Interview with Mike McVey

Go read this interview with Mike McVey. Right now. It's fantastic.

Inspiration: Tiny Sculptures

Damn this is cool...

Inspiration: Bohun

Sometimes the work of another artist can be both inspiring and disheartening. This is definitely the case with Bohun. I'll let his work speak for itself, but whatever you do, definitely check out his tutorials on Facebook before moving on.

You can see his Putty and Paint profile here.

And here's his CMON gallery.

Inspiration: Atomic robo

Just a random bit of inspiration. I've been reading the Atomic Robo comic series and absolutely loving it. It's a great mash up of pulp action, science fiction and humor. And even better, there are free issues on Comixology! Go get it!

And no, I'm not affiliated with them in any way, nor do I get any benefit from Comixology. Just spreading some inspirational comics happiness.

Inspiration: Rekindling Joy

My painting time consists primarily of an hour of two, in the evenings, before crashing in bed. And not every evening obviously. As a result I have a strong pragmatic focus on getting models finished for the tabletop. I really do enjoy painting for a number of reasons. It's relaxing. It's cathartic. It engages a completely different part of my brain than my job does. And last but not least, I love the feeling of putting painted models on the table when I play a game. However I routinely get myself in a mindset of how am I going to get my huge mountain of models all painted, especially when I keep buying more. Now, let's set that context aside for a moment...

The other day though I read a really great post on Dims' Galleries. He talks about inspiration from talking with Roman Lappat of Massive Voodoo fame, and how Roman recommended really enjoying his project but not to be too eager to be finished. He gets at a concept of finding joy by challenging oneself in earnest. There's many ways to go about this as well. For example, when it first feels like a project is complete, set it aside for a couple days and then look at it with fresh eyes later. Go over every detail of the model. Put it under a camera and look at blow-up images of it. Turn the model upside down. Put it under bright light or dim light. All kinds of things to do. Whatever the processes taken, the key is an earnest desire to look at one's own work with an eye to make it better and not be satisfied.

This is a concept that I live by in many aspects of my own like: employee, husband, father, gamer. But when it comes to painting, lately I feel like I've fallen into a "I want to get stuff done" trap. After reading the post from Dims' blog, I want to get back in touch with that joy of painting. To that end, I've decided to take some real pragmatic steps on exploring my own painting style, skills, and what I really enjoy the most about painting. There will be more posts on it to come, but here's a quick pic of a side project I plan to not be eager to finish.

This will be the first bust I ever paint. I'm looking forward to it, but trying to encourage my patience to take action. I'm probably going to make some customization before I prime it, but I'm waiting for my inner muse to finish singing inspiration to me.

Life: Finding Inspiration In Organized Chaos

Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Hong Kong for work, and most importantly, I had a couple days to explore on my own. I spent a large amount of that time in Kowloon enjoying the incredible food. I also took a lot of pictures of random things. What follows are some of the more inspiration ones I took that got me thinking about art, color, and the beauty of an organic chaos that erupts in some of the less controlled areas of human experience.

Daily Inspiration: 3 Hours Without Distractions

Today's inspiration comes from the Massive Voodoo guys. This post is both awesome and frustrating. Having the opportunity to sit down and paint solid for 3 hours uninterrupted is something I would love to have but rarely get the chance to do anymore. Getting a chance to do that with a good friend pretty much never happens. There was also a post by Meg Maples on the Privateer Press Insider about focusing during painting time which I liked. It's easy to see these sorts of things by great painters and just get jealous or angry. Personally though, I find them inspiring, and it makes me want to figure out how I can create more focus to my painting. As an example of where I fall down, I was painting last night and put on the moving Immortals streaming to my computer while I painted. The results: I did paint during the 2 hours the movie was on, but I also ended up watching a fair chunk of the movie and not getting any actual painting done. I probably could choose movies that are less likely to draw my attention away. Particularly movies that I've seen a lot before. Time to raid the DVD closet I think!

Daily Inspiration: Clever Basing

Today's inspiration comes from the Tale of Painters blog. This blog routinely has impressive stuff and good tips and tutorials. This particular model however struck me because of the clever basing element. I love how this guy is peeling up the deck plating and revealing some piping underneath. It helps make the base seem less like a gaming marker and more like a micro-diorama. Kudos guys!

Daily Inspiration: GenCon 2012

Today's inspiration comes via CMON and is the winning GenCon 2012 painting entry by Marike Reimer. This paint job is absolutely stunning. There are so many amazing freehand details to it. I think the one that most caught my eye was the subtle lace sleeve on her left arm. The dress is also absolutely stunning all around.

It's easy to be completely disenchanted with painting when seeing stuff like this. But in this case I think it's actually pretty inspiring. There's so many little details that are neat ideas. I might even try some of them on my current Skarre project.

Also something to keep in mind is Marike has been painting for quite some time. If you look at her gallery of models, you can get a good sense of how her painting progressed over the years. You'll see some really interesting PP stuff too.

Daily Inspiration: Massive Voodoo Party

Today's inspiration comes from the Massive Voodoo guys. They recently had a big birthday party for Roman. As a part of the party, they had prepped a big canvas with a sketch of a monkey last supper and people there painted in parts of it. It really is an amazing idea for a party and looked like a huge amount of fun.

Happy birthday Roman!

Daily Inspiration: Pink Octopus!

Today's inspiration is my next painting challenge. After the fun I had with the Croak Hunter challenge, I was looking at my Swamp Horror and trying to decide on what to do with it. I searched for pictures of an "albino octopus" and everything I found was pretty uninspiring. Basically they looked like white, semi-translucent squid. Not only boring but incredibly hard to paint convincingly. So then I was inspired to search for purple and pink octopi and I came across this photo. Magnificent! I am very keep to try this paint scheme. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!

Daily Inspiration: 15 Hours Straight?

Today's inspiration is actually a couple weeks old and comes from Dim's Gallery. As he notes, he does take breaks but a 15 hour frenzy over 2 days is pretty staggering. And the results speak for themselves. I'm not really in a position to do such a thing myself (being the father of a toddler), nor do I think I'd have the attention span to do so. However I can still be inspired by it. Well done!

Daily Inspiration: Yellow Tree Frog

Today's inspiration comes courtesy of a Google Image Search, which I grow to love more and more every day. Today specifically I was looking at my Croak Hunter and trying to think of an interesting color scheme for him. For some reason I was struck by the idea of using yellow. So a quick search and I found this image in particular which I really like. Now I just need to see if I can execute this in paint...

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!

Daily Inspiration: Lost In The Haze

I hate being sick. Totally laid up today due to the stress that finally caught up with me. Painting a bit, but mostly sleeping. Today's inspiration is a very personal piece of nostaligia.

Daily Inspiration: Monet Exhibit at the Bellagio

Today's inspiration comes as a random unique opportunity that I got to attend. I was in Vegas yesterday for work reason and at the Bellagio's Gallery of Fine Art was a Monet exhibit.

Now honestly, I'm not a big Monet fan. I find most of the impressionists to produce work that I just can't really connect with. Caillebotte is one exception to that where I really do love his work. Monet and Renoir are in my "somewhat like" list, which is very short out the impressionists. So even though I'm not a huge fan, I had time to kill and this seemed like a nice opportunity. Boy was I glad I took it!

Most of the exhibit was just so-so for me. I'd say out of the 30 paintings, only 3 of them really were interesting to me. The one above though, Sunrise on the Seine really caught my eye. In comparison to most of Monet's other works, it's very subdued in color. However his use of color is astonishing and I really only could appreciate it by seeing it in person. There were subtle shades of red throughout the entire thing, but carefully placed so as to not be obvious. The whole composition moves and flows. The longer I looked at it, the more I enjoyed it. I even found myself changing viewing angles and seeing new things. At one point I was up very close inspecting the texture of the paint itself.

Am I now a fan of Monet, or even impressionism? No. Like I said, only 3 paintings really drew my interest. But I have a better appreciation for the brilliance of Monet. And for those paintings I did connect with, I caught a glimpse of what Monet was trying to convey. And in that, I feel more inspired to think about how I use color in my painting to tell a story.

Daily Inspiration: Rust Around The House

Today's inspiration comes from right from my own bathroom! You see, I use one of those black office clips on my toothpaste to keep it rolled up as I use up the toothpaste. I've been using the same one for several years now and over that time it's gotten a little wet and oxidized. The other day I noticed it very keenly though and it got me thinking about something Mr Justin said during one of his classes: "You use dry pigments to create texture." At the time I didn't really give it any thought. Of course it creates the look of texture. It makes it look like there's texture on the flat surface. What I didn't realize is that he meant it actually creates texture by piling on and adding surface texture in addition to color. Seeing this clip all rusted was sort of an "Oh duh" type of moment for me.

Any yes, for reference, here's how I roll up my toothpaste tube. Perhaps a little OCD, but hey, it simplifies my life by 0.000138%, and I'll take it.

Daily Inspiration: WWPD

Today's inspiration comes from the What Would Patton Do blog. These guys are awesome. They really go the extra mile in terms of setting the stage for their battle. They do a lot of research on the history of the places they build and models they paint. They may not be winning any Crystal Brush awards for their painting, but I for one am routinely inspired by their fully (and authentically) painted armies. This post in particular reminded me how much I enjoy their blog, even if I don't play Flames of War. However I definitely recommend looking over their blog for some inspiration.

Daily Inspirations: Shipping Containers

Today's inspiration comes from The Painting Corps in the form of this really cool terrain piece. There's a bit of a how-to in a previous post as well. I think what really inspires me about them is how similar they look to real shipping containers, especially with the rust effects on them. They make me want to make a couple to use as structures for terrain.

Daily Inspirations: Master Craftsman Ghoul

Today's inspiration comes from the Privateer Press forums where Ghoul posted photos of his hardcore army for Lock and Load. Needless to say he won the master craftsman award. It's easy to see stuff like this and get disheartened because it sets the bar so high. On the flip side though, I think this is a well deserved award for Ghoul who I have been a long time fan of his work, particularly now on Hand Cannon Online where he's been doing a lot of great tutorial videos. This one definitely deserves a virtual high-5!

Daily Inspiration: Dark Insinuations

Today's inspiration comes from Dims' Galleries where he's been working on Isabella von Carstein as a part of a mini exchange. You can see the past posts around this and read how he was going to put a railing on the steps, but I have to agree that the candles create a much darker and more sinister mood. Lovely!