I understand Dogs are frequent guest stars on this show So, yeah, I mean is does that feel uh I don't know. Does that feel like it rings true to you or is that how you Yeah, yeah very much. Um, I will really Bother about a specific color like so I look at thousands and thousands of images of What like 2d paintings and model paintings and things like, you know, I if I'm not painting. I'm probably looking at painting um, and I never really care what the You know to ask anyone what specific paints are used or anything like that And I can see what the colors are when I look at the image So, you know, I could just do my own variation um and you know get a pretty close exact approximation anyway, um The only thing I would say is because there are very variations in The the qualities of paints between brands and not saying the qualities of how good they are But you know the properties of the paints, um So, you know, there's obviously scale 75 being super matte things and then the satin finish of games workshop paints Then differences in glazing and all sorts of stuff like that. So that can make a difference But for the colors themselves, uh, I'm not really that bothered Right, right, right. Yeah. No, it makes sense. I do think it's one of those things that can be It's it's more useful for beginners because obviously they have no real clue of even where to go or what paints are out there So I think there is value there But of course as you go on I what I what I would encourage more people to do is to start experimenting more I mean, that's kind of what I always think about, right? It's don't don't hold yourself to just one brand find the finish you like understand the properties you paint The best thing you can do is just paint more. That's probably the way to go. But yeah All right, so you're you're you're you're in art you have this artistic background you start painting Let's get let's move forward in time. Did you ever have the gap years? Uh, this is a common occurrence throughout there where people They discover girls or they get too cool for school, right? Like, oh, I'm too cool now. I'm a I'm an adult, right? I'm not going to do this stuff anymore. Did you ever have that gap or did you consistently just go throughout? I I definitely had periods where I didn't necessarily stop with kind of models and painting, but I They took a back burner Very much when I was at university, I didn't do much in the way of painting For models obviously to my degree. I was actually doing lots of 2d painting Sure So you're always still are you were always still are yeah, there's always a point where I'm doing art Um, just not always model painting Nice, okay got it. I think the so the main thing as well was As a teenager, I was desperate to win a gold demon and then once I got my first gold demon. I think it was 1999 After I got that like I lost all ambition then to do anymore Like you got it you got there you got Yeah One and done So, okay, let's let's drill in on that then next let's talk to let's let's make the turn to competition painting Because obviously you have a host of awards. We can't mention them all here, but there's a lot you won a lot of awards And well deserved Obviously well-earned Now here's the question What did you Immediately say when you were painting you saw a golden demon was happening. Obviously it was uh In the 90s There was no, you know, the internet wasn't as much of a thing There wasn't as many places to see all these works and stuff like that So you had to kind of just know about it had to be in you had to be in the culture, right? Um, things weren't shared as there's no there's no twitter, right? There's no facebook people aren't sharing all that stuff out everywhere So where what made you? Uh Make that turn into competition painting Was it just always like since you had already been competing in class and in sort of art class and stuff like that and winning You just said oh, well, this is the kind of natural extension. Is it I think I'm I'm fairly competitive person anyway. Um and But so it was Being competitive mixed with the fact that I just loved art So I was just looking at the models all the time and I was always more fascinated in the the white dwarves with the The golden demon editions Yeah, and I just loved what you know what I saw there. So it made me want to do that Um, quite often I I hear people when they they see like an amazing model It says it they that puts them off From painting, but it had the opposite effect on me and The more amazing the model the more it encouraged me to want to kind of Um do better than what I could than what I saw gotcha No, that makes sense. It you you saw it as the goal, right as something to strike. Yeah, yeah, exactly Yeah, that makes sense. No, I get I think you're right I think there is people sometimes have a bit of a bifurcated reaction to it, right? There's one part It can be driving It can be like you want to reach that place that get to that same level I think some people respond to it by kind of saying like, oh, it's that common thing I I am guessing you've seen this in your post because you post on social media plenty of time By the way, all of richard socials will be down below if you're not following him on Instagram and twitter and everything else. I don't know what you've done wrong with your life, but please correct that immediately uh and the This is a post you'll see so tell me if you this rings true to you you post a picture And the response you get is snaps brushes or something to that effect, right? Yeah And I just want to be like no, no, that's not at all. That's not what why I Like I love it when people say oh, this is encouraged me And they want to try more like that's the response that I want every time I see the Throws model in the trash or snaps brushes and things like that It's quite a disheartening response to something that I've done right Because you don't want to feel like you're actually discouraging people like that's not why I'm doing this Yeah, yeah, exactly like I don't want to be putting stopping people from enjoying the hobby Yeah, part of what I and I know you obviously do this through as well because you have a patreon and you teach You know part of what you're trying to do is Encourage people in the hobby. Yeah, yeah, exactly I want to see people improve and like enjoy what they're doing and Enter competitions if that's what they like or not if they don't but you know Whatever they like Just to enjoy it Right, right, right Okay, so completely agree now that first time The first golden demon you won was that the first one you went to or had you gone to several and then finally No, I've been going for a long time. I've got so many final At the time they gave out little certificates. I got so many of those like a whole stack of them And of course like when you're a young teenager, you're always like, oh, there's some bias or whatever They're not picking me for some reason Of course, it's just a case of what you're entering isn't Good enough, but um Yeah, I've been trying for quite a few years to uh To get a trophy All right, so and the first one what what was What what did we have here on the first win? What was the first win? What was it for and what did you win? It was a warhammer fantasy monster and it was a keeper of secrets Um, oh my god. Was this the 90s keeper of secrets? Uh, uh, yeah, they're like the little metal bullhead claw No, that was that was um All right, so it was just released in the 90s like it was 98, okay The one was released so because I had the one before that I know the one that you're talking about because that Is beautiful that model. Um, and I sold it as well. That's why did I do that? Okay, got it. So it was the one from 98. Okay. I'm with you. Yeah But because I like the the the bullheaded one that you're talking about so much I converted mine because when they brought it out, they've got the claws On the bottom of the you know on the torso, right? And so I converted to put them back on the top again Because it made no sense to me They put the claws around the waist. Um Yes, and like I added extra horns and things like that on it um And like had a really actually quite weird paint scheme when it had like old patterns painted all over it very dark and strange looking Yeah, well, I do respect very much that Your first win was for us the Nash model all as it should be Like as you gotta be striding with your striving for perfection There is no greater deity. You can pledge yourself too than slush. That's the way to go So well done there Thank you Have you gotten a chance to play with the new uh keeper of secrets at all? Obviously the you know the the this last year? Yeah, I saw that I fell in love with it straight away. I thought as soon as I saw that I'm going to turn that into a golden beam and entry and it stayed in the box ever since I've got it It's just that's all right. It's just cooking. That's just the pre yeah Yeah, I mean I have I have um ideas in my head for what I want to do with it. Um But it's just getting around to it, you know so many models a little time right right right well that leads me to another question Do you Have a painted army You paint a lot of figures for out for an army based game. Do you have a finished army? um Technically, yes, I have a small adeptus titanicus army. Okay that counts But the reason for that is because you only need like um, so I've got three titans and uh three knights painted for it so It's quite a minimal army And I suppose if you include uh my painting from when I was younger I do have an imperial fist And a death guard army, um, but I don't use those anymore. Those are just um Stuck in a cabinet Gotcha, gotcha. No, I mean again, you've made the right choices with both of those Uh, so well done you. Uh, I am also a huge fan of the imperial fists I just find yellow to be a super fun color to paint like it's such an interesting Uh Uh scheme of what you can do with yellow the way you can make it warm the way you can make it cold It responds to lighting changes really well Things like damage and stuff like that just show up really fun and visually interesting on yellow So I I love everything about the imperial fist for their color and death guard is the only acceptable Nergal it's usually a lot of fun because you get to play with all of the They nergal is gross and I have a well-known bias against it I can't stand painting nergal stuff But I love painting death guard because they're nice enough to trap all their grossness inside armor And then you still get to play with all the fun nergal stuff, right? Yeah, you know, uh, which is always great What I like about the nergal stuff is you can go crazy with the colors Absolutely crazy. You don't have to just have like rotten or green Um, you know, you can just do whatever color you want if you go if you want to Use some real world research and just look at all different diseases and like just even bruises and things like that There's just so many colors on them that you can go for It's actually quite freeing to to go with nergal. I think Yeah, I totally agree and because we even when you just think about the nature of You know rusting oxidation weathering bruises boils disease and all that You've just hit every color of the rainbow across that spectrum, right like right there Your your model has the potential to to play in any space you want and that's really sort of liberating There's also something really fun about Being able to tell that extra narrative Through that thing that I really enjoy about those models like when you're doing a shiny ultra clean Perfect sort of marine type of guy like that has a narrative to it. It's very standard like that guy has clean armor And that's it. I can't tell more of a story about a battle that they're in or a situation I you know, I I tend to like things that look a little more worn for that reason They feel like they have more going on Right. Yeah, I mean, I think it just tells a bit more story having you know, even just small amounts of damage You know, how did they get that scrape or that chip and things like that? Um, just a bit more interesting Yeah, exactly. And I think we're going to see that really well because you I you I think You incorporate that into Uh, the knights and stuff you've painted really well Yeah So and that's one thing I want to drill in on so obviously you do a lot of different types of figures You're great with with all these different things that interest you But one of the things that I am always most impressed by and that initially drew me to your work was your work on big Robots, you know on these these these knight titans Who doesn't like big robots? Yeah, exactly. That's it's super great, right? Like it's the most fun thing So what what got you into wanting to try? Uh, you know knights to to doing that stuff like what what drew you to that as a You know as a figure that you wanted to paint um I think it uh So in my early years I used to love Space marine epic kind of games And they had obviously the titans in those Uh, and I loved the titans so much um And that just always stuck with me. So when um forgewell started releasing You know their big kits, um I just had to have them all Of course, I've got a warlord as well. I bought it. It's in a box. It's never come out That's that's the the you're gonna paint a small child project. Yes. Yeah, exactly Yeah, I thought I oh i'm gonna cover it in freehand and things like well This is gonna take me the rest of my life if I do this Yeah, I mean just to prep and clean up alone, right? I think you get into it You're gonna be there for a couple a couple weeks at minns, you know, so yeah, it's uh, it's a heck of a project Uh, so One of the things that I think is interesting and I'd love to your take on it is I think knights combine Kind of everything in the discipline Because you do get to tell a narrative you do get to play with weathering You have big flats where you get to experiment with freehand and illustration You have you get to incorporate scale modeling techniques They're they're kind of easy to play around with conversions and stuff like that I they I just think that they represent a very unique opportunity Uh, and so that's one of the reasons I I fell in love with them Do you do find the same thing like you just say I can throw the whole toolbox at this? Yeah, you can do whatever you want. They're a massive canvas Yeah, I think that's I think that's exactly right. Uh, all right So, uh, as you've gone along you've competed for you know in many years In all these different, uh elements all these different competitions using all these different figures Um, what sort of is there any that stand out in your mind that you worked on that you were particularly happy with over the over the years for for some reason or another No Fair answer Um, I always find once I've finished the model I kind of ignore it and then it's on to the next one Sometimes it's interesting to like I just stick it in the cabinet or whatever unless again for sure have it on display You know, it's just left in the cabinet and then I probably won't even look at it for years so It is quite interesting to go back to a model that I've painted a while ago and then look at it with fresh eyes and then I tend to usually find that I actually prefer it because um, a lot of the large models that I do are very Uh, they when it comes up to a competition anyway, it gets very stressful the painting um, and I always kind of feel like I'm Destroying my paint work because I've Usually I've started painting it and it's you know, I spent time on it and you know, just Legally painted it going along and then I was like, oh you've got a week left and you've got to paint the other half of the model And so you have to like really knuckle down and get it painted right painted, but um Then you lose that time to just you know Look at it every other day and so I doesn't need tweaks and things like that, you know I'm never happy with something. I mean, I'm pretty sure this is the same with most people But I just get I get quite cross when it comes up to a competition and I always feel like I'm ruining a model It's just before I enter it Yeah, this is this is something I wanted to drill in on sort of your emotional connection to the work that you've completed I always try to tell people that you should try to be happy but never satisfied Is kind of my thing But I find I often have a love hate relationship with work that I've done like I look at it and I just all I I often feel like uh You like you just see the flaws. So how do you like it? How do you relate with your work that you've completed? Do you do you find that you like do you look at them and go? Oh, yeah, that's that's great Do you ever look at a piece you do and say that's great wouldn't change a thing nailed it? Uh, no, no, never Sometimes like sometimes I look at it and think um, that looks pretty cool. Um And you know, I'm reasonably happy with how it's turned out or whatever, but uh, Also, like if you're doing a larger project, um, I'll find that my taste changes while I'm going through on it and then I'm Like uh, I probably would have painted another bit differently Um, and if I wasn't painting it for a competition so it had to be done by a certain date Then I probably would go back and change things But you have to be a little bit careful with that as well because then you get locked into a Stage where you're constantly repainting something and changing it. Um So you kind of have to just be strict with yourself and finish it anyway. Um But yeah, I'm never never satisfied with a project. There's never a stage where I think oh, I I couldn't have done that any better. Um And like I I'm pretty confident that whatever model I've painted If I just spend longer on it, I can make it look better It's just a case of how much do you want to invest in one particular model, right? Right, absolutely Uh, all right So as you're painting now, so you as I as we kind of were talking before the show And one of the things I mentioned was you you keep a lot of work in progress going You have a lot of whips you share them out I'm fascinated by this as I mentioned pre-show because I'm like a unit tasker type of person You know, I I pick one I will go through I will take that through until it is logically done I'll set it to the side. Usually if it's for competition I will come back in the month before the competition and try to re Fix it go look at it with fresh eyes find things. I didn't do right that kind of thing but When you're painting along, how do you you sit down at your table? You've got several different whips you're in right now What's guiding you? What are you picking up? Is it just what catches your fancy that day or or what's uh What's making that decision There's a few things. So there's um one do I need to get something finished? Um For tutorials that have already started Uh, is it for a competition that needs to get done? Um, is it a new model? And I'm particularly excited about it um Or is it just something that I want to try something out on? Like, you know different technique or like refiner technique or something like that. Um Because I did I find that I've got the attention span of a goldfish for painting models And it's so easy for me to get bored Of doing some things so I can I tend to I actually work quite quickly. Um, and so Like for an example, um mortarian when I was painting that People like oh you've been painting that for so long. You must have spent, you know hundreds and hundreds of hours on it Um and to be fair, I did spend a few hours on it But it's nowhere near as many hours as people think because I've worked very quickly on a small section and then just put it away Gotcha Believe it. Yeah So you're like, okay. Well, we'll do that whole his whole plasma gun Like where that's at and then we put it aside and you come back to it a couple weeks later or something like that Got it. Got it. Okay, right on Uh, do you listen to anything while you're painting? Like what do you what do you have to keep your your interest up while you're going? Again, like my my attention span is so sure I tend sometimes I just put youtube on and just let it flow through what you end up going down some weird rabbit holes of whatever pops up, um I recommend youtube has got some awful recommendations for me just because of how things pop up on there that it's carried on watching Nice nice I find i'm the same way because you get into the zone where it just you let it you're you're working and it's just like yep Sure, whatever. That's fine. Just I need it's it's a background noise thing. I think yeah, exactly Yeah, um because I don't really pay that much attention to what i'm listening to I do find that I like Kind of softer sounds and things like that. So if I have music on I won't have anything that's too Energetic which I know is a lot of people like really dramatic music when they paint But I actually uh, I focus so much when I paint and So I wear like a fit a bit tight watch and it tells like when I finished painting it asked me did I have a good sleep because I've You know I'll focus so much and I've like relaxed so much while I'm doing it. Um Yeah, that is that is amazing what that means Is that you've truly like you have achieved what many sort of zen masters have have sought after over the ages because You're entering this sort of flow state right of just calm Where you're there. So that is amazing that it that it actually you've kind of relaxed down and you're that drilled in That's pretty wonderful. That's fantastic All right, sir So we come up to the current day, uh, you know, you've obviously continued competition painting throughout you're still working on stuff Uh, you've got projects going right now. Obviously this year, uh, we got you've got the potential for a couple different Uh golden demons because you're gonna come over in the u.s. You're gonna I assume still, you know be at warhammer fest and whatnot So, uh, what for those who aren't following you yet? What have you been working on so far? If you don't mind sharing, I don't want to pry or anything But like what are you working on right now that that you're excited about? Um So I have two main, uh things that I'm excited about at the moment. Uh, one is Uh, I think we're gonna actually have a look at the photo of it later the loon boss on giant cave squeak um I uh I loved that model when it came out But it was only available in the The loon curse box set or something like that. Of course I didn't buy the box set when it came out because I was It I wasn't hadn't actually been paying that much attention to how games works that we're doing their Uh release thing. So I just assumed that you know, if there's a model, it'll be available Right, I'm just gonna get that single model Believe me when I tell you many regular aos players have assumed the same and have been very sad Yeah, um, and I was like, I was just kicking myself, but um, my friend Andy Got the set and he's like, oh, well, I've got this model and it's just gonna sit in the draw. Um, so He let me have that And I just love it. It's um, it's such a simple model But there's a lot you can do with it, you know, it's um, I find sometimes The models that are released now have so much detail on and it's kind of crammed in there Um, and it's I don't find that so much fun to paint with all the small details because it doesn't allow me to be very expressive Like you kind of locked in a little bit With how you can paint them just because you know, everything's it, you know, everything's a detail So you can't like do nice smooth transitions or just have like a clean area and you know, paint your own thing on it Um, whereas, you know with that loon boss, um I felt I could uh, the other thing that i'm um Most excited about at the moment that i'm painting is negash um And you can see that on the on my social media as well. Um But for him, so I looked at the uh, the the box art for that and The model is really really nice, but there is so much going on. It's like covered in ghosts flying around him, right? Things like that. It's just a massive model But I Remembered negash from the previous incarnation now that was a pretty terrible model little famously the clown negash Yes, little clown Although I loved it at the time when I got it. Oh, yeah I mean look in the 90s when I was playing that fig was amazing, right? I mean I look at some of my early Decisions and tastes like I remember when I looked at the the war altar If you remember that thing from the 90s originally like the volk mar guy who had his arms up in the air And he was on that little flat altar with the griffin behind him. I thought oh my god. This is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. This is amazing and now I look at it and I think oh boy. Did I have some bad choices and tastes? But yeah, we did we were comparing them against different things saying, um, you know, there wasn't quite the Like the technology for producing models and things wasn't quite so good and things like that But yeah, so I was looking at negash and like I loved the old artwork. I think it's mark gibbons artwork that Done a version of negash and like that's how I always pictured him and so when I looked at the new version I was like I don't like that he's flying and he's got all these guys around him and everything it is kind of too much for me So I just went and I've cut all of that off And like I've cut off his little Bone beard thing that he has and closed his mouth. So he's not screaming And all sorts of things like that. I mean, they're not massive conversions, they're fairly simple. I did sculpt on some hair as well Because I'm doing this thing where I want some movement in the model So I've stopped on a small Kind of cloth on his waist. I cut off some more stuff there, which is blowing to the side and the hair on his Head is blowing to the side as well. So and when I do the base is going to be some long grass So it's all going to be blowing in the wind basically Gotcha Try and get you know a bit of movement on the piece where he the the model himself is going to be quite static Nice, yeah, but he's going to be like he's very strongly non-metallic metal as well Just because I enjoy painting it. Yeah, sure No, he's he's looking amazing and I like that sort of stripping it back. I completely agree on the detail thing I think it's actually like one of my main pet peeves Is because the technology has advanced right of sculpting and we can you know in z-cad you can get in there and get these ultra fine details and the the technology for doing the the The plastic mold is so precise right the way you sort of three up sculpt mold you can do these Micro details Right that just we would it you would have never really been able to do when you were forced to work from like even even a three up In green stuff, right? You wouldn't have an error in that kind of you wouldn't have been able to capture it um, they would have just got lost when you shrunk the mold and Uh, I just find often it's noise, right? It becomes stuff that I would rather have Uh negative space to let the eye kind of breathe and relax moving around the figure, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm all about contrast on models and by that I don't I don't mean like color contrast or Tonal contrast up, but I mean like contrast in textures contrast in like spaces like I just sometimes you just need a bit of open space Just to show off the details right Yeah, because otherwise like Detail with detail with detail just means a hot mess. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. It's it's it becomes static Right like the most if you switch your tv to you know a channel with static if tv still do that I don't think they do that anymore You know, that's a lot of visual information. There's thousands and thousands and thousands of tiny dots and it all amounts to nothing Right, so like there's there's something to be said for having Simplicity in the figure Um, so no, that's fantastic. How much do you this is something I've noticed This is actually so this is a question. I have this is completely this is Vince's question for Vince. Here we go Uh, but a question. I've never thought to ask you in person whenever we've talked When you're doing some nights How often do you sculpt is the basic question and and change the figures Because I've noticed on some of your knight shoulder pads. I feel like you cut away Some of the pieces and smoothed them out like so knights famously have this arrow for anybody who's done a knight knows they have this like arrow on their that separates Uh, the two halves of the shoulder pad and I noticed on a bunch of your knights. That's not present I was like, oh, did he cut that away and then smooth it all out? But so you had a bigger flat space. So yeah, is that what you're doing? There's my question Um, I think every night that I've painted I've done that It's so and I noticed it on the leg panels too and I was like gosh darn it That's such a good idea because that that break often just gets in the way of what you want to do And it means you've got to do like two images instead of one. It switches everything around It really shit. It really breaks the space Yeah, um I I know why games workshop do it because it you know, it adds to the you know, the gothic feel of the Models and things like that. Right, but I just and I suppose You know for those of us that want to the option is there to take it off So it's easy to take it off and it would be to add it um But yeah, I like like we're saying I just love like, um clean space on a model Um, I'm not just for freehand, but it is nice to have that option. Right put some Uh, so do you find yourself making those kinds of small changes at the you know at the prep phase pretty often with your models? Yeah, yeah, um I'm not a very good sculptor really it's not something that I'm that interested in I'm all about the the painting really but I do like to make my models individual So I'll just do like a simple head swap or you know, cut some detail off or things like that is simple things Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Well, I'm I'm glad I finally got my question answered that I've had for for a long time So good. This has all been worth it. No All right, sir. So let's look at uh, let's look at some of your pieces I kind of want you to and the idea here is just we're going to bring them up And I'll have you share some of the stories behind them what you like about them What you don't like about them just any thoughts you've got uh on them share and share away. So Let's get into it. Uh, so this will cover up your face. So you're off camera for a little while. So don't worry if you You know, you're good to go but here we go. We will start uh with it We'll start with the night uh with your night haunt character here This is like the grim grim hailer grim hauler grim something. He's a spooky boy It's some something the grim hailer. Yeah. Yeah, exactly Uh, so this guy, I believe you entered in 2019's Uh, wordfest is where I saw him in person. Uh, I absolutely love this figure You like I've never seen anybody utilize these types of of colors. So it's very eye catching Uh, I I love the light of the and warmth of the red contrasted against that like extreme electric blue But at a deeper level, I think the thing that I I most enjoy about your take on this Is using the blue energy within things like the ribs and the holes and the shadows To create, you know color in the deep shadow contrast Uh, but yeah, tell us about this guy Yeah, so um When I I got this, um, this was actually a model that I was um kind of sent uh You know to like review purposes And I was like, oh, what am I going to do with this? Um, it looks really cool But it has these massive wings on right and I looked at the wings I was like, I just don't like them. They cut the model in half um So, you know, if you look at it from uh side on view, uh, you kind of either see the the bottom half or the The top half and I was like but the model isn't a hole looks so cool. So I was like, right instantly I'm going to throw those away. Um, it did leave some holes. I But rather foolishly, I'd already kind of I brushed some red on the model and things like it was already prepped when I threw them away Um, I was like, right, so now I've got a I'm going to sculpt over it and then I got so eager to get going on the model That like I made a little bit of a mess Um, is sculpt filling in the holes because it was such a simple area Right, it's on the shoulder bone kind of part of the horse. Um, if I Really thought about it. I would have made those a bit better, but um Apart from that, I think you know just taking the wings away just instantly brings the model to life. Um Well, you can actually see the whole model at once exactly. You're right because the no matter almost what angle you look at it from with the wings They're they're obscuring stuff Right. Yeah, exactly And and they also are just a a big block to what is the body of the face and the action That the the area of the model you're actually trying to focus your attention on can so often be Obscured by by them. So I know I actually love this choice. I think he looks great without the wings And the other thing about I mean just the wings themselves. They're very flat Um, I so I wish that they could be a little bit more dynamic with the shape of how they do wings sometimes um You know just so that they're kind of fitting with the the aesthetic of the figure and like the composition Um, but yeah in this case like a I was happy with the result anyway um But then so I was painting it but this wasn't intended to be a golden demon piece I was just painting this and I was like, uh, it's a cool model. I'll paint it up I loved all the night haunt that came out and as is usually the case when games which releases some new stuff I'm like, right. I'm gonna build an army and like I'd ordered There it is. Yeah, I just ordered the whole night haunt collection. Um, of course most of them are still in boxes, but Um, I just wanted to come up with you know an interesting color scheme and things like that. Um And you know, so I was like, well, I want a kind of like a contrasting a Thing going on with the red. Um, but you know, and that would like be green everyone's like, you know, red and green But then it looks like Christmas and it's like, uh um, so I try to stay away from, um Red and green combinations really and people like, oh, you know, you should never do red and blue And I was like, right, I'll do red and blue then. So Uh, just because, um I like to be contrarious sometimes. Yeah, sure. I mean and and I've I Oftentimes it's I think those rules are like things like that are they're good Guidelines They're not, uh, they're not hard rules. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but the thing is like it's it's good to know the rules Um, and then you understand, you know, why they're working things like that I also think you did a nice touch here by pushing the red into the brighter color Right. So you've pushed it into this more orangey red tone high highlights and that that really helps it Sink with the blue the blue is also highly desaturated. So that's good. Yeah, exactly. So like you I'm cheating because it's not really a red blue Combination um, and if you actually look at it, there's not really very much red or blue on there. Um, it just looks like that. Um but Yeah, so I I was just playing around with it really. Um and uh As it was going along, I just thought like I really like how it looked but the the problem was so it's a it's one of the kind of Like easy build models. Yeah Which are great, but also a pain because they don't have many pieces and this has a lot of um Because like it's a ghost like Yeah, I think it's like you can see inside it all the way around like you see inside the ribs Like it either from the underside and everything like that But because of the the snap fit type Um aspect of it There's going to be massive gaps everywhere if you don't fill them in before painting, right? So you have to pretty much pre-build it. I could leave the ghost off Um, but apart from that the model was completely built. Um, but that just made it horrible to try and paint on the inside um How often are you working in in like how much do you subassemble your things obviously Everybody subassembles to some degree right like writers being a classic stuff like that. You just mentioned How granular do you get when you break down your figures? Um, it really depends. I'm quite lazy I don't like sub assemblies too much and there's a good reason for that um Is that when you focus on painting a small section of a model and you paint all the small sections and You stick it together and then you find actually None of that works together. You like the lighting is consistent or things like that Um, you'll get much better result overall if especially if you're working with lighting on the model if you Um, build it all and then paint it to one piece Um, if like obviously the sensible thing to do would be to look for sections that you could leave off And then like blue tack them on or whatever Um take them off as you paint them things like that just so you can keep checking but Generally speaking. I prefer to build models as much as possible Um, but then you come to something like mortarian and you just can't do that Yeah, so, you know, but we'll talk more about him when we get to that. Oh, yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there. He's coming Yeah, this is great. And I love the touch of the green Did you add any of that fire to him? Or is that all is all the smoky fiery bits on there? All part of the model standard, uh Yeah, so all I did was cut the wings off and fill in the uh The holes I think it's a great example of like I can tell that the sculptors Also are people who enjoy painting because it's this kind of thing It just feels like they built it with a painter in mind The way the fires placed it actually feels like it was there to balance right you have this nice You have these nice color circles that happen naturally Yeah It's such a nice sculpt. Um, I mean, I really like the small statue at the bottom as well It works really well compositionally I mean, this was actually a really interesting model for me to paint as well because so I did it very much to get away from the kind of weathered You know heavily text you'd kind of Work that I've been doing so this is very smooth and clean People like are you barebrushed it whatever so I There's some red airbrush to start with but you can't see Any of the red paint on it now Right, right, right. I'm just painting over it so much. Um, it was more just kind of like a guide for me So kind of like a zenith or uh undercoat almost um Yeah, so this I mean this was just like a fun project for me But then as it went along I was like, oh, actually I really like how it looks So I'll kind of like up the painting level on it. Yeah, um, but because of the the start of it and how I You know I hadn't really spent that much time making sure like the finish would be perfect and like painting on the inside of it and things and just because it isn't uh heavily detailed Painting so I mean there isn't any like freehand or texture or anything like that on it really um So it's It was it was always going to struggle in the golden demon. Um, it's still got um Was it the commended certificate? Yeah, the commended entry. Yeah. Yeah, they're like the joint fourth place type Yes Um Which I'm glad I do because it's nice Everyone calls it joint fourth place, but it's like three or four models to get it. So right, right, right Uh, I'm glad they added it. It was something they did understand back in the back in the 90s and and It's it the point I think is well Well taken especially and stuff like single figure where There's going to be a top three, but the next 10 are so close or whatever, you know The next x number you can pick whatever it is, right? Like we're talking about before we started where I said like if you're entering one of the single minute categories You should really be able to paint to a gold standard in any of the other categories because there are models That won't place in the single figure categories that would win gold in the other categories, right? So You know, is it they're tough categories fantasy single and 40k single. Oh, absolutely I mean hundreds of entries in there all stunning quality. Yeah, absolutely All right, so Let's take a look now at so this guy's work in progress, but next up we have the the aforementioned Uh loon boss on cave squig Yeah, so, um Yeah, so I talked about him. I probably shouldn't have Now they can see what's reference. It's all good. Uh, what I love about this guy is This is a great example of working a lot of of texture and life into the spaces Because he is a relatively simple fig like it's a beach ball with a goblin on top, right? Yeah, yeah And and yet when you look at things like the tongue and where you've added all the detail there things like the skin and the the demon dots and the color transitions that the Um, everything feels very organic where it's supposed to feel organic The armor feels very much like armor like you've really made the texture feeling come through here What what I found with this model is because it's so clean like I kind of like just thrown everything at it I've just gone mad. Um I don't there's one thing that I don't think the the photos that I take really show is how small the goblin is on top Yeah, he's a tiny little boy He's he is very small. Um, I was trying to paint the eyes on him so I painted the that eyes the iris the pupil and the white reflective dot and um That was driving me insane Like um, you don't usually bother to put an iris on a model that small Um And it's not too bad You think you've got it right because you have to do both at the same time so they match up right and then Then you put the white dot on but the white dot has to be so precise and when you put the white dot on Then it just breaks up the whole thing you messed it up. You got to start again Um, it took me a couple of hours just to do two eyes I I think that will just make everybody who's watching this feel much better Because I I think eyes are always traditionally a source of pain. So hearing that this one caused you a little consternation is probably a A good thing for other people listening out there. Yeah, I I really like uh, you know, we're gonna have marines with like one bionic eye Yes Absolutely the the bionic eye on the side of the head is just like, oh, thank god This is gonna be so much easier to balance, right? Yeah, exactly Or if you cut like if you still don't fancy just put a like a scar going straight through side There you go. Yes. Go for the go for the old scar white eye trick. Yeah. I mean, hey, and that's very war hammer I mean how many pictures right? Uh, a lot of a lot of space marines and sisters of battle have apparently taken glancing blows To a very specific part of their face and come out. Okay, so that's great Uh, and you added the banner to this right that was Yeah, I did. Yeah. Um, so Like when I got the like I again, I bought every single goblin model that came out the glimpse fight gets Um, I just loved them. I loved the got the night goblins when I was a kid But the majority of them were metal models and I couldn't afford to have an army like that. So, but right I'm just going to get them all now. I love them all And of course they're all in boxes I had I had started painting some of the The squeak hoppers. I can't remember what they called it. So the squeak hoppers and there's these other guys with lances um, but the guys with lances have um, like more like playtama like this guy, right and um I thought oh, that's really cool. So they're like knights riding uh squigs and um, I said, well, what do knights have knights have like pennants on their Lances, so that's what I did here. I thought I just I got a sheet piece of plastic glued it on Heated it with a heat gun and just twirled it backwards and instant Edmund Nice nice you know, one of the things I really enjoy about Uh, your work and work like this. I want to draw the viewer's attention to is The very very micro details that are are Simple when you look at it, but people often don't think of it So I want to actually direct everybody's attention to the teeth of the the squig And so let's let's take a look at these teeth because it's it's and the tongue will be good too There's stuff like this that I think people often don't think about Uh, so teeth are often wet, especially in a big squig's mouth where he's got a big tongue I imagine he is a creature that salivates heavily Uh, it just seems like it right. It seems like he would be a drippy boy Yeah, and You've added this small white dot Right in your deep shadow at the base of the teeth To show that there's sort of a wetness and it's there on the tongue as well Where you've put these light catches effectively these light catches that you're using Really really I think smartly because it sells a sort of glossy effect But yeah, you know, there's no gloss gel on that or me or something like that It just sells the effect So people so you have the option when you're doing models You can either go for kind of like effect paints where you put like gloss and things on To create the effect, but I'm never really a fan of that Or rather I like to challenge myself to kind of make it look like that rather than having it actually be glossy It's not that either Method is better. It's just you know, my preference is just to kind of like test myself to see if I can make it look like that Right No, I think it's very successful here. It's it's just amazing how much a tiny detail like that actually sells that feeling Right, because if that wasn't there Just that one little dot that light catch does is doing some real heavy lifting So it's you know, it's one of those things that I wanted to certainly draw people's attention to I've actually realized that the photo that I've sent you I've kind of uh Um an updated photo of this actually on my uh instagram. Um, so you can see where I've worked on the banner a little bit more When it's got like a weathering on it. So it was kind of separate the banner a bit more from the the blue on the model Nice. Yeah, exactly. I was gonna ask that. It's funny. You say that because that's one of the things I was going to ask about Like how are you going to separate more of the blue from the banner? So hey, there you go Uh, well, I will hit your instagram will be linked down below so everybody can go check that out All right, uh next up we have this is uh, this is a fun little guy Uh, this is zarbag of zarbags gets fame Our little zob little goblin spellcaster For the underworld set Yeah, I I love this model so much. I uh, I got this set purely Because I liked him again is you know that that night goblin look to him. Um I particularly like that he has one giant eyeball Because um, so one is asymmetric. So again, you don't have quite so much of that issue with making the eyeballs match Right And uh, the other thing is because it's so big you can do a lot with it. So I've got like the the Reflection from his little fairy thing catching in the light there And I just love like, you know, the whole composition of the piece. I love the hook Uh, you know, it's perfect shape for doing non-metallics because you know, like curved shapes are so much easier to Uh with a non-metallic effect. Um The only thing I wish I'd done was put him on a different base and done my own base Um, I kind of hate sculpted bases And I well originally I hadn't planned to plan to spend as much time making as neat as I did Um, and then I was like, oh, I just knock out the base quickly. Um, so I might actually try and see if I can get him off the base and do it Yeah, it's very it's like I like the mushrooms. I like it, but I'm with you on the sculpted bases I often just set those to the side I think the only one I've used recently that I actually liked was um The one for the sister superior that I'm pretty sure daren Latham sculpted the the the first one that they released right the All right. Yeah. Yeah battle and she's on kind of the Uh, like a tunnel dais or whatever. Yeah, which I thought was fun Just because I liked the I liked the sort of temple marble cathedral feeling to it That works very well. It's like a display kind of All right Yeah, because it has it's big compared to her. It's actually rather large compared to her Right, as opposed to this one where he's taking up a lot of space on here In the detail. So yeah, absolutely No, this is great. I love the I love the the the light catch is so subtle Right, like it's a great example of oftentimes with osl less is more like you don't it's he's not exploding in the yellow color of his firefly Right. No, it's actually something that drives me nuts when I see people do osl and they use an airbrush And they just go And you know, you've got like a this massive glow coming out of it. I'm like, well You know, it doesn't really work like that Right, right, right. Yeah This makes it feel much more subtle like it is a soft light and he's in a relatively You know sort of cold moonlit environment and there's this little warm light. He's he's using So yeah, I think that's it's a great example of how Oftentimes if you really want to sell some effect like this The answer is Do less of the effect which is counterintuitive, I think for a lot of people But well, so the problem is sometimes like so people paint the model and then they try and make the glow Make the glow work by making the glow brighter, but actually just make the model darker Right because the glow works on it Yep, yep, absolutely. You cannot you can't light a match without creating a shadow and you can't do osl without deepening Yeah, because the model is actually that bright The you know the the effect of it must be in daylight or something like that if you think it's such a light model So actually a light source wouldn't really have any effect in front of it if it's out in the daylight Yeah, exactly. It's if you walk out at noon outside and it's a sunny day So I understand this might be a rarity in england that you can do that But when you walk outside of it's a sunny day and you you light a torch or flashlight, right? Uh, you don't see it like nothing happens. It doesn't really do much because yeah Your your little torch is competing with the light of the sun. So Exactly Uh, all right. No, this guy's wonderful. Um, I also enjoy there's the One of the things that I always try to impress upon people with things like goblins, especially Is to do more with the skin than just be in tones of green Yeah, yeah There's so much potential with goblin and orc skin to work in other interesting tones and colors And I really like the the ones you've used here Especially around his eyes and in his nose his lip, you know, this little this little hangly daddy's got on there It is a really nice thing with goblin So goblins are so easy to paint because they're small, but they have big hands and big heads So you're not kind of struggling with the detail and because so they're very quick and easy to paint because you don't Don't have a lot of area But because the the face is big you can spend more time on that still to make it look nice, you know You have that area to work with um Yes, it is a lot of fun to do an experiment with Yep, agreed It's it's basically they have like a almost, you know, normal human sized head on a tiny little body So, yeah, yeah exactly the exaggerated proportions It also makes them naturally eye catching Because you're you're the the figure itself is forcing your viewer's eye to where you want them to look It's it's a bit of a sculpting cheat on your behalf, which is great Yeah, all right Next up we have a couple pictures from your This is the wolfhound, right? That's this guy this type Warhound, sorry. Okay. I don't know all their different names despite loving them. I can never keep them all straight So, yes, this is the warhound. Okay. I apologize So I'll start on the whole picture and then we have the zoom in on the carapace But yeah, take us through uh through this guy. I mean this is I think This is some of the first stuff of your work that I saw That really dialed me in on you like I had seen your previous stuff and I I had liked it And that's not in any way a negative judgment. I just think when I saw this and I saw especially your Your blog and stuff where you're going through and showing kind of the step by steps on it This got me dialed in. I was like, whoa. Whoa, hold on. You know, this is like, okay Time to time to follow in. I think this is what really just blew me away this piece Yeah, um So again, I love giant robots. Um, I previously painted a warhound Uh a long time ago, um And I remember I posted it on cool mini or not and it did really well. It scored like in the nine something Um, and then people uh became really interested in trying to commission me to paint titans Um, and it got to a stage where I was like, right. Well, I can paint a lot better now So I'm just going to do Another titan and just go crazy on it. Um, however, I say go crazy So it obviously has a lot of free hand on it, but still keep within the um, the context of uh, like a game's workshop IPPs, um, I think sometimes when people See that they have like these large panels and you can, um You know put whatever you want on it. They, uh They go maybe a bit over the top or you know, just start painting free hand on something that might not necessarily Uh fit the style of the model Um, so I've tried I I really strongly had that in mind that I um wanted it to fit within um, well, I did lots of research for the uh The the titan legion um legio. Um, anyway Uh, and so All that research and everything went into the the free hand. So make sure that it was kind of accurate Yeah, and so this is which, uh Like this has a particular house a story a thing behind it, right? So yeah, you you dug into all of that That led you to I assume then translate this into the various Uh elements and so oh it's somebody to ask in the comments. Is that for drover is that titanica scale? No, this is the this is the This is full scale. Yes. I I actually clarified it for anybody because I remember this being before adept as titanicas Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got to set a little marine in your picture next to it that way We all know it's the it's the forgewood one you can tell though because the details aren't as crisp on the on the uh Adept as titanicus version of this. Yeah, um, I tell you one thing painting adept as titanicas models. They're fantastic But I hate painting the trim on them. Oh god. Yeah, it's just because it takes it takes what's always Uh a time consuming task right in the in the trim and just like Really like shrinks it down. So now you're going to be utterly Tons of it, but yeah Yeah, uh, I feel this thing same thing with a lot of cast figures where they have that sort of edging Brocade around every piece of armor. It's like, okay, tuck in you're going to be working on this for the next, you know Month. All right, great Yeah, um, so these are the uh death's heads Titan legion is lijo mortis, but yeah called death's heads Um, and so I I really ran with that. So if you look on the the carapace, um Freehand at the top it's actually got a death's head moth Um, I was like, well, no one else has painted a death's head moth on on the death's heads Why why haven't they done that? Because it just seemed like an obvious thing. Um, but then I thought right. I'm going to take it a step further and um Turn the eyes on the wings into the eyes on the skull beneath it. Um, it was a really complicated Uh piece to work out that actually um, and a few people said it looked a bit like dame edner average I can I can see it. I would have never made the association now that you've said it. Yeah, I can see it So those people all blocked but Ha Um But yeah, like I just I found it kind of interesting and I wanted it still look very grim dark and everything um so Like it's almost kind of like faded into the uh the background color. Yeah, um, there's a lot of glazing going on here You know just to make everything really soft and smooth Um And then of course, it's the weathering on top of it as well. Yep Yeah, I like how you chewed away a lot of the freehand right like there's there's many times where the The freehand has been the image has been chewed away and you can see the carapace colors coming through underneath. Yeah um, it's Something that um, you have to be really careful doing that you can't just go crazy applying Chips on something. Um, but you you can't also just put it in the places where you don't want it Where you know, you don't want to wait right off some like hard work, right? You have to look realistic. Um But you know So carefully chosen areas of um chipping and things like that because if you only say like just chip the edge a bit So we'd like the clean areas. It's like well, why are only those bits chipped? Um And actually it just looks it ends up looking a bit better if you So you might not want to but like say like the the eyes or like the little skull or something Is put a tiny little chip going over it. Um, it just makes it more visually interesting Yeah, I often think of this in uh in layers is how I think of it. I don't mean layering and like the painting style I mean layering and like it actually sets the narrative when you when you can feel the different layers of the thing As it would exist in reality Right? Yeah Metal has the free hand and so I struggle explaining this to people so often That's like, um, so the the chipping would be in universe and the free hand has been like painted onto the model In universe, what do you mean it painted in universe? Yeah, somebody did this right like some person rolled up next to this thing one day with a with probably a giant airbrush gun or whatever And spent hours actually creating this image with paint as opposed to say the analogy That's the arm of carapace. But I thought you painted it. I was like, ah I love it. Yeah, it's great touches too all the little elements of the skull like you have lots of cracked the it brings through Even in not just doing a normal skull you have all the sort of almost bubbling and cracking and stuff in the skulls It adds that extra texture to the space Through a few iterations. Um at one point I had like spikes coming off the cheekbones and things like that But it started getting a bit too uh busy um You know, you have to sometimes pull back a little bit again like we're talking about, you know clean space and things like that on the model um But yeah, I really enjoyed doing this. Um, it was just it's so nice having the big uh flat area to work on Um, and of course I'd cut off the those little arrows again Yep. Yeah gotten rid of the arrows. Do you uh when you scrape it down and you have the line in the middle What do you what do you fill that space with and then stand down? What's your what's your filler of your gap filler of that? I use me, but I like me uh super fine Very good. Um, I assume you just fill it scrape it let it dry sand it Johnson Gooden Yeah, pretty straightforward All right, so speaking of of uh of knights Let's go to we'll come back to the shield a minute, but let's go to the big boy here So this is your your zinch Uh themed knight, right? Yeah, uh, so this this big guy obviously I think he Uh, you know, he entered in several different contests and did well Absolutely gorgeous piece Uh, yeah, just just take us through this thing. We've got I've got several different photos So I'll kind of switch between them. I'll look at the shield and stuff as as you talk. I'll I'll move around the photos right so When I got this again, it was I actually I bought this by accident actually so when I won my slayer sword Um, I was really depressed on the day because I didn't think I had got anything Um, and so I was like, right I need to do get something to cheer myself up So I went and bought a knight and I meant to get one of the different one of the other ones Um, because they have like the you know, they're interesting naming conventions and things It sounded a little bit like a different one. I just stupidly just asked for the wrong one I didn't even pay any attention until I got home. I was like, oh, no, I've got this This one. I don't even want this. Um, but I thought no, I'm going to make it work Um, because actually when I then spent some time looking at them on like a Went online and looked at various versions of it things like that. I actually really like the silhouette Um, so it's like, right. I'm gonna I'm going to make this really interesting Um, but the one thing that I didn't like on it was the shield that it comes with Yeah, because he comes with the big open shield normally, right? Yeah, and I was like Okay, I suppose for most people a big flat Shield is is no good, you know, it's kind of hard work to fill that in Um, but I really like, you know, a big flat surface to paint on So I was like, right, I'll just make my own. Um, it was a little bit risky Because again, like I don't spend a lot of time sculpting But I just drew around the shield on a piece of plastic card cut it out and then heated it up Bent it and then took the original shield and clipped off all the corner bits. Yep You know, sliced down and slotted them on. Of course, if I've messed that up, then I've just destroyed the the shield But it worked out really well, so I thought well that looks cool, but um, what I didn't do Was uh test fit it on the model. Okay Um, you know rookie mistake Sometimes it just it happens because you get going you get excited. You're actually working on a thing and he just it never clicks Yeah, yeah Like I built the rest of the model up for the pose and things and I just assumed the shield would fit because I'd drawn around the other one So I was like, well, it's the same size shield. It'll fit on fine. Of course the other shield is, uh um concave and So it actually goes away from the model on the edges, right? You know, it curves right into it. So you can see here. It's touching the shoulder pad and the carapace um but When I so this was the day before the competition. I was glimming it all together And I put the shield on and it wouldn't fit. Um It was actually jammed up against the uh The um the shoulder pad. I was like, oh my god So the day before the competition if you look on the um the the image where you see the night with the the um The lance arm as well. He's got these small cylinders in the arm. Those aren't actually on the original model I just got like a really thick um plastic tubing and cut it down and So it's extended by about a centimeter Both arms just and that's purely so that I can get the shield to fit Just to push it out so you had some extra space there basically Nice nice. Um, yeah, that was a bit stressful. Um You know, I was like I was heating the model up trying to bend it in and all sorts. Yeah No, this is great. And obviously I love the zinch work So we can I just want to drill on some of it here Obviously with zinch, you've got a lot of different iconography you can work with right so we've we've classically got the eye um Did did the symbol the eye of zinch symbol? Did you make that or did that come? Like in a kit or something like where did the the thing that's on the top center of his above his head the little The actual sculpted piece. Oh, there's not a piece that's that comes on the kit the Which is nice, you know, fitted in nice with the theme of the model. Um, I did there's a Bit of other conversion work on it. So obviously for the shoulder pads again I cut off all those little arrows and things. Um, give me some space Yep, these especially because they're already quite broken up on this version because it hey Layered version of it instead of just one long one. Yeah, no, it was a bit annoying then actually But um, I also oh so I had another issue on this model. Um on the chest plate I was like, right. I'm gonna join the chest together. So I can't use the original mounting A system of go up for it. But I wanted to do it. So I had the ribs painted on the chest Um, so I had it all stuck together and I you know painted all the free hand on everything I was really happy with it went to put it on the model. I was like, I've painted it upside down Um Oh, so yeah, you had thought oh my god. I've run into the same thing Okay So the night the under chest piece when you did the when you were doing the painting and you had it there You thought it fit on You know x way right and then when you went to do the fit You're like oops. Nope. Actually it goes the other way because all the chests on the nights are like counter-intuitive Yes, the shape against how you think it would fit Yeah I've done the exact same thing And I was like and the problem is the shape is so different for the fitting. I'm like I can't it's not even close. I don't know how am I going to make this work Like they're going to look at this from the back And they can see straight in there and it's like it's not connected to anything Like I need it to go in this position. So it looks like ribs and it's not even close And so I just I got like a massive blob of green stuff And some guitar wire and I just stuck on guitar wire going all the way around it and kind of made like this big Chunk of mess and glued that to it But actually it didn't look too bad Like I use a lot of guitar wire and it just looks like it's a load of you know cabling and things like that Attaching to it. So I mean it works all right, but that again was a bit stressful Uh, yeah, I can imagine and and yes, I've run into oh my god the exact same problem. It's so funny You say that yes that night or the the the the night under chest feasts is one of the most annoying things because if you You it's so counter-intuitive like the way it looks versus the way it goes on Yeah, I see it's even worse for someone like me. So like I love nights and things um Like you kind of like you just you think well, I know how this goes together. Anyway, I don't even have to look at the instructions I don't need those. I'm fine I've been doing this for a long time. I know I like I built titans. This is no problem. It's like what Oh, that's great So I do want to drill in on the shield a little bit on just kind of the artwork on it because this is just such a great example of your Of your skill with incredible free end. So I just want to ask basically some some some questions here um One obviously the symbol of zene. Where did you come up with the the modification of it into this like? Walk us in the audience through kind of how you decided to incorporate the elements that you did here and how you came to them Um Well, I looked at lots of reference for a start, you know, I went back to all the old like realms of chaos and things um There was kind of like a similar sort of idea That I saw that was like a very old black and white sketch really really detailed What is ink drawing? Really detailed and I loved that and I was like It'll be quite hard to paint that um to work as freehand, but I can just You know change it do my own thing while keeping the the sort of general concept of it So obviously the shape is very zinge, but like the zinge symbol, but um, the kind of it's like a fish right? And like that was the Kind of the the sort of basic idea of the the design that I saw and then I just like right So I turn I make the big eye in the middle then Like the whole design within the shape is is mine, but it's still like, you know, it's very heavy Drawn from that concept wise um And really is I mean, I know it looks fairly detailed, but it's it's I was gonna say it's it's fairly easy to do, but that sounds awful Well, I want to drill it on this for a moment because you one of the best So you had shared this I think you said in the post that your wife encouraged you to share this sort of stuff more Uh, I remember a post you did where you shared like kind of the stages Of your freehand, right? And where you started from just like I think it was with mortarian's wings But you it was like started with these simple lines and then it's just like refined refined refined refined, right? I assume this went through the similar sort of process. Yeah, um And I think it's like I'm because I've been drawing and painting so long Um, it doesn't really take me that long to do something like this because it's a flat surface So like I was saying before about models that are really detailed and they have like all the sculpted detail on That takes me a lot longer to do because it's just a pain because you've got like all three dimensional surfaces Um, you know, you have to go through the edges and things like that Whereas this it's just flat. So I can you know, I can just paint the fun stuff and not have to worry about how Right any of the three dimensional aspects of it. Um I mean one thing So the weathering on this again plays a big part on it. Yeah, um because you have to fill the space Uh and so the weathering actually becomes part of the artwork. Um while still working as weathering um So like if you take all the weathering off it actually looks quite empty so there is um like a little bit of detail in going around the edge like some Vines and things with a little skull mixed in and stuff like that Um because like I worked out the the zinge symbol and then I put the rose on And those will fairly straightforward. Although I have to say roses are not easy to freehand No, they're really really really hard because they're such a complex shape like I I too have painted many roses and this is like the gold standard of roses in my mind like what you've done here Uh, and I've come back to this photo that you know, like of your roses many many times as Reference work in my own stuff as well as just literally googling pictures of roses Like one of the things I always tell people is start from the real world, right? Yeah, best thing you can do is just go out and look at the actual thing I'm sure people get bored of listening to me say that about They're like, how would I do these? How would I do that? I just like just get reference get reference real world reference Don't look at 2d artwork for reference because whoever's done that has Done their own version that their own interpretation So they all have put things on there that aren't accurate, but they look cool for whatever reason They're you know, there are reasons why they've done that Um, but if you just copy that you might not necessarily understand the reasons and If you're looking for references, but probably because you don't understand the reasons anyway, so Use real like photographic reference Yeah, agreed anytime you can start from the real world You're just on better footing right and oftentimes what I'll do I know from my personal thing is I'll actually get the picture leave it up And I'll have it up on my screen as I'm painting so I can Constantly be referencing that real world thing like I'll just leave a big picture of a rose up on my screen Right, so I'm I'm constantly looking back and checking what I'm doing as I'm refining against The real thing that exists out there in nature So whenever you find it hard to find a reference picture for a giant undead fish But yeah, you can find right like skull pictures like obviously, but you'll get all sorts of You know references like safer skulls and things like that I'm just you don't have to copy it. That's the thing But you just have to understand it or just have like to be influenced by it You know say like oh because you'll see things that you wouldn't have thought to include Just little like small little curves on a bone or something I always see this on skulls as well Like if you go and draw a skull you could probably draw a skull pretty Accurately, but then if you go and get a photograph and then compare it You'll see like just like on the eye sockets There'll be like a little tiny nick on the eyebrow or whatever that you haven't Incorporated that actually makes it makes it look much more realistic and authentic Yep, absolutely Well, these kind of shapes have so much little interesting detail that it just helps to look at and I agree the weathering is doing Uh, a lot of great work here and again, it's creating those layers Right, so you have the layer of the blue and then you have the the image that somebody in the world painted on top of that blue But then you have places where it's chipped away where you can see that And then where we've gone all the way down to the metal and I think one of my favorite things is streaking over freehand I just I love like weather rust streaking Over freehand because it just makes the freehand thing Feel so much more a part of the thing. It's painted on right. Yeah. I really enjoy doing that I mean people always say how can you do that? You know you're going to ruin your freehand or whatever But it's like no it's part of the freehand right um And also the question I get asked a lot is what? um What materials have I used to do the streaking like I'm like it's just paint, you know, it's everything that I do is Just water and paint. I don't really use any um You know special techniques. It's not like I've used oil paint with gloss varnish and streaked it out or anything like that It's purely just acrylic paint and water Awesome. No, this is this is such a such a great great piece And I just love all the the little additions and details to it Something I want to draw everybody's attention to just in case they missed it I don't know if they might have but I love on the face mask Which again has this big large flat that you incorporated like the bird mask mouth, right like the The skull just makes him seem so much more angry and intimidating like there's a huge that feels Chaos-y to me When I see that that little that little image I had to again cut off all the trim on it That comes with trim all the way around it. It's like All right, uh So uh folks, uh, we're gonna do some questions at the end So if you've got questions drop them in the chat and then we'll get through that But before we get to questions, we got to get to one last piece of course And that is Uh big papa m himself mortarian Uh, obviously, I mean this is just a a seminal work Uh, I would hope you were at least happy with this one, although I understand the happy not satisfied I I do think this is just a a gorgeous piece of work one of the things I particularly love about it Beyond everything that is obvious Right, which is there's a lot to love here But I I love your tonal choice of his armor putting him in more of the Heresy era feeling kind of color to it Which I think just makes him so much brighter Against all the darker tones that you've used around it The deeper flesh color of the wings the deeper wood or whatever it is You know the deeper material of like his gun his scythe and and this kind of stuff Um, so I love that choice I also really think you used the weathering So well here to tell stories in the shadows so that nothing ends up being visually boring when I look at stuff like the The I don't know what it is like his little poison gas breather thing or whatever it is on his back The way that the oxidation is worked into the the shadows there to make The deeper colors have the counter balancing visual interest against the highlights, right? So that your eyes aren't just stuck at the high points Yeah, exactly. That's the kind of similar thing to the the night horn guy as well with the glowing on the ribs Yep, so so take us through some some I'll go to the big image here so we can see him out Give us give us some some talk about this guy. All right. Um, so there was a lot of love hate with this guy He is very hard to paint is I'll say but a very very very hard to paint Um, so I was talking earlier about like I like to stick the models together, right? You know before I paint them this guy I couldn't like he was just completely left in separate sections Which and then so I spent a lot of time repainting areas because I've rub paint off keep picking them up and test fitting constantly test fitting and things um, and even then at the very end when I put the model together the uh The wings were facing kind of down. I was like this is awful. So I fend all this time on the wings and you can't really see them Uh, you know the freehand on them that clearly when you look directly at it Uh, so I had to build the base. So he's actually tilted backwards I actually prefer it. Yeah, I actually prefer it like this so you can see him directly face on If you look at the original picture He faces downwards. Yeah, he's more hunched forward. Yeah, he's hunched over So you actually miss a lot of the you know the nice detail on him um Yeah, I mean the easiest part on this model actually was The freehand wings like that was the idea that I had When I saw the model I was like, right. I I want to make him unique Um, although there's quite a lot of notarians now with eyes on their wings You started a popular trend here But I was like, I just want to you know, I want to make sure that he's Like my own piece and not just like a generic kind of looking chaos guy And the the concept with the the eyes and the wings is so one eye is like a human eye And the other ones are demonic. I you can't really see it that clearly in this picture But the other eye it's got like three Pupils on it. So it's like the symbol of nergal built into the eye And then it's got like all the fleshy stuff going around and things like that But like the general freehand itself was actually the the easiest part on the model for me to paint um but So originally I was painting this as a golden demon piece, but then um, I ended up going to the crystal brush to enter it, but I was out of time to enter it for the crystal brush And so I ended up having to rush it like mad to get certain parts on this finished and the finish on it in the lower section on the cloak um And you know just a few other pieces was rough in comparison to the rest of it so I was um I wasn't happy at the time and other things like I just hadn't had time to just reflect on what I wanted to do Like the wings on the little like nergal cherubs floating around him uh originally I was like, I wasn't sure what to do on those and I just like I just copied the box art um And actually when I looked at it, I didn't like those at all because because they were so light they were They weren't like kind of focal points and they drew right um So after the crystal brush, I just ripped those little wings off and So I had to do exactly the same process as I did in the big wing. So, you know cut off all the um The details on there Right I was gonna say because you did shave off all of the because it normally has all this veining and structure to it, right? Which is actually it's actually quite hard work on these wings because they're not flat They've got like all curves and things all over them as well as all the details You've got to be a little bit careful when you start cutting off Surfaces because you might end up with like a hard flat surface, but it has to look organic So yeah, I ended up using a lot of Like Extra thin like tell me a glue and just coating that over it a lot and then sanding it again. So it kind of like softened the surface, right? um Yeah, so I just did the same exact same thing to the little wings and then did those as replicas of the big wings um And so um having those darker then didn't take away from the main body So again, you then focus on like this shoulder and the face and things they become like the focal point of the model again um But Yeah, and then so like after the crystal person I went back to it and like I spent time, you know adding like softening all the the finish on the cloak and you know working in So it's got like this green flame effect at the bottom, right? That that was quite tricky to work out because it blends in with the cloak It there's no separation really between the flames And the cloak itself and so you have to kind of figure out how you're going to do that Because you can't really put a hard line because it would look too obvious Like it would be quite jarring, right? So you have to get like a transition going on but Do you do like a soft transition or a quick transition? And I ended up doing like these small little dots and kind of like spores, I imagine from the like Noxious flame type effect and then the if you actually look on the cloak all over this is the little Yellow dots and things put all over it to kind of like Represent like the the flames being part of the cloak Yeah, almost like the pollen of a sort right of this of this Spreading around like there's a physical mass To the flame This is one of those things that they've started sculpting on miniatures that I'm not sure I really truly love often When the minute when they sculpt air, you know, like smoke and mist and stuff Okay, flames aren't too bad because you can work with those a little bit You know doing some osl or whatever, but you know all the smoke and everything I'm not a big fan of and actually I left some off of this model So he had it comes on his side as well Oh, yeah, yeah Bring smoke coming off that and also when he's breathing jetpack thingy at the top There's the option to have a lot more smoke on there and that connects all his the tubes coming out of his back There'd be like all smoke coming out of those and I was like, all right, I'll just leave all that off Like this guy's a chimney man. He's just belching smoke out there. Oh I was like, I don't think it needs to let you get the impression with the you know the the bits on it already, right? No, he's he's truly gorgeous and yes To for those some people who said it in the comments and I completely agree It's even more gorgeous in person not that this picture isn't a great picture It certainly is But like seeing this in person both originally a crystal brush and then over at Warhammer Fest It really is a seminal work So I I do think you should be proud of this to the center of your being my friend. This is When he's he's on display Warhammer world at the minute if you want to go and see him Obviously if you're in the uk probably as easiest It's it's it's worth making for for all of those out there. It is worth making a sabbatical Over there at least at least once in your life if you're in another place just because there's so much to see there This amongst so much like the museum there and all the pieces being able to look at the history Yeah, it is it is fantastic to visit. Um, you know just for the sake of they've got like Old historical pieces and things like that old magnificent things really nice to visit. Yep. Completely agreed All right, sir. Well, let's uh, let's go ahead and minimize that out. We'll bring you back on screen there Okay, so You're ready for some questions I'll try my best. All right, so we'll start with my questions. These are rapid fire Here we go. Uh, these are all these are all the tough questions. You're ready. We're gonna hit you with the hard ones All right First question you can only pick one only one Who is your favorite miniature artist besides yourself? past or present um I'll say Probably Sergio Calvo Okay, totally fair answer great great painter for those who don't know Sergio. I mean, obviously he's uh A great painter who's done a lot of place at crystal brush many times Kind of like like how he uses light and things on his model is really good Yep Very, uh, totally support that answer Uh, as as somebody you've been other people's answers. So that's that's If you had to pick a single color Of paint as your favorite, what would be your single color? Um At the moment, I like my fist in red. Okay. All right. Good answer Uh, finally, uh, what is your and you can construe the word type however you want What is your favorite type of minis to paint? And type can mean anything you like here Yeah, oh I don't I don't know I mean Obviously you see that I paint like big robots and things, but um, I don't necessarily enjoy that any more than anything else Like I enjoy doing like small models as well and things. Um I don't I don't really have a favorite as such anything that's like, you know, got clean lines on There you go No, I think that's a very good answer because there's a lot of minis in the world That you look at and you go, oh, that's cool. And then you look at it up close And you're like, oh, this wouldn't actually be pleasurable to Yeah, it's not clean. The sculpt is is messy. It's dirty. There's too much Like the sculptor didn't sculpt it with the with a painter's eye Right. There's a lot of conflicting shapes and things like that that don't work well together that won't suit that So yeah, I get that totally fair answer. All right. Let's do some viewer questions here Uh, we've got a couple that have been uh that have been asked throughout Uh, all right. So, uh, Theodore had asked do you uh, do you varnish your pieces for competition? Like what do you do for varnishing? Uh, sometimes sometimes not. Um, I quite Like a ak interactive ultramat varnish Purely because it it is ultramat It's the best map that I've found um Purely because like sometimes I don't want that, you know, that satin or gloss finish on a on a model Uh, and especially for photographs actually, uh, a matte finish is much nicer to work with right You don't get any interference from anything else. It just you just get the The the lighting from the light that you don't get the reflection right yep Okay, uh, agreed. I'm a big fan of ak interactive ultramat as well It just it does the work right like it does what it says on the tin 100% which I appreciate Uh, all right. Nope We lost Richard Come quite here. There you go. Okay, you're back. We lost you for like a second, but you're back now All right, uh, can you hear me? Okay. Am I coming through? Yeah. Yeah, you just come back in Okay, uh Uh, any uh, any paints or brands that you particularly, you know utilize or or enjoy more than anything else um My preferences for paint are um Vallejo model color and games workshop um Part of me likes games workshop just because everyone says oh, they're you know, they're bad paints Again, just to be contrary. I'm like, all right. I'll use games workshop paints, but I do actually like them um I actually like to glaze with games workshop paints everyone's like, oh games workshop paints are rubbish for glazing and i'm like But they're my favorite for glazing Nice. Okay, excellent. Uh, let's see Uh, bum bum bum. Sorry just cycling through all the questions here Uh Somebody said how many hours did it take you to freehand just the skulls on the night's shield? The all the little baby skulls I'm not that long actually they're very um, I mean if you zoom right into them, they're very Kind of simple skulls. It's just kind of like two eyes Nose and some little teeth and things um Yeah, it's actually because you don't have to blend a lot on them You know you just paint in the sheet and then I kind of just glazed over the whole thing for getting this shadow shape Yeah, so there's like a slight curve to give you know like a three-dimensional look to the body of the the fish You know, that's a separate shading like the individual skulls. There's not that much Effort gone into them. Yep Uh, somebody in the chat asked for you to talk a little bit about the new chaos warrior You did you painted up one of the new chaos warriors from the uh, that's right. Yes. Yeah. Um, I painted that really quickly I please again. I've got the the whole set Um, they are gorgeous. I just finished up a group myself. They're absolutely I saw it. Um, and I was very jealous that you've got so much painted So Yeah, um, I don't know. What can I say about that? I like it. It was very very simple painting. Um, it works really strongly with uh High contrast. Um, so there's a lot of strong light direction from the top left Um, you know with strong lights on it and then there's a lot of shadow and then I just you know very quickly glazed it all um Yeah, it's it's a fairly simple model So when you're let's let's break this down for just a little bit everybody because I think back when you did Uh, what was his name? Mr. Special character ultramarine guy that they re-released as a primaris I can't oh Was it money's counter? There it is. Yes. Thank you Uh him you talked about how he was a rougher piece because you had done him kind of quickly and stuff like that I mean he was absolutely gorgeous But he was you said mentioned you're rougher you mentioned the chaos warrior So this is kind of like your version of when you quote unquote speed paint is what I take those Yeah, right? Yeah, so are you roughing that in like your general method? Do you are you going in and using you know Something like thicker paints roughing wet blending that out sketching it out like how are you working that when you want to work fast? like that it's very very sketchy um I'm just kind of like So i'm doing layers as well But the the nice thing about this sketching style Is so you know you very quickly block in like the light points and things like that And but I still I kind of like used still used the colors. So um, you know For sketching sometimes people just use like a gray scale and then work over the top of that But i'm just using the actual colors That you'd normally use on well not always like the actual armor colors are used for a little bit weird I think I can't remember exactly what they were but I know That um people will like oh, that's a bit of a weird choice, but as you know 10 sort of blue in the end anyway but um Yeah, so i'm Just moving the brush very fast, right? You know to get like lots of marks down and like so you can layer over Keep building up marks and things. It doesn't take very long to do that. Um, as long as you know where you're putting the brush um, I think sometimes people think the speed painting you just kind of slop the paint on but you still Um, um, precise in where you put it. It's just that you don't have to be um quite as neat So like you covered the whole model very quickly getting all the base colors down the light points and things And then you can spend as much time if you want really afterwards just glazing over the top Um doing things like that Yeah, so so you you get those those you get the light control in first set them to the piece and then from there It's the refine refine refine, right? That's kind of your strategy. Yep Makes sense. Yeah, so for that piece I hadn't spent that much time refining it. Um But because I mean mine is kind of quite a big Space like he's a primary smooth quite big So it just makes it that little bit easier the smaller the model the harder it is to do something like that because Like an expressive mark on a tiny model. It's huge Expressive mark on a big model. Uh, it just you know It's much more subtle. Yeah, it's one of the reasons I love painting like 54 and 75 mil stuff As you can work in that way really easy because you can you have a lot more space to be free like that. Yep In some ways so like there's a I get like a bit of a pet peeve where so you see models online and The the 75 or 90 millimeter whatever model is exactly the same size in the photograph as a 25 38 32 millimeter model And so like they're compared as if they're the same size Right painting on them and it's such not a fair comparison Right, right, right. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean the amount of uh The the difficulty curve is very different. I also find like 54 is what I found to be just like the sweet spot We have this perfect mix between Space to work and do what you want but also like Yeah, I don't know. There's just something really comfortable about that scale. I don't know Yeah, it's not so great that it's going to take you forever today. Right, right. Yeah, exactly Uh, okay, uh, john want to know how do you come up with your color schemes? And I just use colors. I like Do you have a reference color wheels or stuff like that or is all that just innate in your brain at this point after years and years of Art training, um if I ever get stuck I'm I mean like a color wheel. It's just like, you know, opposite colors It doesn't you're not going to really learn that much from it. Um Um Yeah, I pretty much So I know the color wheel so yeah, I don't really reference it. Sure. Sure. Sure. Uh, okay, uh From uh, Rob at the miniatures paint, miniatures paintbrush He says, uh, he really likes the eyes you do and you tend to incorporate, you know, a lot of eyes Especially in the pieces we saw here. Um, any advice for creating, you know, compelling reflections on eyes? Um, look at reference again for eyes You'll see so everyone does white dots because that's how You do really small eyes, you know, everyone sees the games workshop eyes and things like that and you can't really Do a lot with, you know, a tiny like one millimeter eye Um, but obviously as they get bigger you that can then incorporate that and like, you know, different interesting reflections and Um, if you actually look at the reflections, you'll see Uh, they are actually reflections of physical objects around you and things like that quite often sky or you know spotlights and things Um, but the shapes are interesting. So don't just do a white dot And also don't just purely go for a white dot, you know Do like an off-white And then you can actually highlight the reflections as well. Um, it makes the actual reflection dot look brighter Then rather painting everything white which can then look a bit flat Nice nice All right, let's see Uh, best tip for somebody for a beginner with a skin and achieving more blending and smooth colors on skin Hmm best tip, um Use thin paints, I would say for skin to get like you need that smooth finish the thing with skin is Um, it's not opaque It has a translucency to it. So, um multiple layers of thin paint and adding, you know You can add in a bit of color and things and then glaze over to soften those colors You can even put like small veins in and things like that and then, you know, as you glaze over it They become like they're underneath the layers of skin So, you know, try and work with that kind of the translucency of the skin Makes it look a lot more interesting. I think nice Uh What would you give, uh, what's your simple advice for people, uh, who want to start out with freehand They what they they're not trying to get to where, you know, like mortarians wings or something But they'd like to incorporate some simple freehand elements. What's your what's your best advice there? Um, use a deco No, seriously though, if you go in for competition like The the level of freehand has to be so high that you're actually better up using a deco Because you'll get marked down for poor freehand where she went for using a deco But to to improve to, you know, get back to the question. Um I said practice is really important practice drawing Uh, your brush control is really really important So just a case of practice learn how the paint works and things um, you need Like so you want smoother finish you used in a paint sometimes you want a really hard mark on something In that case, you need to take a paint, but you don't want it so thick that you leave a three dimensional mark Um, obviously, you know different brands have different properties. And so you just have to learn your paints It's a lot of learning Nice also, yeah, keep it simple as well Don't go for something too complicated to start with And also freehand is a lot easier on a black background because then you can use the black as a rubber Uh, yeah, absolutely This is what I tell me of all the time like one big part of freehand is having it on a neutralish background color So you've gotten a racer right because that if you go outside the lines, you can always just You push back in Into if you've put a transition on the background though like on a very obvious transition You're going to be in for a world of pain if you make a big mistake because you can't fix that um Like it's even worse if you did an airbrush background because you can't then hand paint the Repticate the the airbrush finish Um, so yeah, don't do that. Well, I mean like you can but you know, just be careful. Yes The area where you're going to place the freehand try to have that be a relatively consistent and smooth color Maybe you've got some hard like take that carapace for example that you had on the on the warhound, right? Like you could have deeper shadows on the side of it, but the top color there make that kind of consistent, right? See there was you're not doing a lot of deep freehand over there on the side So cool Let use that area or the corners for a little bit of highlight tonal transition stuff like that But then keep the the area where you're going to put that nice and solid. Yeah Yep, I agree. All right. Well, that brings us to the end of our questions So i'll say richard. Thank you for spending so much time with us this morning. This has been absolutely fantastic, sir It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Look forward to seeing you in a couple months Uh not long now coming up too quickly as a matter of fact. I think so shockingly fast So, uh, but uh, richard is also teaching at adept con I I assume your classes are are are either full or sold out or whatever But I would say they put yourself on the wait list Uh, it's you never know like if you ever if you turn up on the day There's sometimes are able to squeeze some extra people in so if you're there Yeah Exactly and we see people From the wait list first like that's what we're instructed to do So my strong advice is I've never taught a class where well, I have taught some class where it doesn't happen But let me say this way often one person or two people will not show up because it's a big convention People think they're gonna go and then oh turns out I got into a game or I met my friends Or they wanted to go to lunch or whatever So put yourself on the wait list if you can take a class of this man Or subdue his patrion you are doing yourself an immense favor richard is an artist of singular talent and Uh, you would do well to to learn all you can from him. So thank you very much richard for your time Uh, and thank you everybody for watching. I really appreciate it. Uh, as always We'll see you next time Thank you