Hello everybody and welcome to another interview with the artist and today. I am very excited We're sitting down with singe and Scott. How you doing there, sir? What's up guys? How's it going? It's so good to finally have you on the show. This is This is me being remiss because I think we had originally talked about this what last year at Gen Con That sounds right. So so it's fitting that now almost a year to the day We're finally making this happen. So we got there. We got there before the next time We would have been meeting up in person. So there you go Oh, yeah, I can't wait to get back to being able to where we're all safe and able to go out and go to cons and Be able to have that camaraderie again. It's it it's really it Yes, facebook and the posts and stuff will push you to do more stuff But there's nothing like talking face to face with someone and looking at the piece right there in their hands and Being able to see all the true colors that they're using and discuss it and you know, hey what did you use here and you know just That that sense of being together is something really really important for our community It's completely I completely true like I could not agree more. You know people have asked me like What's the impact to you since this all began? I always work from home I always work from this chair like most of my life is admittedly not very disrupted But the thing I miss the most is the events.  That's that's the shame. So this all cannot be over fast enough But in the meantime, at least we get to hang out like this Exactly and that's that's a that's a fun one my my painting group. We just decided we're gonna start doing some hangouts Just with us all on camera Just sitting around and painting I have a I have a normal group of like 25 people We usually meet up like every Monday, but since this whole thing started It just kind of like really disrupted us all because We had kind of gotten into a group and we bounced ideas off of each other Right and and we show each other each other's work. So we it It really is a comfortable social situation where we can improve and make our work better And not having that personal interaction It's really weird because yeah, I paint the rest of the time on my own in the studio out in the garage, but It's just kind of that's my Social time for painting that I was using every week and did not have it there. It's just kind of It really is trying. It's hard to keep that motivation pushing sometimes, but right with all the pieces that are out there and I I find ways to like tape breaks and sometimes it takes my breaks are a little bit long, but I always pull myself back around to my work and just sit down and just grind I wish I could say I painted every day, but Oh, I'm a dad. Well, there you go. Yeah, that's yeah, that is usually a good reason why people don't get to paint every day. Yes Well, I mean my kids are older. My daughter just started college. My son just turned 18 and Me and him game together and we Game tabletop together so There's that interaction and sometimes that pulls me away from Painting every day. Yep. It's keeps my ideas fresh Every time I sit down. Yes, I know exactly what I where I left off but I've always I always think about stuff in between my work points and I try to basically I call I think it's I think of it Painting in my head Because I'm always trying to think of new techniques or ways to present on every piece that I'm working on Even when I'm not working on it because if it And it can be obsessive But I would rather go through that in my head and instead of sitting down and just being like I have no idea what I'm going to do. Right, right. No, there's there's something really organic about You know oftentimes I'll be sitting in my desk for hours and not able to paint because I'll be doing something else or working or whatever But I'll leave whatever I'm working on there off to the side And I just kind of stare at it every so often start just thinking on it, right? And there's there's a lot of value to just that just that turning it around in your head Yeah Yeah, definitely And I'll always go back and just take a look at it even if I'm not painting on it I'll step out to the studio and stand there and look at it And scrutinize it and I'll pull pieces that I have painted That I've done or that other art that I have from other artists and I'll pull them down and set them down Like one of like some of my favorite pieces. I got I have a piece of a few small bits from Ben Comet And I have a piece from From roman laplac And I usually pull them down and set them down next to my work And stand back and if I don't feel that My piece is strong enough to at least Stand like visually stand up to where they where those those pieces are Sure, then I need to go back in and make some adjustments And that's how I kind of judge my own work and and critique my own work Against people that I really do admire and I sit there and go well I need to keep it in my style But I need to Make it present more. I need it to I need everything to read I need everything to stand up so that at least I can put it next to it and it's not swallowed up Right, right. Absolutely. All right. So speaking of which I want to go back to the beginning Okay, so I want to I want to take us back to the start So What I always say like my line I've used on this show so many times and I've used it again because I think it is true Is we have a weird hobby?  How did how did you make that weird decision as it were? I haven't no point in my life ever not done art. Okay But I built model cars and model Train I've built all kinds of models growing up and I said my dad started me out with little snap tie cars and airplanes and tanks and stuff like that And I was a huge fan of ray harry housing. Okay And I love the models that he did with his stop motion and the realism that he presented in these pieces And I always wanted to get involved in special effects I was torn between comics and special effects ended up being a chef to try and pay my way through art And I was I still did art all the way through But somewhere around 80 485 Okay, I think It was my young teenage years. We had a local Comics convention and gaming conventions called mobacons and mobile alabama and I went And they had a speed painting competition. Okay, got it And you slept this model down and you got painted And they gave me this weird little swashbuckler guy From ral partha. Yeah, I was gonna say it had to be ral partha miniatures at the time. Yep Oh, yeah, well grenadier was around as well But I mean because I own a full set of uh dark the original dark crystal minis from grenadier and like from 81 Wow, that's awesome But around 84 85 I sat down at this table. I started painting this thing and At the time I didn't know anything about miniature painting. I just painted models You know big like vehicles and stuff, but I wasn't really what you would call a modeler I just built them for fun. Yeah, sure And I pickers on and I started learning a little bit about weathering because of the special effects aspect But I wasn't really what you would consider a modeler Oh So you weren't like taking it and trying to go like the sci-fi spaceship route or something where you're Greaving all over it or something like that. You were still more sticking to the kit as it were Exactly. Yep. Um, and then During that competition. I finished I came in second And I was like wow And the guy who came in first his name's bill rogers. He's a former goal He's a golden demon winner from uh, baltimore back in like the nineties. Okay He was one of my dad's students And it was the only reason that was safe because my dad was a teacher and like a large chunk of these kids Knew my my dad and would watch out for me and take care of me And it was really a good It was a good environment for a young kid to learn comics and learn games like and he said so You want to learn how to do this for real and I got like an hour Oh an hour or two of just Concentrated boot camp. This is how you do a wash. This is how you do this and he painted Very gw style because that was a prominent style at the time. Sure. And um That was what I did I after that I just started painting like models for my friends dnd games and stuff like that and it was it really got to be a lot of fun and so I kind of stuck with it, but I was still painting in the gw style. I had not yet I've I've been art my whole life. I've taken art classes on them and the like all the way through into college and I just Didn't put the two together I considered them separate for so long gotcha and all I Rackham came around I was painting You know gw and playing all warhammer 40k and I'd quit for years. I'd finally like in 94 beat bill rogers in the local painting tournament There it is. Yeah, finally the revenge you took you took those years, but you got there. That's awesome Exactly. And but the problem was this I just stopped I You know miss I literally had a misspent 20s people talk about their misspent youth. I literally Spent most of my 20s just kind of bad I just didn't care right. I was involved in a lot of things. I probably shouldn't have been involved in um And it drew me away from Painting minis and the like, but I was still drawing um Sometime around 2001 my daughter was born and I was Living in gulfport, mississippi and a buddy of mine Who knew I painted remembered when I used to paint? I'll ask me if I was still painting and I was at home stay at home dad and He I was like, yeah, I still have my paints So he brings over a bunch of Warhammer 40k stuff. Sure. Sure And I Got bitten I like the models my models my original paint jobs at that point We're so far below where they were when I One when I I won the competition That I was embarrassed Gotcha, I think they're Horrible and I still have some of these models. I don't get rid of them there's a horrid space marine painted in like Green ink straight from gw right out of the bottle It's horrid is just I just somewhere along the way. I law I just didn't have Something didn't click or it just turned off and um Can I hold let me can I ask you a question real quick? Let's jump I want to I want to just I want to go down that I want to deviate on that one moment Do you purposely keep all of those old ones just to remind yourself of that time period and where you were? Like is is that a photo album to you basically? Yeah, that's why I keep I do the same exact thing I have a bunch from like that same time period and they're just horrible and I look at them I'm like, oh god, but but I would never strip them. I'd never paint over them For me it is a um It's a lesson.  It's just so bad. So it's so wrong with it And I look at those models and go It could be so much worse But I mean I painted 40k for about three years Okay, quite a few armies. I was rotating armies for a while I was living in Pensacola, Florida at the time and someone introduced me to cool mania or not And rackham in one fell swoop he's got a manager at the local game store and The first rackham model I saw wasn't even painted by rackham was actually painted by jinn hailey And I was like wow it was an Eric the civil And I was floored right so I started staring at what everyone on cool mini or not was doing and what was going on and going on in rack with rackham's models And I started trying to emulate them now. Remember the only The only thing I understood of miniature painting at the time was whiteboard right Oh and my my my running joke about that Is their old paint articles in white dwarf used to literally have instructions that would be like paint shade Complete like complete was a step. Like that's not a step. That was that was how limited they were. Yeah, so I'm with you I remember those articles. I still have some of those issues Funny enough but I was just kind of I was in it and I was trying to learn something new and I was looking at all this stuff that all these people were doing and I remember an article by syril abadi doing a Excuse me a space marine hit There's an article on cool mini or not and I had been pounding through like training my brain to dissect the colors And color saturations that people were using from when I could gather a photo sure and trying to duplicate this on model And because white warfare is like wasn't doing that. It wasn't doing the same stuff And you know, you'd see all these you know, european golden demon entries And you're just like What you know, this is you're just like what in the heck is going on This is you know early 2000s and I I What was in the magazine wasn't what was being what was winning in competition? Right, right. There was such a delta in this time period. Yeah I mean, I think it's hard for people who weren't around and didn't like rackam was like a meteor strike For me the first time I walked into a store and saw what those minis look like and saw Uh, how people were painting them. I just I mean it blew me away because it was completely Different than everything I knew I still own like three of my rackam warbands still painted They're in a case I don't touch them Uh, I still have a lot that's unpainted Some of the original metals up and I I'm doing it a little bit at a time just because I want to utilize the techniques that I'm doing now on the stuff On those models just to you know, just have that difference of feel right, uh But rackam was It was mind blowing for me honestly, and I dove headlong into it collecting buying the cry habits practicing it was a first and and I find it funny that currently a lot of the individuals who worked for rackam and painted for them are friends of mine on facebook and I Looked up to what they were doing. It was so inspirational me and have them even Considered me remotely up here is humbling It's really is something that I It It makes me feel like i'm living in a dream when i'm at a gaming convention because I get to talk to these guys This right yep. Let's be honest at a depicon. We have The best of the best right yep Oh well and to be able to sit down and talk to these individuals and learn from them even in passing Just a hint there or being able to dissect their work visually and let it inspire me to try new and different techniques is one of the things that i'm missing about Not being able to go to these coins, right? But um after rackam I started learning about I found war machine because um After the the the pre painted Plastic models from rackam came. Yeah. Yeah me a lot of my people just kind of we still played the game from time to time We were playing, you know skirmishes here and there, but it just eventually It just didn't work for us. It wasn't something that we were we enjoyed the ability to paint the models and The plastics that were being used to dot have the depth of detail Right in my opinion that the pewter models the original pewter models did I really would have liked to have seen their A move over to resin But that wasn't in the cards They did only a few resin releases and they were busts and larger pieces uh But after that I found war machine and that was my skirmish game at the time and I had also found a historical modeling show in the area And it was a principal a major figure society Or now known as the panhandle miniatures figure society. Okay. It was run by The group and it was kind of centered around boby's hobby house and all we we I really learned more about historical models at the time and I learned about judging in an open system. That was my first Full rate into that and I judged for about two three years and Then I quit again I had a job that was requiring me to work An extremely large amount of hours that I didn't have time to I literally did not have time to paint I could have found time on the weekend, but with a family you have to that time's already taken up, right? Sure And so I stopped um And then I moved to colorado And that was about nine years ago and I met I met jennifer kaufman lily on a troy michael proctor um And some really amazing artists out of the denver area And for a while It was conducive to my growth as an artist But I started having some resentment issues and those were my parts. That was all me. It was all my it was my own My own stuff going on and uh, I Moved up here to grayly and started coming to The crystal brush. Yep and I put in my first model was a weird miniatures Samurai standing under a tori gate like going up to a temple And I had done some ground work in the light to it I really had pushed myself to where beyond where I was at the time It was like the mod. It was I was still painting kind of a mixture of historical and racham and All white dwarf styles all kind of blended together, but I hadn't really started It hadn't cinched in on me to utilize the Techniques that I learned in fine arts in my miniatures It just Connect And then so was this like the period of metal? Uh from from weird. Is this still like the metal samurai? Or was this the second version release where everything went to plastic like which version which area was this? Okay? It was a multi-police multi-piece plastic. Uh, it's the samurai that doesn't have a face and you put a map on on him Yeah, he's great. I love that model. I mean him again Um, just because I know I could do more with him now than I did then um, but I met, uh, Jose Um Big child creatives. Yep and He saw something in my work and started talking to me And it was other than you know Knowing people personally He was the first person whose work that I was like other than jen hayley whose work that I had seen and went Oh my god, right. Yeah. Yeah and who paid attention to me Um, and he just threw me some hints and really just he he tried to Mentor me a little and just give me some hints to try and push me to do something different And he introduced me to alfonso online and I started looking at alfonso's work and I was like, all right cool cool cool and I started working trying to figure out that that kind of Look of things, but I still wasn't feeling where I was coming from. Okay Then I met Ben committson and kerel keno And we met online due to kerel doing a video for painting buda And it was the scopsman got and we chatted a little bit over on facebook and stuff And it was really cool And I met michael mortels through that because he was over painting buda and we made plans to meet at the next crystal brush and we did and me And the two of them and so she bowler went into downtown Chicago and started roaming around and just looking at stuff just really just I I love looking I look at everything Through color and differentiation of textures. I look for weathering I do this in real life because observing in a real app allows me to Mimic it in miniature. Yep I keep my phone on me. I take lots of reference shots all the time So we're discussing and I grew up in mobile alabama. It's a city. It's Well over 300 years old. It's one of the oldest cities in the united states um And it has amazing Architecture from the french the english All the different people who have lived and occupied that city in that area and so I worked Fixing up houses and stuff like that when I wasn't cooking So I understood the architecture And we were discussing architecture and and ben and carol are both architects And I didn't realize this until afterwards And we're talking and and then carol looked at me at one point and he was like You have a background in art. Yes. I said, yeah It's like, why don't you use it? And it was like And the lights went on And I think ben saw the light just go ding ding ding ding and We all started talking and then I started really Looking at things differently, right? How I wanted to paint and what I how my own personal artistic Tastes and fine art can be reflected in my minis and when I was drawing I was trying to Make myself into a combo card as I Started doing these very extreme cure cost of style comic drawings where you had these really deep shadows and these these Areas where light hit where it was just intense detail, right and I wanted to emulate Something similar to that in my models And I saw kajit and I said I have to buy it. I have to and so I did and I'm sitting there and I drilled it out. I got it set up and I painted it black And I stuck it together like a whole bunch of parts have like the the pommel. Yeah of his dark is Actually was actually put on with like blue tack just so I could prime everything sure and I started taking reference photos by lighting a candle Near the model and setting it up in a dark room and then adjusting my camera so that I would get the lighting And I started taking lots of reference photos and I started Taking in the consideration. Okay. I need to be able to make the details come out. I needed to be readable and I was like moonlight And so I Started doing the lighting stuff and around the same time Roman Laplac was working on some amazing lighting on one of his pieces And we were discussing things back and forth and he inspired me so much in many ways and gave me some Different ways of looking at it while I was in the process of painting I still still wish I'd finished mine first I was literally I was literally stumbling and floundering Through trying to take my mental Illustrated image and put it into a model right on 3d piece and Somewhere in there. I started thinking about how I was using brush strokes And how brushstrokes read to me when I look at a painting and yeah, I had been talking to Alfonso and I kind of hid some Some of my brush strokes up because I wasn't really good And I was trying to hide brush strokes and stuff like that I didn't feel comfortable with it.  When I look at a painting The brush stroke the depth of brush stroke the The width the breath how you Apply paint That's your signature Right, absolutely. And it's not hidden. It's not it's not as though if somebody went to a canvas painting and said Oh, I can see a brush stroke in that. That's not a good canvas painting. That would be nonsensical.  Yep. And I saw it and I went I hope That this will allow what I'm doing to be more acceptable Or what I want to do to be more acceptable because I wanted people to remember the work that I was doing not because my name was attached to it but because my vision Was there. Yeah. Yep. Yep, because you can look at a painting and it doesn't even have to be signed if you're familiar with the artist You know who did it. Absolutely And and even if you don't know who did it that painting and still have incredible emotional resonance and impact to you And you can remember it for years and that can be detached from the artist and yet it still is of incredible import right Exactly, but I mean and this is this is a little going on as artists We want to create We look at the masters And they are masters for a reason even though they're no longer with us right And whether we acknowledge it or not somewhere in the back of our mind Maybe that thought of living on through our vision Is something that we all want. Yep I'm not self. I will I'll I'll be honest. I'm honest with myself My I want my work to have influence, which is why I Try to push myself as much as I do and maybe my work isn't as technically good as many people who are out there And I I can I can say that and be honest about um But I want my vision My style my how I see things within my mind's eye When I look at these pieces the the way my mind paints them. I want that to be there I want that to speak for me. Yeah I think that's You know the least any of us can ask is that the work that we put out Is an attempt to reflect our own vision No, I think you're exactly right and it's funny you mentioned, you know Sort of the influence and stuff like that as we'll see later We're going to look at some of your pieces and I like I mentioned to you off the top of the show before we went live There's I've got an interesting story to share with you Re one of your pieces and it's sort of like the idea of having influence but um so That's where we are now and obviously this year. We're not getting much around of anywhere What are you trying to challenge yourself with right now? Like what do you find yourself working on? What do you find yourself to be like what's your How are you trying to grow right now? You know, what what are the items you're pursuing in your own journey right now? I I'm I'm planning a A tribute a personal tribute to chris sure I really love his box work. Yeah I have a shadow box here at the studio and Some nice wood and a peak and some pieces that I want to do And they all seem to kind of flow together and it's very reminiscent of one of his pieces And I and it really is his work inspires me that this I put this together and it's in front of me And I can't help but look at it and go it's just like one of chris yours pieces, right? So I want to do that um I want to do a force perspective Box Most of it is stuff that I'm going to have to sculpt It's very creepy it's I'll imagine norman rockwell Corrupted by hb locra. Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure. Absolutely Yeah But when you look at it you don't see Anything except the rockwell until you change the angle of perspective slightly and you see the things in the shadows Oh, that's awesome. I I I I love where this is at already. Yes. I like just I can picture so many possibilities for that in my head. That's fantastic But I want to do but it's something that in I'll be honest It's daunting it's scary it's Every time I think about it. I'm inspired to make sketches But I go to the studio and I look at my stuff and I think about that piece and I'm just kind of like it makes me nervous honestly it really does because it's It's a slight twist of the box instead of being out of the box it twists the box a little and that's kind of where I I want my work to be long term Style wise I mean I'm My name in my studio is pikman studios So I'm very inspired by the work of lovecraft and the vision through his writing that I get the images in my head when I read his work So my one of my favorite stories is pikman's model Gotcha, and the descriptive of pikman's work is that it looks almost natural until You look at it from a slightly different angle, right? And that's kind of long term where I want to I see my I want to see my work going towards So I do a lot of sketches and try to figure out how I want to make these pieces work and it's It's really inspired by a lot of the cigar box dioramas that I saw at the world expo in chicago. Gotcha Those things are amazing. Some of the artists are phenomenal and they compact so much of a scene into such a Small space right and it's very encapsulated, but it's completely fleshed out and realized and I think that as Miniature painters when we set our piece down on the table There we need to be looking at certain aspects of what we're what we're doing now if we were doing historicals I want to see I love that realism that richness of of very realistic looking piece That I can sit there and go wow. I can see that blown up the full size and it would look perfectly normal, right? um There's a there's an artist honor guard is Amazing at doing these and he does terrain pieces That when you're looking at them and the models are on them. They literally look like little shrunken scenes, right? and I would love to see a competition Where we can get people who are doing terrain because let's be real a lot of people look at terrain and go Oh, it's just something you put on the board to move your models around, right? It's just there to facilitate gaming It's not yeah. Yeah. Yep. So it's just unfair. Yep But we have people who are so Who do such beautiful detailed work? In just the grass and the rocks and the small details like that and Matt sesh was his joy of basing Yep On patreon is a wonderful resource to be reaching in that direction Um, and that's I want to see a competition where we we can do a terrain A realistic terrain Category Yeah, I mean you mentioned roman a little while back and you know, he's been doing All of his little 15 millimeter astronauts Recently, right? No, they are amazing and like every one of them It's our little dioramas little stories He's telling and most of those are really more about the terrain than they are about the little astronaut, right? I mean there are some exceptions, but like he I think he just posted one today That was like the little astronaut in orange suit He was on the beach and it was like a vertical piece But it was the beach going down and he had like the waves washing up and him making a little You know angel in the sand right and like That the little orange astronaut is yes, he's the figure in the scene But there's so much like it's the terrain and little sceny sculpting. That's incredible there like the Statue of Liberty Piece that he did with the the buster or whatever like there's just so much great stuff like that Well, and it's I've been a judge plenty of times and I know in many in many cases that I when I look at my own work I'm not necessarily satisfied with some of those aspects Uh, but when I look at people like roman's work, um honor guard uh, Ben matt um Seth Seth amson. Yep. Amazing with his with his modeling his groundwork is Really really really really top notch um The thing that strikes me is the scatter It's not just Hey, I've got uh some grass here and a few sticks here and here's some rocks It's fleshed out there is detrius under the edges of the rocks There it's not completely uniform. It feels organic. It feels Organic and it's something that I I personally feel that I struggle with greatly in the work that I do um, which is and I don't do a lot of very small pieces mostly due to the fact that I am really having issues with my vision when it comes to concentrating on like 35 millimeter figures Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I can still paint them and I'll put headgear on but It's just I can only paint for so long at that scale. So I started going more uh, 54 75 and bus, you know varying scales because I can play with the with the surfaces and volumes more and It It's something that I I can I don't necessarily have to put my headgear on to paint Yep And I can sit there and I can work with it and then I can put my headgear on for finishing touches at the end But I can paint most of the model without ever having to put a hit of a magnifier on And I don't be headaches from larger scale. It also just often feels more comfortable I don't know what it is like for people out there who are watching If you haven't painted a 54 or 75 mil figure if you haven't done some bust painting like I cannot recommend it enough if if what you've spent your sort of artistic life doing Is painting, you know 28 to 32 millimeter type of gw stuff or whatever game you have to be playing To me, there's just a comfort with it. It's hard to explain. It almost feels more like you're not Like I don't know exactly how to sum it up other than to say it always feels like when I'm painting at that small Scale, there's a tension like you can feel it in your wrist in your back, you know And when you're on that like when you're on a bigger scale or something like that It just doesn't feel the same you've got more kind of Space to just explore. It's it's the weirdest thing For me when I paint smaller pieces, I tend to tense up to hold still To have more but brush control and to keep my my the piece. I'm working on very steady so that I can work And I remember something that Me and James Waffle we're talking about is attacking your model Don't be afraid And that's the thing when we paint small we tend to tense up because we're afraid of making these mistakes Yeah, and so we get real real tense and stressed up and that that reflects in Our shoulders getting tight our neck getting tight our hands tightening up and it stresses For me, that's where my relaxation in the hobby ends Oh When I'm painting larger scale, I can just be like, okay Right and when I paint bus Truthfully, I don't sit down until I'm doing finishing work. I literally stand up I all my airbrushing is done I take my piece put it on a holder and I'm just like And I just spray and I'll stand up and walk around my studio and just paint and just beat out all these sketches on my models And then when I get to start working on the actual detailing of it, then I'll sit down and I'll I'll take the time to just kind of Be more relaxed, but I can still kind of sit down and think what's steady I just find that I'm able to relax more With a good little bit of music going standing up and just with the brush in my hand reaching over to my palette and just Working on a piece and I can only do that with larger scale pieces Right, I've had it with small pieces and it really really just I have to sit down It doesn't feel comfortable and I'm always afraid. I'm going to drop it Right large pieces. I'll stand and I usually have a larger hand hold So it's harder for me to drop it. I'm just like okie dokie and I'm just going to work So it I really that's one of the reasons I really prefer the larger scale And you have so much room to work and you can do Like I'm not the greatest fine line painter, but I really do try to get some work in I try to improve my skills Oh, just like anybody else And from time to time I have moments where I'm like, oh, wow I can't believe I did that through moments where I'm going. Okay, put it in put it in the dip. It's got to come off You know, right, right, right and it's just You know When painting on small models, I can't do that when I'm painting something the size of kajit or the Mayan or some of my other Bus I can actually take time and sit there And go and break in these areas and I feel more comfortable doing it because I have much more room To go back and correct if I'm off. Yep. Well, speaking of which, I don't know that there's a better transition Let's look at some of those pieces. Let's take a look. So It's a great setup. It's almost like we scripted this out. All right. Here we go. So Let me uh, let me bring this up here. So it'll cover you over for a moment The viewers won't be able to see you. They'll just see your pieces So we're going to start with uh, you mentioned the Mayan. So let's start with the Mayan This is such a great piece. Like it's so I don't know that I've ever seen anybody Uh Like strike lighting like this and what I loved about it was I mean you see a lot of the sort of Orange and teal and we'll talk about that in a little while and why I think that's still Fantastic, but this is such a different take and I don't like I said this this blew me away when I first saw it So tell me about this piece. What what made you want to do this? Kind of what's the inspiration behind it? I was at a thrift store And the background that wall With the Mayan priest is the ball relief um, I actually found it at a thrift store for a dollar and 25 cents That's a pretty good deal. All right sat for three Almost four years Just in my just in my collection of stuff that I knew that I would eventually need someday Because we all have one right right and I saw Alan Kirkus out I'm probably I know I'm probably butchering his last name, but Alan C Sculptor Amazing just phenomenal Sculptor um posted the Mayan bust and I ordered it I had to I contacted myself. I have to have it And I ordered it And it got to me And I literally went to work immediately Yeah, I knew that I was going to go to the world expo And I built the whole model and I set it up And I started reference shots Lighting it from different spots with various lighting And taking photos and then compositing them together on the actual piece and I wanted I had a picture in my head of a Mayan priest Right after a festival Now here's where the creepy comes in We know that There were they they sacrificed sure And they ripped hearts out and the priest would Eat the eat the hearts of the sacrificial victims And they were a very blood based culture And I wanted to reflect that in the model And if you blew it up if you were seeing it in person right at the edges of her mouth There's trickles of blood running down. Yep And there's blood around her mouth And I wanted to have That you know, there's no lights other than A other than a torch And walls gone in a temple So I wanted to reflect A Mayan priest after a festival In the temple at night with the moon shining down And he's got You know a torch to move by and the torch is light shining up onto The scene and then the moonlight shining down And there's actually scale 75 White alchemy Mixed into the paint On the highlights on the moon side So that when you look at it in person you get that That little bit of scintillating shine Like you were looking at Moist skin under moonlight right And I was in the thing is is it was a It was something that I had done I got it from an old white dwarf magazine About mixing metallics into skin tones To give them a different feel And then I never heard any never saw anyone actually do it And then um Alfonso did This dwarf for um I forgot what company that was But it's a dwarven warrior holding a with a shield and a hammer Okay, and he's got white beard and it's all in braids and white hair And in his discussion of You know How he did the work He mentioned about Mixing some white alchemy from scale 75 into his Highlights as he built it up to add that scintillating Fleshy kind of that that pearlescent glow Didn't he design that paint set? Oh, yes, yes If anybody was going to do it, I suppose the guy who made the paints. Yeah, there you go made design the paints. I should say So I I When I was doing that work for the world expo I knew that I wanted to do something different and nobody else other than him. I had ever seen do it So I started mixing it in and I started putting it in and I felt that The the moon side was the best place to put that because you wanted that kind of light But the fire like I painted that that side of the model the the warm side Completely as an historical natural piece, right? Like if you could look behind it like all the detailing of her Of the face paint and everything and the dots Are all there from the light shining up onto it um, and then I started picking out all my warm areas and Then I put put it together and I was looking at the backdrop and I broke out the airbrush and started Spraying my colors at at different angles because it's an actual ball relief. So it's right. It's it has depth So when you spray across that, you know, you've got that it's going to catch And then I went back and started highlighting everything and then adding more and more and more and more And I realized that I didn't have an orange or a yellow paint that had enough To it to give it depth So I started going and buying like orange fluorescent paints and yellow fluorescent paints and mixing them in And pushing those into those spots to give them that that heat that that that warmth that I felt that I was missing that that that Light that it really needed to to stand out And I got bronze for that in historical at world expo and that's I I For me that was a turning point in my view of myself as an artist No, I didn't get a silver. No, I didn't get gold But bronze at the level of the world expo to me was World shattering. Yeah, sure It made me really it made me go Okay, I'm doing something right here No, that's awesome. Uh, yeah, it's a gorgeous piece. I love it. All right Next up we have uh frank and science monster. I think you got adam And I think this is from is this from uh, uh black art as well Yep, that's black bust Um Like I said earlier, I I have a distinct interest and Love for special effects, you know, and in doing so I have done a lot of special effects makeups for friends for halloween And that type of thing I I learned how to create my own silicone appliances and that type of thing And I'll I'll do I'll actually sculpt and then pull it off and then mold it and then Use the silicone and just inject it in and make Appliances nice, uh And I'll mix sometimes I'll mix flesh flesh tone into it and then push it in like inject it with a with a syringe into it So it has that that that fleshy tone that I need and so When I did him I wanted to do an opaque Really special effects oriented Like appearance oriented piece and that piece had so much character to it and I just goes like, okay I know exactly what I want to do and I primed it and just started air brushing flesh And different tones all over the place where I felt like they needed to be I think I finished that model in like a day and a half because it's So in my head so like on it. I was just like, oh my gosh, and it was just felt right And I I wish I could have done better on the hair But I think that overall the flesh is probably some of my Some of my better work And yeah, I really love the eyes like and not just the eyes themselves don't just mean the eyeballs I mean like the entire area of the eyes, right? Because the the dark circles the way you've captured those and then the transitions out and especially on his right side like our left Where the darkness of it is transitioning into kind of the open wound and stuff that just looks so naturalistic I I didn't push my paint Like once I got the airbrush down Everything is nothing is it's just glazes right and this viscosity is just run over Loosely and kind of like it's loose but controlled um And then like the blood where it's dripping down and stuff like that those are all just really like I mixed in a little a little Um Gloss medium sure into a master mix of like half and half Red and black Well eliciting crimson and black and then I add a little bit more eliciting crimson And then loosen it up and water down and just let it flow out of the brush and left right Just to get that I wanted it to be organic. I wanted to have that Really put together organic feel that's one of the reasons that his eyes are two different colors One's blue and the other one's green because he I mean he's adam He's frankincine's monster. He's put together from so many different pieces And I was really kind of I was almost playing with the idea of replacing like doing the top of the head in a different color but it just kind of I Like visually in my head. It didn't feel right So I just kind of backed off of that, but I wanted it to have that piece together feel that frankincine's monster would have so Seeing as how it I couldn't really get away with it in the actual body and head of the monster I I figured I'd do it in the eyes And then I wanted to put the litter the hanging litter ligatures around his neck So I just kind of literally just blotted it in and let it set and dry and it went back and blotted some more in To just create the bruising around his neck from him being hung Yeah, it's it looks really good the the the hanging sort of scar there Again, just so wonderfully naturalistic, right? Like it that's it looks like that bruised skin Thank you. I I wanted I it definitely was a piece that short of the hair It fit it it was the piece You know, it was literally Like how I pictured it in my mind, right? And I finished it I went Other than the hair it's exactly what I wanted So, you know, when you get when you like I said or when you can get that picture out of your head and make it Just what you like exactly what you picture Did what you were supposed to do you did what you wanted to do Right job was as an artist and make that vision Visible No, it's great. All right Next up. So this is kijit And uh, so I actually if you don't mind I'd love to share a story with you and with the audience real quick So I this is the piece that I first Knew you for okay, so this is the first one that that you painted that I became aware of And 2016 crystal brush was my first one I attended. Okay And I saw this at the in the case and this I mean when I say this blew me away I mean this blew me away. Okay. I really mean that in the truest sense. I Uh, I I was describing this to people. I was talking to of like you've got to see this piece of the the way that the the artist did like the The warm light and the cold moonlight like it's incredible the way it's captured on on like I didn't ever Play the game where these where kijit comes from or whatever where that's a thing And uh, but I mean I'm vaguely aware of it just from pop culture And I was like so I was like just go to the cat bust, you know Like I didn't know what to call it at the time because I don't like I just seen it in the case, right? And I didn't have the the cultural touch point to use the proper term But just the way the addition of the background and the split there just kind of that that like hard line split And then Which was something I had never thought about like ever I had never thought about somebody using like something like that in the background And then the way you captured the very soft subtleness I guess is what I would say of the orange of the fire of this kind of warm light compared to the like much more Hard strong like powerful volumes of the cold light that's clearly like dominating from that other side Right to the point where I could feel like he's under this full moon next to a fire or something like that, right? You're next to a torch in the middle of a dark city or something And I love the inspiration with him coming back He's a merchant and he's just coming back into town and he is nighttime He's just come into his home Which is the window behind him And he has there's a fire lit in the home And he just walked in and he's standing there and the light comes in and it crosses Yeah, and I just I had originally was going to put a scene behind the window and decided that I rather just have the window have that Bissected Of lighting on across it to accentuate what was already going on in the foreground Yes, it's it's so fantastic and in this piece Stuck in my head for years years Uh, I mean to this day like I could have I I would have like in a heartbeat would have recalled this as one of my favorite pieces ever and It just like it inspired me in a way to think about lighting differently in In miniature painting. I mean this is the one that clicked for me And it's funny because you mentioned like the conversation you had Right and like why you know using your the art and everything that that that moment, right? Seeing this piece was that moment for me Okay, that means So much to me it really really does It it it's My heart is full So much for that. I I'm still blown away by it to this day. I absolutely love it It's it's I keep it because it was that That flash point for me. Yeah I once I when when I did it. I was just like Like My mind literally was not thinking I'm painting a miniature I'm painting A piece I'm I wanted to feel like I was painting on canvas That's kind of where I went with it. It's the vision that I had in it And it's it's still one of my personal favorites of all the pieces that I've done Because I always go back and look at it. Yeah It's it's truly fantastic. It's wonderful. It's an inspiration Uh, I just I I mean, I I don't want to blabber on about it for too long But it's it's worth, uh, a lot more words than what I've said here today. I by the way, I am quite positive I'm not alone Uh and in the impact of this piece. I really mean that so Uh, it's great Okay So Next up we've got uh, so this our our charming vampire fellow here and in his dandy ascot So tell us about this guy. Is this also from black heart? Is that the is that the multi colored flesh one? Or is it the Larger vampire Uh older gentleman thin face very v-shaped eyebrows blue ascot That one is a black heart piece. Okay. Um It was actually the first black heart model that I ever painted It feels very hammer horror It is it's inspired Offhand by it. I wouldn't it's a direct inspiration. Okay. It's more like I've seen the work growing up It was I was a fan, but it I did wasn't thinking of it at the time when I was painting it got you I had just gotten the um Scale 75 unnatural flesh set. Yeah and I just I was like Oh, I want to try these I wonder and I had that model in my hand and I was like, let's do it and just I started pushing and I threw the box away. I threw the instructional thing away in front of me and went Okay, let's do this and just went At the piece. He was originally primed Solid black and then I just started pushing color and paint on him after I airbrushed A quick zenithal right to get my fight and then I was like, okay, let's do it and I just Went in and just started putting these colors in and going. Okay I like where that's going, but I think I need to do something else. Hold on. Let me change my brush stroke here And use this color and lay this down next to it And I just kept doing that over and over again and these really thin like almost Glazed like layers and just kind of letting it get thicker and thicker as I moved along Which is usually honestly how kajik was painted how the mayan was painted I start with really thin like glaze coats and I let them start to as I'm painting I let them start to Get more get thicker Right, and then I'll add in lighter tones to that and build it up that allows me to keep my brush stroke Where it is and allow me to still be able to put in textures and the like and Do a glaze over it and push it back down right so I'm not too much and still allows me to control that lighting Well, this guy is such wonderful You know you mentioned the the the use of that that flesh tone set This skin on on this guy is just so wonderful and I really hope that the audience Recognizes just all the subtle tones you've captured and what's great about this bust is all the details in the skin, right? Uh, like there's nothing better than skin with like a lot of interesting Detailed to it and this guy between like the wrinkles the sunken cheeks the heavy bags on the eyes the the sort of Forehead like wrinkling and stuff and you've just brought all of those out so subtly But wonderfully with these nice like crimson's and purples This touch into the very vague green yellow of the skin like it's really nice I really wanted to have a lot of visual interest in the skin on the The issue that I was having With a lot of the work that I was doing is um variations of color within skin tones because A lot of times what we're doing on skin as we go for the It's in a bottle and it's a flesh tone, right? And then we start adding a little bit here and there with it and manipulating it But with having an entire range of nine different flesh base colors that I could work with And I just started adding and adding and I wanted them. I usually use a lot of Vallejo smoke You know, I mix I love I love smoke. It's so funny. Say I'd like yes Uh smoke is like one of my favorite Vallejo colors. Yeah, absolutely It's one of my go-tos. I I keep three to four bottles around just in case Um, I keep one in the garage I keep one in my travel set and then I have two more in a in my actual paint box Where I keep all my paints at And that keeps me in smoke for a while But as soon as I run out of one bottle I go to the store and buy two more So I never run out because it's such a work It's something that it when I do a lot of long tone stuff I tend to like to mix it into my warm areas But what I was one of the things I wanted to do with that piece was I wanted my lighted area my warm area to not be Brown right or yellow or red or What is normally considered? Warm colors, which is the other side of him is deep purples and blues So that that creates the shadow that I want while being able to have that Cool warm spot where the light is coming in and If you notice most of the rest of the model doesn't have a whole lot of light It has some detail on the lapel But I didn't but it's pushed back. I think it's pushed back Uh chromatically enough from the skin to allow the skin to be the dominant Focus of the piece, which is what I was trying to go for. Yeah Yep No, it's it's really cool. Uh, I mean, it's just great too just The just a minor thing I want to drive by his attention And then we'll go the next piece is if you look on like the upper lapel You can see how even though the way the light is capturing on that Is setting one side more in shadow and reinforcing that lack of light over there and making it fall into the background And really directing your eye with another light line you created there So it's just it's a very minor touch But it's a really great addition to the piece because it just creates another way in for your eye to follow And keep moving around the model So it's just it's little stuff like that that often just sets that sets me off because it's such a great addition to the piece I There was a theory that was presented in some of the cry habits from rackham back in the day of small details On models like the idea was that if you put these these small color changes here and there like When they do their wolf and you can see kind of a pinkish around the the the claw at the edge of the claw All the palms are slightly different colored and these are these are small details that we We have and they exist in the natural world because your palm is lighter than the back of your hand Right all areas where there are inconsistencies or color that need to be there because if they're not your brain knows Something's wrong.  So I try to Like do a piece and then I'll step back from it and I'll look at it And I'll walk away from it and then I'll come back and I'll look for those little those little small things And try to put those in yeah No, absolutely, and I think that this one captures that really well All right next up. We have our I believe this is our our litch Uh priestess here She's got a cup Yes, and she is definitely um Emaciated but I love the the I think the piece that the part of this that jumps out to me And I'll tell you right now. It's something I'm just actually there's two things I want to talk about and draw the audience since you and I absolutely want to hear everything about it The first is it's such a wonderful skin tone. Like my goodness. This is such a great capture of The skin tone just the way you're capturing the lighting across it and then secondly This is such a masterful handling. I think of the white robes Because so little of this is actually white Right Yeah, and yet like there's very like it's not you know I mean like when you actually stop and look you're like wow actually not a lot of that is the color white Yet if I just glanced at it or asked anybody hey, what color are robes? Right, they would just say white. They'd be like well, there's your white robes Right, but it shows how little actual of that color you need and all of these secondary colors They're caught in here are are being captured really really well. So I've just those two things super jumped out of me But please yeah, tell us about this one the normally Right now. I've already done one article for amazing figure model magazine on doing african skin tones I am currently working on two more articles To one to put out to everyone another one to go to Hopefully another magazine someone had asked me about doing another article she is the focus of a african skin tone article for dead flesh There are greens and purples mixed into the shadows To create that skin tones. It's just not it's not just brown right and there are there's Indian yellow hue mixed into the browns to create some of the warm areas and then glaze back over with the leo smoke uh to create the the essence of the the way the flesh drops in uh the I want to teach more and more people how to properly represent african skin tones And other ethnic skin tones. So my current one of the roads that I'm running down is studying um How to create these various skin tones? using Portraiture artistic fine arts portraiture as the basis for my For my articles and what I'm going to be what I want to be doing So I can sit down and go mix this color in this color and you can go and get a book of color theory from a library And it's going to match Uh, we use a lot right now. We're using a lot of these different um We're starting to see more and more artist color style paints. Yep come into miniature painting, which I love Uh, because the thicker paints last longer. They stay moist longer. You can do more with them and their Pigmentation is is supreme and you can water them down So much before you lose pigmentation that you can almost paint with a 8 to 1 ratio It'll still show because of the the amount of pigmentation and that's something that I really like to see but I also Want us to start moving into looking at books on color theory. Yep As we start studying more and more fine arts color theory and Move towards mixing our colors mixing our paints on the palette and getting these variations in huge and tones that we that are organically formed by our our visual Senses as we mix. I think we're going to start seeing more and more Movement towards pieces when you look at them. It looks like a painting It you know or just the fact that we have more variation In what we're working on and as we explain to new people who are coming into our hobby That they can pick up this book on color theory this book on color theory These are the colors that we're using and they can look at one of our tutorials and go Hey, I know where I can get that color theory basis You know, it's great Alfonso does an amazing job of teaching people beautiful formal color theory and and paint mixing and That in and of itself can help you Extend the amount of paints that you're using without having to buy Every paint in a paint every 200 and some paints in a paint line, right? Because you're just on this mix mix mix and work um, I like that Mostly because of my fine arts background Secondly because when I first started painting miniatures It was the round bottle pop top citadel miniatures. You can get nine in a box. Yeah, sure and I had a box I didn't have any other colors right So I just started mixing them together and that was just how I painted and how I Attained the colors that I needed for A large portion of my miniature painting, you know, my early miniature painting was literally mixing colors in from these boxes And like a friend of mine got a box and he didn't want it anymore Uh-oh my battery's running dead. Hold on. Okay. That's why um So this might be a little awkward, but I'll make it work. There we go. All right, so Having us move towards more and more More more mixing of our colors we under we will start to understand more and more about color theory and how our eyes perceive the light that we're seeing and we can start working with things like mood and feeling when we're painting because Those emotional bits are part of what makes our work Meaningful right right and emotional Uh, and not everyone's going to see it the same so the variations that you're going to get every time that you mix Especially if you're just doing a single piece Not I don't necessarily Say that you should be doing that for these for giant armies But when you're working on single pieces it Or centerpieces to an army It can help to have that variation to make that Pop a little bit more or read a little bit better or absolutely Organic feel of pulling you into the piece totally, but I mean mixing paints is what we I mean It is an artistic technique that leads to a better understanding of color theory and how we utilize and visualize color Yeah, I mean and the more you do it. I think the more comfortable you get with Obviously not just the practice of like well if I put a plus b together I get c or something like that, right? Which is fine. I mean, of course, that's that's what you're aiming at primarily But there's a secondary effect here Which is you just come to understand at a deeper level the nature of these colors Right, how powerful they are just by putting them together the effect that they're going to have sort of What's a strong color? What tends to be a weak color? You're going to understand more like how subtle shifts and tones can happen when they're when they're there next to each other On the palette as you're mixing them You'll you'll you'll see it on the palette And you're like, oh look at that like I can see the I can feel the slight more yellow in this mix than in this one Right, and then you can translate that over to the miniature in a way that you're not necessarily going to see if you're looking at a bottle Right and relying on on premixed Well, and let's be honest we As a community and as a art form we paint under one light No, sure another light And then when we show we show under a different light Yeah So the variation in tones and colors have to remain true from one lighting to the next And you get that by understanding saturation and intensity Yeah, I know that's something that roman gruba is very you know on about like when you're painting Don't just sit there under your painting light like stand up take the piece walk around your house You know go into different lighting walk outside turn it upside down You know so that way you actually have a true sense of what's going on I I have gotten to Where while I'm painting when I'm actually like grooving in my painting sometimes I'll take pictures outdoors, right? bright colorado sunlight and hold it out adjust my iso to a hundred and Maybe adjust my exposure a little bit and take a picture if I can still get the same tones The same highlights and shades that I've been using that I see under fluorescent light and under led If I can see that under sunlight then I think I got it where I need it to be Because that way no matter how you look at it or if I happen to go to a show and it's near windows And I've got sunlight coming in. I got fluorescence over the top. My piece still has It's still color fast. It still reads Well under any of the lights and that's one of the things that I've been trying to push myself to do a lot of over the past couple of years because I really want that ability to be able to no matter How we're dealing with it even if you photo it it's just gonna always look You know right on the money every time, right? Yeah All right, so then our last piece that we're going to look at here is uh lord vader Uh, so obviously another very moody, you know lighting piece. So take us through this one Vader was a commission For a guy, a buddy of my name, uh, Jeremiah Rodeau He was doing some twitch streams for a while painting. I think he's back to it again now Uh, he's out of my hometown Uh, funny enough. I did not he was one of my mom's former students and I did not meet him until jinn con Last year. Oh wow I didn't never I had never met him face to face But he'd seen my work and been following me and asked me if I would pay vader and I told him Yeah, it's vader all so he sent him to me and I I was sitting there dancing. I was like Everybody else does lightsabers with a very Kind of dim very centralized light. You know, it doesn't really pop often reflect a lot And one of the things I wanted was that that pop of glow off of vader's sword I wanted it to look like it was just beaming And I talked to I talked to him about it. He was like do it. I was like, okay so I just I really wanted a A counter to that really bright red crimson lightsaber And so I just started working in tones of browns blues and Mixing in grays and whites into those to create all the lighting on the other side of a Uh, I wanted that counterpoint I wanted to create a and I wanted the lighting to expand out and be precise all the way down to the base because even though In reality the light would not hit the base really have that much reflection. I wanted it to have that ambience of Being menacing because he actually uses that piece In his in his star wars legions army. Nice So it actually goes on a boat. He actually puts it on a board So I didn't want it to just be tabletop. I wanted it to have An impact when it sat on the board and when you see that Right glowing reflective lightsaber Sitting on a board at tabletop level. It really punches So during the entire time I was painting it I would walk over to my own personal gaming board set it down and step back like I was playing Because I wanted it to have that impact from the as well from the board as well as up close when you held it Nice. Yeah, I mean it really reminds me of like the the scene from the end of rogue one Right where the hallway is dark and then vader, you know kicks on his lightsaber And it's like that is the dominant light Right like it is what's like it is that ominous moment like he's all he's a horror movie villain at that moment, you know Uh, and so yeah, I think you capture it really well here because it's an interesting counterpoint to what we were talking about earlier Where in the kajipis the the warm light is is soft Right. It's the weaker tone Uh, it's it's used in sort of a less uh strong way as far as like the volumes, especially that it occupies Whereas here it's quite the opposite, right this red menacing the sort of like quote unquote light from hell with the red light, right Is very much the dominant Color, right that that's casting the entire scene and the emotion of the scene I wanted him to be I wanted him to be menacing. I mean it's vader, dude I mean vader is menacing. He is in the star wars universe He other than palatine. He is the essence of the menace the fear that you're supposed to have for the dark side And I want that to be reflective From tabletop to up close And the only way to really make that Have that depth of feeling to inspire that that that is that that emotional content Was to make that Deep that menacing bright lightsaber. Yeah, otherwise it would have just kind of I I personally feel that I If I had done it less I'd have lost something Visually I would have lost something in the process of it He you wouldn't have been able to just sit there and be like, oh, you know, it's vader now when you look at it's like Vader. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I wanted to have that gut So He has the piece I love I really enjoyed Painting the piece. I had a lot of fun doing so It's just I wanted it other than the lightsaber if you look around it If I sent you pictures of the other side of him as the darker side Or I should say the lighter side um he I wanted it subtle. I wanted everything outside of The lightsaber to be highlighted But I wanted it to be and to have pop to it But I wanted it to be subtle enough that it wouldn't that my blacks didn't turn to gray Yep Yep, yep That was the really honestly for me the the the lightsaber was the easy part It was creating that subtlety of of transitions on the the other side and on the cloak and keeping it looking Black but still having that reflective quality and I think that's something that I mean Let's be honest black is one of the hardest colors to work with much like white yellow. Totally agree Those are like some of the hardest colors to work with and because you have to match a balance To create that depth like the like uh, mirroredton the the emaciated Of the litch the litch queen the handmaiden. We have her white is I started out with a light blue airbrushed on my cold side and a warm brown on the warm side to create that dichotomy and then I went in and hit and actually Mix white paint into it and start pulling it in and then to create the folds Are single strokes like fill the brush Start at the bay at at the bottom of it and pull all the way up to the top of the thigh Or at the brightest light and let it go Yeah Stroke and just kept doing that until I created all those folds to allow The other colors to put to push through to give that temperature differentiation to white It's fantastic.  This is such great stuff Thank you very much for sharing all this All right. Yeah, welcome back Okay, so now we're gonna we're gonna close out here with the lightning round of questions. Are you ready? All right, so Don't overthink them. But here we go First question and you must choose one and only one and that's why this question is hard Are you ready? Who is your favorite miniature painter past or present who isn't yourself? This is a tough one Oh Yeah, because I have so Many. Oh, I know that's why that's I make everybody do one because if we do a list We'll be here. We would just start naming and not know when to stop it. What's what's one? I'll go with the most the person who made who helped me make my breakthrough Okay, that made me my breakthrough. I'd have to say curel his use of color texture especially some of his newer pieces the reflective quality of his NMM and The the sense of the real sense of warm cold with texture like he did the I mean these things that he's doing right now are just just like Wow Yeah, the viking recently jumps to mind right with the that's holding the sword up to his chest like that's it's It's amazing Yeah, I mean he's he's he's one of the reasons that I use cross hatching and stippling in Almost every model I paint. Yeah Yeah, I mean it allows for that texture to come through and you have that differentiation of That contrast of various textures on cloth with the smoothness and organics of skin and having that that contrast Spot on that that's that's something that he he really truly inspires me every time I look at one of his pieces Now I'll be honest. All right The omets There's so many guys ruzo ruso all these guys They they blow me away every time we get to talk or every time I get to see their work So I can't really nail down a favorite but for most influential in In my artwork as I sit right now Absolutely curel cannon and that's completely fair. I mean we we are spoiled in this age of just being able Yeah, I every day when I open my instagram It's just it's like another incredible model another incredible model another incredible model You know, like it's it's it's incredible the world we live in I count my blessings every day that there's so many incredible artists sharing their work Uh around the world and then we all get to see it You know, I just think like it wasn't that long ago that they would have been out there painting that and I would have had No ability to see it unless I happened to go to a show somewhere in the middle of of germany or something like that Right and and I just not gonna happen regularly or if ever So the fact that I get to actually just be inspired and see that stuff every day It's that is a blessing for the world we live in Well, I mean let's be honest It is at at times when you're feeling kind of like stumped in your work looking at sometimes sometimes has a very positive and inspiring effect But we have to be honest with ourselves and the fact that sometimes it's like oh man Now let's be real sure Snap our brushes and quit Because that I mean, why did we put our time and effort into it in the first place?  Yes 100 does for me a lot Yeah, yeah, yeah Uh, he's such a he's he's an interesting guy. I'd love to talk to him sometime. I've never met him I don't I don't know anything about him other than obviously I know his work online. So yeah, it'd be interesting All right, I'm interested in things, but I can only say they're rumor. Okay. Got it. He's very mysterious very mysterious Uh, okay, uh, what is your favorite color of paint? Um Smoke There you go. All right, I'll take it. That's a good answer That is a specific answer for everybody. It's not aware This is I'll give everybody the specific number since I have it right. I gotta keep it right next to my desk It's 709 39 It's right here is Vallejo smoke You can use this as like just because we've both been talking it up And I've never met anybody else who loves this color as much as me So I'm so excited about it because you can use it as like Subtle toning into skin. You can use it in things like wood You can use it in things like dirt and naturalistic tones. You can use it in mud and splatter You can use it as rust. Yes and weathering like is this is it's so Multi-purpose you can use it to just kind of desaturate reds To change the tones of those colors to warm without overly affecting them too much They have a warm cast because of the the sapia In the smoke really mixed into the their color and you normal you just look and you're like wow And it makes such a huge contrast when it comes to to all to temperature tonality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, like I mean I would encourage people if you're trying to do something with you know Trying to make very realistic reds or greens. It's a great color to add into those Just make them feel so soft and kind of warm in there in their Sort of shadow parts. Yeah, so that's a super great answer okay What is your favorite type and you can construe the word type however you want you can mean size it can mean You know anything anything anything however you think of the word type. What is your favorite type of minis to paint? Larger scale plus or figures in the fantasy Genre okay being horror genre. Yeah, there you guys gonna say it feels like you've always had a Like a lot of your work you liked the sort of fantasy with the horror element to it from what we've been talking about like that That's that's what sort of trips your imagination. Oh, yeah every time No, absolutely Uh, all right. Yeah, the somebody had a question as well And I think That we talked about earlier. So Steve Steve and I would ask you to go back or you know Go back to the beginning because I think you talked about the story like let me very much start it off Because he said what was your favorite aha moment in your painting career? And I think from your story earlier It was that moment of bringing together your art background and that but I don't know you might Maybe that's the answer. Maybe it's not Absolutely. Yeah, that was my big aha moment was being able to connect These two separate entities of my life together where I had Oh, I have modeling and I have miniature painting and then I have fine arts comic book drawing Painting and oils and acrylics on canvas All these various different disciplines that I learned from fine arts and I just never I mean literally that aha moment was just Why did you not you have the training? Why are you not using it? It was like And that I mean that was my aha moment was that I wasn't using it and then It has been the journey that it is All its ups and downs of trying to Take that Consistently always apply it to what I am doing Makes perfect sense Well, sir, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. Yeah, awesome. I have had a great time Thank you so much. I'm really happy to have been able to come on and and just have this conversation with you And just enjoy it. I'm very glad that we finally got it done And I'm glad that we made it just before I let a year go by And I hope I hope that this all passes us soon enough and I see in person sooner rather than later Oh, and before we go. Yes You know, I've known true known Kristoff Eric corn She were very in Through the old rackum forums all the way back to the like early 2000s. Okay Like we competed in the rackum online miniature painting competition. I took like second and he took first I have known him that long and he He's quirky, but he is a great guy. He's extremely talented and puts in a lot of really solid work And that's something that like I was watching when you were talking to Trent Denison Yes, um, I was I went back and watched that one and Trent makes a distinct point that I pretty much I harp on people about um Hard work will always be talent. Yeah, absolutely every time You can have talent and not put the work in And will be beat out by someone who has much less quote-unquote talent But puts in the work every single day or just every time they just they put the work in if you put in the work in and you put your practice in And you keep experimenting and pushing the envelope with every piece that you do You will get better But like he was also saying turning out aren't you know turning out my left Massive army you set into a rhythm and you don't progress. Yeah, you fall out of learning mode Right and you have to break your mind to a point. You have to break your routine And you have to get to one and something and one of the things that I didn't agree with was you can go too far That's called stripper Going far means okay dump it in the stripper Let's clean it. Let's start over because as long as we can take the paint off Or we can erase or or go over it It's never a failure Absolutely is a is a learning experience whether you oh, I went too far and I probably should have stopped Well, you know that now Take a photo of it strip it do it again and just don't make that same mistake Yeah, I mean that's absolutely true. It's one of the things I one of the words I hear people use all the time And it drives me crazy is I was afraid I'll ruin it and I'm like ruin it. We're talking about paint. What are you doing? Paint can't ruin a model. That's not how this works, right? Like if you're gonna if you start sanding something down with a dremel, you can ruin a model Sure, like that's possible because you can grind off all the features, but like you can't paint doesn't do that It's not that's a thing If you're sculpting you may have to take the piece and completely trash it and start over Or toss it to the side throw it in a drawer because of the medium that you're using But with paint Erase it right Just take it dump it in in the stripper pull it out and let's start over and remember where we made our mistakes And make sure we don't do them again. That is the learning process So even you can go quote unquote too far You can go outside of your you can go so far outside of your comfort zone that you could hit panic mode But you know what when you hit panic mode take out your phone Take a picture and then strip it and let's go back and do it again Totally agree. All right.  Thank you so much Give this a like. Um, everything for singin will be down in the description So you can go check out all of his all the the socials everything you need to find For pigment studios. So go check that out Maritain the emaciated one the the female litch queen All sales that is through metal oak casting studios All proceed every sale of that model goes to my brother's keeper, which is Barack Obama and michelle obama's foundation for helping Uh young people of color in inner city and in various programs So if you can if anybody wants it's a I really enjoyed the model Obviously is the how I painted it. I really loved it. It's a great model and it's a great cause Please go out buy it. They're 15 bucks. You can't beat that for a 54 millimeter scale figure. That's incredible I will absolutely link that down below as well. So people can go directly there and check that out That's a wonderful wonderful wonderful note and and you're right a absolutely fantastic deal for a very cool 54 millimeter miniature. So Uh, there you go. All right. Well folks, thank you very much for watching. Always appreciate it. We'll see you next time