All right, buddy, That's great. Well, thanks again, Mick, for
coming on. I really appreciate it, mate.
You early in the morning there for you?
It is. It is quite early here.
I was on the, I was on the train.
So I'm in the, I'm in, I'm in work basically, and I'm lucky
enough to have a job that supports kind of its team's
independent hobbies and interests and happens to also be
in the field of podcasting and digital media production, hence
the kind of relatively decent camera and and audio setup.
But I'm not usually in this early, and it was basically me
dressed to come and do a podcast and an entire tram full of
construction workers and nurses and all the other people who
usually rise at this time. Right, OK, yeah 'cause I say
your your camera is absolutely like it's just magic mate.
The the quality of your camera is a 4K or something.
Is it or 8? K it's it's not a webcam, it's a
it's an SLR set up to A to a, a kind of an auto prompt thing.
Hence, unlike most zoom calls, I'm as as far as I can tell.
Here, I'm looking you Josh, dead in the eye.
Right. OK, so.
It makes the Inter, it makes the interaction a little easier.
Yeah. And yeah, but, you know, I don't
have to look down at the screen or look away to be able to see
what you're saying or see how you're responding.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good.
It's, it's nice. It's, it's nice to work in a
company where you're, you're kind of supported in your
hobbies and interests. And yeah, that's good.
I mean the the Hammer the backlog project.
Would you believe there's a link to the hammer of the backlog
project on my company's business website?
Oh wow. That's awesome.
That's that's the level to which they kind of get involved in in
people's independent projects and interests.
Right. OK, mate, that's excellent.
I'm glad you can sort of mix your personal hobby, hobby, you
know, projects with your work as well.
In some. Some regards, yeah.
Yeah. Or you in some.
Regards, yeah you you wouldn't recommend it to everybody
because you don't sometimes you want to have a separation it it
just so happens that mine suits basically.
Right. Are there any other gamers in
your company that you know of that?
That you can sort of talk, no. No, no.
But they So I I do. I do bring my I know they say
don't bring your work home, but I bring my hobby to work quite a
bit. So I have one of those those
little portable painting cases that you can see in the
background if you're on the video version.
And there's always intrigue when they come in because I'll paint
at my at my at my at my desk at lunchtime.
And there's always a kind of what what what are you painting
is that are those little lizard men or are they obviously for
for normal people the kind of the, the thing that generally
catches the interest is empire or Britonia or something
recognizable. You know if you're not into
fantasy you might not be that excited by goblins but you're
going to understand a unit of nicely painted Knights or a unit
of soldiers or I I did some flatulence and they they went
down well because people you know people get the idea of
crazed pilgrims. Anything that you have to
explain like no. So these are lizard men they're
they're actually very intelligent and they're they
believe in a great plan. It's like the monsters aren't
they make they're just the baddies.
The the, yeah, human stuff tends to go down better with the when
I'm showing it to, for want of a better term, normal people.
Sounds like a boardroom kind of presentation, I think.
Make for the future, you know. All the rest of.
The of the old world, maybe, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Someday I'll subject them to
that. They'll never forgive me.
So yeah, I discovered you through your YouTube channel,
the hammer, the backlog and you know looking through your
projects and being I think everyone and again success to
the amount of views and the popularity, it's sort of picked
up I think for you. Maybe you're a bit sort of taken
aback by that. How many people have responded
to your videos or joined up and subscribed and that kind of
thing, the last six months or so?
Yeah, it's genuinely genuine. Has been a big surprise.
So I've been I've been involved in Warhammer specifically and
mini painting for 2627 years. Like I've I've I've always been
around the world of miniature wargaming and painting.
I I would have considered myself more of a collector.
Really then that's just a polite way of saying hoarder.
Though. Like I I always have these ideas
of potentially painting this game up and playing it and
entering these models and competitions, but it was always
more potential than reality. So when I started The Hammer,
the backlog thing, the whole point of there being a YouTube
channel was a public accountability for me.
So if I if I have to, if I go online and I say on the 1st of
January, at the end of three months, I'm going to have these
models painted, then because I've put it out there into the
world, because I've put it out there onto YouTube.
I know in three months time I have to follow it up and I have
to show what I've done or explain why I didn't manage to
do it. And that was the kind of only
point of the YouTube channel to be honest.
The IT was to have that public accountability and I put the
first video up and you know 60-70.
Eighty people saw it and it ticked up to a couple of 100
over the first few months and I was more than happy with that.
That's fine. That's exactly what I wanted.
I wanted to have a a small group of people who would watch it and
therefore I know I have to go back and show those people that
I did what I'd said I'd I'd do. And the second one got 500
views, the third one got 2000 views, the 4th one got 7000
views. And all of a sudden this thing
is growing. And I'm, I'm thinking, OK, how
can I grow the channel? What can I do next?
What can I, what sort of content do people want to see?
But I always kind of pull myself back to the point of this
YouTube channel had a very, very specific purpose which was to be
the public outward facing accountability side of the
hammer, the backlog project. It's fabulous that people enjoy
it. I I really I I I'm so shocked
that people enjoy such a potentially potentially boring
and rote take on a hobby that is fun and but I think what I've
discovered is there are more people out there like me who
like that side of it than I really really thought there
would be because I mean I'm I'm a decent painter I can paint I
I'm I'm my my struggle in in life with with Warhammer
miniature miniature painting has always been over committing to
individual models. So, you know, I can paint to I
if I'm not being humble, I can paint to a box art standard for
individual miniatures, but it takes me a month and I didn't
really get a level of satisfaction out of that.
So the idea of this was force myself, maybe lower my standard
a little bit, but actually get these armies that I've always
wanted, that I've had my head out there and it seems to be
speaking to certainly a niche audience.
But there are as many people who enjoy the productivity,
accountability, planning side of this as there are who enjoy the
painting and the nice models and the the fun side of it, which is
it's great for me. It's it's I I found the little
group of my people, as it were. Yeah, that's good.
But I think that people want to see you succeed in your goals,
you know what I mean? And they're waiting for that
next three month video to come out to see your end results and
see all these wonderfully painted models.
Yeah, you are a really good painted becoming, You know, you,
you know, your stuff really is quite outstanding.
I think the battle report you did for 5th edition, you did
like the Lizardman and the Bretonians.
I think the starter set armies, you did that as well.
Yeah. And I know you have another one
planned in the works. I think in the last video you
talked about that's. True.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, so I I kind of, I kind of do one project video per quarter.
So one update on what I painted and update on what's to come.
And one other thing, either a kind of review of a box set or a
battle report or next this quarter I'm working on a third
edition Blood Bowl match report, right.
So I've got a friend of mine who's a very good, very amusing
voice actor and the the plan is for him, he's going to
commentate on the match in the style of maybe an American
football commentator who happens to be a vampire or something
like that. So.
That's the plan, you know. That's excellent.
Yeah. So you're sort of finding your
own sort of niche there because you've got your own your
accountability hammer the backlog thing.
But then you've got, you've found these other ways of being
creative in making these battle reports, as you said.
And you know you're going to do other things like unboxings or
revealing things in your collections.
So yeah, you're presenting in your own style, which is nice.
I I I respect that. I think that's a great idea
because you're making it entertaining, like the battle
report, you know, not like mine. We're like 2 and 2 1/2 hours in.
You get to see the end, but you've you do it in more
narrative sort of style with the voice overs and nice panning of
the camera and looking at all the models.
I think that's really what people want to see at the end of
the day. You know, they just want to see
nice figures and stuff like that.
Well I I love your battle reports when I was like really
looking at what I want to do your your battle reports,
especially once you play remotely.
Now that's where you're controlling both sides and you
have someone over zoom for example and they're obviously
playing a game at home on their table and I thought that was
incredibly impressive. I I think he did one with was it
dwarfs and wood elves and the fact that a game like that was
played across the world was incredibly impressive to me.
The the the the going for a narrative style on the battle
reports was really a a decision because I thought I will not be
able to match or produce something to the quality that
big battle report channels are doing.
And and you know I'm not really I I don't have a huge number of
armies I've I've got three or four decently painted 1000 paint
point armies because of the nature of the way I collect.
There is a YouTube called Ed he he has a channel called
Minnesotes and he he's the he was kind of the inspiration for
the way I I say inspiration I just ripped him off and you know
he knows he knows and I know but we we kind of came onto the
scene at the same time and he was doing 3rd edition 40K and he
painted up the 3rd edition 40K set at the same time I was
painting the 5th edition four hammer fantasy battle set and he
also does really fantastic kind of short form narrative battle
reports in the 40K universe and he was a big inspiration and
actually a a good help in in getting mine done because I you
know I was annoying him with questions going what how exactly
are you setting it up so the the focus is right when you're
really down in on the table and what sort of lighting are you
using. So it's a very good channel.
I I I'd recommend giving it a look.
If you if you enjoyed the way I did my battle reports and you
want to see someone who started six months earlier and has
learned all of those mistakes earlier than I did and now has
utterly perfected it, it's a really good channel to check
out. Yeah, and I I know it very well.
I interviewed him, was it last year, I think.
And yeah, I'm a subscriber to his channel.
He's a patron of mine, which is amazing.
I was quite blown away by that because yeah, his stuff is so
good. I mean, I always say to him
like, you know, you'll make your quality of what you're doing.
I think he hit 10,000 subscribers recently, which is
fantastic for him. But then you know, he has a
unique style that he brought to YouTube that just like just
immortalizes these old games like Spacehawk, the one he just
did recently for Death Wing. You know, the 2nd edition box
set, painting all the miniatures and playing the scenarios of
Armageddon in in the in the box set were just fantastic.
I think it just it sort of presented a new way of
presenting these kind of battle reports, you know, presenting,
you know, and he's got a voice. He's got a great voice for it.
He's got good kind of a sense of directorship in his videos.
I feel he's sort of it's yeah, so he's just got everything
working together and he does it out of a phone.
That's the that's a beautiful thing.
Google phone Google Pixel phone started doing that that way, and
he found it much easier than using a DSLR.
He found the DSLR just took so long and painful and the phone
was so much easier. And it's hard if.
Anyone is thinking of getting into kind of slightly more
narrative battle reports or anything like that.
It's not worth mucking about with a DLDSLR.
Sorry about we just broke up there, I apologize.
It must be another glitch in the system, another snotling in my
computer, no doubt. We're practically as far away as
it's possible for two people to be, so I suppose we can't really
complain about the the Internet being a tiny bit unreliable.
I'm actually, I'm actually trying to embark on a doing a
live stream show this weekend on the channel.
I mean, I invited Garth from Garth's workshop on.
I don't know if you're familiar with his work, but he's got a
YouTube channel as well and we've been mates since the
Pandemic basically since I've found his channel.
But he's got a really unique way of presenting his painting
videos too, and his music videos he makes and that kind of thing.
So I'm trying to collaborate with people to come on and and
do sort of like a just a paint just like a basically hanging
out painting and chatting. So we like I picked models,
yeah, pay along kind of thing. And I think a lot of people are
doing that now and I quite enjoy just sitting back and listening
to what they're talking about and that kind of thing and
having the audience engagement as well at the same time.
So hopefully, fingers crossed, my Internet will survive and be
stable without it dropping out halfway through, but.
That's one of the kind of. That's one of the big value
adds. I found that the brand command
has added to the kind of retro Warhammer, but Warhammer
painting or mini painting in general is the the paint along
Discord that that you set up. Yes.
Yeah. Like that's a big, that's a big
community and anyone can just kind of drop in and turn their
mic on and and talk painting and it might be like regular faces
or regular voices that returned or you never know who's going to
be in there. It's it's a really interesting
way of doing things. I've always been a kind of
solitary painter, so the idea of it took me a while to get my
head around going. What is it better to paint with
people talking? Is it not distracting?
But it actually is. It's great once you get into a
flow, once you once you're not. Once your cognitive load on the
model you're painting isn't too high, then it's great to have
other voices and people to chat to while you're doing it.
Yeah, well, yeah, we like, when I first I got into Discord, I
was kind of against it because I was like, Oh no, it's another
one of these social networking platforms.
I don't want to do that. I've already got Facebook.
I've already got, you know, YouTube.
But once I started getting into it, I realized how what a
valuable tool it is. It's so great to connect with
loads, loads of people. You've got that paint and video
aspect to the channels as well. So we can, you know, basically
remote game there. Chris Snyder, one of our regular
guys there, he does a lot of Space Hulk remote plays and
Necromunda, Blood Bowl and Man of War was a big popular one,
especially through the pandemic. We played a lot of Man of War
over discord. So it's just been this
revelation for me and I've, I've been hanging out in Discord way
more now than I ever do for the other, for like Facebook or
whatever. I think it's a really great
place to like you say, go and paint and chat with people and
and talk to some guy in in Ireland this morning, a guy in
Australia, a guy in Norway. So yeah we have sort of like
this regular, yeah, regular or irregular sort of meet ups
depending on time zones and people are always in there
chatting and painting or showing off.
It's really good. It's really a great, great place
and to hang out. So yeah, I I recommend anybody
to come and check our Discord out.
Even you make you should come chat with us mate.
Yeah, yeah, I'm, you see I'm all, that's the thing.
I'm always lurking there and so I'm always kind of hanging about
on the outskirts, never never quite fully committing to
jumping in because as I was saying there like one of the big
things for me was I I find painting has a fairly high
cognitive load for me. So you know I want to do it
right. I want to make sure the colour
placement is so I I don't get into that kind of flow that a
lot of people described. I'm I'm always I'm.
I'm probably an overthinker. I'm I'm thinking about what is
the exact colour that needs to go on this neck highlight stage.
And it takes me a while to get into painting an army, to the
point where basically I don't need to think about it anymore.
And once I get to that point I relax and really enjoy it.
But I actually find the kind of first couple of weeks of
painting a new army stressful is the wrong word.
But, you know, there's certainly something, something where
you're going. I I don't want to be distracted
while I'm doing this. I want to.
I want to get this right. This isn't quite working.
Why is it not working? And I think in the past, that's
what used to stop me. That's why I never finished
projects until I started to hammer the backlog.
Kind of I would reach that point and go this this isn't turning
out 100% the way I wanted to. It's taking up too much of my
thought space, trying to figure out why it's not turning out the
way I wanted to. I'll put it aside, I'll come
back to it in a few weeks and then obviously that never
happened that that. Just 20 years.
Boxes and boxes, exactly, yeah, just boxes and boxes and boxes
of started projects. So anyway that's that's why.
That's why it's taking me to kind of till now to be able to
feel like I can engage a little bit more with other painters.
Because I feel a little bit more like I know what I'm doing now
and I've I've got, I've got a system and if I need to I can
switch my brain off, rely on the system and therefore also think
about other things and and talk to other people and do other
things at the same time. But yeah, it's it's it's
definitely a challenge. I think it might be not to get
into pop psychology too much, but it might be a part of the
reason why a lot of people who can't figure out why they don't
finish projects don't finish them all.
Right. No, I mean, that's a fair
assessment. Yeah.
No, I I I knows.
I'm, I'm a psychologist. Yeah, we're all different in in
that regard I suppose and and. Exactly.
You know, some people just like bringing out grey armies.
Just no pain. You know what I mean?
Like. It's not really.
They don't care. Bigger, bigger problem for them.
So yeah, it it we're all individuals in that in that
sense I think and you know we all have our own standards and
you know our own processes and that kind of thing.
But yeah, I think the social networking groups give us the
motivation maybe to keep pushing through and and the challenges
that have come up by the last few years the call of the Crown.
But there's been a Cow Bunga challenge and you know, many
others out there that have really pushed people to, you
know, exceed their expectations, maybe improve their painting,
you know, get long lost projects, actually finished and
started gaming with them and that kind of thing.
So it's been really cool and really encouraging.
So, but I just found out to make the last last two years, I just
can't do challenges anymore. I just can't do them because I'm
always going from one to the next to the next to the next
project, you know, and I just cannot commit to anything
anymore. So and now, now being a full
time painter, it's now made it just almost impossible for me to
actually, you know, do something seriously like a challenge.
Seriously. Because I just don't have the
time. Yeah, I I totally get that.
And that was one of my kind of principles set when I started
hammer the backlog. I said to myself, OK, this is a
pretty rigid system that you're setting up here.
So I have, I basically divide my painting time into five blocks
during the week of about three to four hours.
So I, you know, I have other, I have other things going on in my
life. I have work, I have other
hobbies. And so I I probably paint around
10 hours a week on a really bad week and 20 hours a week on a on
a good week. So.
And I pack my my schedule 1/4 at a time, so I know today exactly
what I'm going to be painting every day for the next three
months. And I know that would drive some
people buck wild with boredom, just like, Oh my God, I can't
believe you know what you're going to be painting on a
Thursday six weeks from today. But for me that is getting stuff
done. That is, it's getting modeled,
painted that have sat dusty for 20 years or moved around attics
as I moved house. And it's just been so rewarding.
But to get back to the original point, it means that I kind of
had to make an agreement with myself right at the very start.
No challenges. Because if I join a challenge,
that's outside of the scope of the project that I'm doing, and
I can't invent another 20 hours a week to get the project done.
So every now and then I'm very I'm very tempted by joining a
challenge that might match if I can match it up.
You know if someone is. If someone is doing a Warhammer
5th edition 500 point challenge, and it happens to be a time when
I'm also painting Warhammer 5th edition.
But it's again it's not worth generally the disruption that it
was caused to what I'm doing and what's I don't really use this
word very often but what's proving very fulfilling for me
and the the the the challenge, the hobby challenge might be a
bit of a distraction. And as someone who is into this
whole accountability, commitment, achieving goals, I I
I feel I feel nearly a level of physical pain when I see the
jokers or the wildcards or the skipped months start appearing
in other people's challenges. And and I did.
That couldn't be me. I just there there isn't a world
where I could commit to three challenges and my name would be
beside it and it would say skipped week or missed month or
yeah, that would drive me absolutely crazy.
I would not be able to handle that at all well.
That was me for the Call of the Crown.
I didn't get one one entry in, so that was, wow, Two Strikes
out. So and and rightly so.
But yeah, I I can understand that.
I mean, for me, the motivator for me is games.
So for example, yesterday it was announced we're going to have
another one renaissance tournament in on March 24th.
So I said OK, I'm going to take my dwarves and I want to paint
Ungrim Iron Fierce. And I want to, I want to, you
know, finish off my iron Breakers, put new Shields on
them, paint a new banner. So I've already got a plan
already that I know by the 24th of March I should have my 2000
points of dwarves ready. And then I'm going to paint some
extra different things that I haven't brought before or you
know, finish that minor unit that I started ages ago and
never got finished. So and that way I'm sort of just
that incremental step closer to actually finishing the entire
army. Yeah, very, very close now.
So I'm really looking forward to that.
So yeah, games for me is a big motivator.
But I was thinking too, because in in our discord we had a very
brief time where we did something like that.
So each month we'd we'll pick one of the game systems and say
OK for this month, please paint something, you know, either, you
know either a squad or a you know battalion of guys or a
squadron of of ships from Man of War or whatever it might be.
It might be another way of sort of getting back into that, maybe
for people, because I think people, some people did enjoy
that they had like sort of a themed month and they sort of
just painted, just grabbed something off the shelf or in
their collection or whatever to paint for that month.
So maybe you should be the instigator for that, Mitch on
our Discord. You should start.
Telling the troops and. Doing some kind of.
Order. Let's go guys.
Let's do it. It doesn't become the scrum
master of the Discord channel. It's a funny thing though.
It's like it's something that really, genuinely interests me,
is people's motivation to paint. Because I'm not a huge gamer.
I do game. I I have.
I do a lot of TTRPG particularly Warhammer TTRPG which is
fantastic. I just really love it.
But that that has a very low mini requirement.
So you know I could I could knock out the five or six minis
for a session in an afternoon if if if I needed to.
But you know I I had the Warhammer 5th edition fantasy
box set for 24 years before I played the game with it.
It it, it doesn't. It doesn't motivate me in the
way it motivates Someone Like You who gets their armies
painted to play games. Or I don't know if you know Andy
from mediocre hobbies. I've known Andy for a long time
and Andy just can paint anything non-stop.
As long as he needs it for a game, it'll be done.
It's incredibly impressive. He just always has a paintbrush
in his hand. But then there are other people,
like you said, who are more than happy to put a grey army on the
table, and therefore that doesn't motivate them.
What I've learned about myself in miniature painting is I need
to have exactly what you have, Josh, I think, but for you, it's
for you. The point of really pardon me
for putting words in your mouth, but for you the point of done is
the models are painted. They're on the table for a game
and the game is played and then you've achieved it.
Yeah, But for me, that's not the that's not the moment.
For me, the moment is getting the models photographed, the
photos edited and put online somewhere.
And I mean, I don't even really care if people are seeing them.
It's it's, that's not the point. The point is, that's for me,
that's the point of achievement. That's the point where I go.
I've done it. I've done what I set out to do.
The games for me feel like a happy a happy thing I can then
do with the with the models and. But it also means that if I'm
playing with my models, if I'm playing games and a Lance
breaks, I don't freak out like some painters.
My some people who are primarily painters are scared of damaging
their models in games. It doesn't bother me because
it's already achieved I've once it's on that, you know Instagram
pane. Sure.
Yeah, what I set out to do and then I can fix it up.
I can fix it up, and maybe I don't fix it up quite as
perfectly as I did when I first painted it and but it doesn't
matter because I've already achieved the goal that I set out
to do with that model. Right.
OK, That's interesting. Yeah, that would, that would
drive me nuts if I broke stuff after I painted it.
Because putting all that hard work and time and everything
into into making that perfect for me and then seeing it
scratched or break or something like that, Yeah, it sort of
breaks my heart a little bit. But yeah, that's good.
You can shrunk those that that kind of thing off though.
That's nice. Me so.
Yeah, yeah. It kind of crystallizes the
moment in a way. It is.
There is a record out in the world out in the universe of
when this model looked exactly like I wanted to look, and if if
it goes on a journey after that, that's absolutely fine.
One of my favorite ever models is a a Chaos dwarf bull Centaur
that has been dropped about 45 times and you know his his
weapon is irreparably bent. The spike on the top of his head
is gone, and he sits on my my painting desk on his own as a
reminder that models can break, things can change, and so move
on. He's still there.
He's still one of my favorite models.
He doesn't look picture perfect like the day I finished him, but
he doesn't need to. That's fine.
Sounds like he's the perfect member for the Kasdorf Blood
Bowl team. Actually, he's been beaten up,
so yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It'd fit in, right? Right.
Well, it'd be good. All right, buddy.
Look, we're going to take a quick break and when we come
back, we'll talk about paints and that kind of thing.
I want to. I want to scratch your scratch
your brain about paints, mate. So we're back in just a tick.
All right, buddy. So yeah, you've got me.
You've got me interested in contrast paints.
Now, mate, because I've seen your stuff online.
I saw your videos, I saw your stuff on Instagram and then I
think you talked about it in one of your videos or something like
using contrast paints. And I thought, I've really got
to try this because I think you're the only person I've
seen. Well, probably maybe Ben Sayoni
too, like whiskey and Wizards. I know he uses a lot of that
kind of stuff. Yeah, but paint technology, like
the new modern paint sort of style.
I'm sort of interested. A bit curious because it looks
like it does work and it does give a certain effect that does
look appealing if you're doing this kind of very vibrant
colors. Things like, you know, using
yellows and Reds and oranges and purples and Blues to certain
effects. Yeah, using contrast with those
colors, you know, really make models really, they're almost
like shine using this contrast method.
So I I picked up some contrast medium from Citadel and started
and started using it for my for this Jean stealer cult project
and a Commission I've been doing and it worked to treat.
So I really wanted to thank you about trying to just inspiring
me to try contrast my finally dragging, kicking and screaming
into the into the New Paint century.
So yeah, no that was that's that's the real achievement for
me because I know, I know how resistant you were to them and
it's, I mean there's a couple of aspects to it.
The the first thing is obviously paints are paints are just tools
really and you know you can you can use them.
I would say that I don't paint using the contrast method as it
were. So when when contrast came out,
obviously Games Workshop had this promotional drive to say
this is a new product called contrast paints.
And in order to buy to in order to convince you to buy contrast
paints, we're going to sell you the contrast method.
And I can see why people were resistant to that because the
contrast method of spray it white slather on the contrast
paint and then put on one normal highlight as you usually would.
It has a look. There's a distinctive look to it
and as someone who's a little bit of a kind of painting snob,
I can, I can tell if someone took 15 minutes to paint a
model. Yeah, yeah that's not not that
there's anything wrong with it. But if if your if your goal is
getting your models on the tabletop and having them look a
nice array of color from a decent distance away, fantastic.
But you know to to to put it with a display to put them in a
display case if there's a whole army painted in the contrast
method. Looks great, looks fabulous.
But I kind of like my models to be approaching box art
standards. Maybe not quite there because
I'm kind of forcing myself to lower my standard in order to
get things done. But you know, I I like them to
be vibrant. I like them to be neat.
I like them to be detailed. If there's a shiny reflective
surface, it better have a highlight.
Otherwise what? What's the point in painting it?
So I use the contrast paints as a tool to achieve that, but I
would say that I don't use the contrast method.
So basically what I do is I spray paint white like everyone
else always did for years and years and years until about
about 2005 and suddenly we all started spray painting black.
But I spray paint white and I do 90% of my base coats with
contrast paints and and you you said it particularly on the
Chaos Wars. I I did a An Army of Chaos Wars
by Fabalzell 3D printed sculpted 3D Chaos Wars and with them it
was Reds, Blues, yellows, flesh, purples, blacks.
And you can achieve just as vibrant a look as the the 90s
paint schemes with contrast paints if you're using them in a
controlled way. So if I'm doing a red, say my,
my, my, the there are two Reds in the contrast range that are
really, really nice. Blood Angel's red and Flesh Tear
is red and Flesh Tear is Red is a little deeper and richer and
Blood Angel's Red is a little oranger and lighter.
But it doesn't really matter which I use most of the time
because it's not just put that on and then highlight.
So I'll put that on, then I'll go through basically the normal
highlighting process that we've all been doing since the 90s of
put on a mid tone, put on a broad highlight, put on a a fine
line highlight, maybe a a a dot highlight if I'm really pushing
something to the edge of of making it look shiny and
reflective. And all the contrast does in
this case is eliminates the need to go back in and shade because
it naturally fills in the the shaded areas.
And that's what I really enjoy about it it it eliminates the
need to shade, but also it's a fabulous if you're using the
medium you've you've experienced it.
The flow that you get from this new technology, it leaps off the
paintbrush And for me, in 2530 years of painting nearly, I
always found base coding the most boring stage.
Because you have to, you have to get a, you have to get a good
coverage, you have to be super neat.
Otherwise you're spending a lot of time trying to go back and
correct later. And you're correcting over
either very vibrant or very dark colours with paints which are
much thinner or much more opaque.
And it's it took a lot of effort and a lot of energy.
But I can put the let's say I'm painting a a Chaos Dwarf
trooper. I can get his red base coats
done in about 90 seconds. And just to me, the time saved
and doing that is incredible. To get his base neatly painted
in 90 seconds because the contrast paint flows so well.
And when I reach a transition, so where his sleeve meets his
arm, the contrast paint stops. Yeah, it stops at the hand
naturally. And then when I paint the flesh
on the hand later, also with contrast paint, the the paint
stops where it meets the red. And I mean, I know you've, you
must have experienced it and I've experienced it.
You're using a brush. You've been using it for so
long, it's starting to fray a little bit.
Your paint. You're putting down your base
coat of Kadian flesh tone. The paint is drying on the brush
faster than it's getting onto the model and you're poking it
into little recesses. And I do not like the the base
coding stage of painting models, and that's what contrast does
for me. Then let's say I'm painting red,
you go Evil Sun Scarlet, which is my favorite paint that Games
Workshop I've ever done. Wild Rider Red, Frostbare orange
and maybe a a little dot of of a white or a yellow and you're
done. And you get, for me at least,
exactly the same quality of finish as if you had done it
with traditional paints. And I'm I'm putting traditional
in air quotes for the people who aren't looking at the video.
But you get exactly the same quality of finish in about 60%
of the time and for me that's a worthwhile, worthwhile trade
because you're skipping that fiddly base coat stage and
you're skipping the the wash stage.
That's that's what contrast does for me.
You know, I I experienced exactly the same thing because I
used the the contrast medium. So I'm adding it to paint, I'm
adding it to ink and that kind of thing, but did exactly that.
I applied it to the to the model, it sort of stretched out
and it sort of seeped into the areas where I wanted to go.
It didn't over over go or overlap anything.
It sort of just sat right on those the the you know right on
the cusp right on the areas where I had to see it and I
thought wow this has just saved me so much time because
naturally I'm I'm working full time now as a painter so I need
to work fast and I'm looking at different ways of doing that to
to get those base coats down. Now all for these blood Angel, I
had to I I airbrushed them just to get all the the the Orangey
Red base bases on them, the base coats on them.
But I could see potential for more organic shaped models like
like clothing or like for the for example the Jean Steelers
Tyranids that kind of thing. Whereas that could just speed
up, you know like you say about 60% of your time just applying
those quick base coats down. So you get a nice sort of deep
shade. You got a mid tone there and
then when it's dry you sort of just build up the layers a
couple more times and then you've got a really nice finish
at the end. So yeah, I think they're real.
I think it's like liquid gold mate to be honest.
You know, it's drinking, It's incredible and adult content
will probably drink it. But yeah, it's it's really good
stuff and I'm really, I'm really glad I've tried it now.
So I'm really curious, you know, from yourself and other other
painters out there of what other kind of additives they're using
for their paints, what other stuff they're using to like I've
heard of Flow Enhancer and you know, things.
Which? Yeah.
The Flow enhancer. I've been using Flow Enhancer
for years and I told you this story very briefly in text, but
I used to enter quite a few painting competitions in Dublin
and it was a small. It was a small scene in Dublin
so I'm not waving a flag and saying I was the the the all and
end all of painting. But I was entering a few
competitions and I was generally winning.
And I think it eventually came out that one of the reasons I
was winning was I was essentially cheating by being
the only person who was using these additives.
Things like Flow Enhancer and things like Medium because it
was, you know, the early early 2000s and it the early 2000s was
still a time when we were trying to convince people to thin their
paints. It wasn't just straight out of
the pot onto the model. So Flow Enhancer is fabulous.
It's a fabulous product for acrylic paints because it it
deals exactly with what I was complaining about earlier.
So when you're on, let's say you're doing a display model,
let's say you're doing a Greater Demon, and it's when it's 2006
and paint technology isn't quite where it is today and you're
you've got your size 0000 brush because you're doing, you're
painting on his eyelashes. And everyone who's ever got that
deep into specifically painting details on models has known the
frustration of dipping a model, dipping A paintbrush into a into
a pot, lifting it up, steadying your hand to start painting the
the model, steadying your paintbrush hand, licking your
lips, bringing it ever closer. And by the time the model, by
the time the paintbrush touches the model, the tiny amount of
paint that that brush can hold has has dried solid and you're
just poking it. You're poking in, you're hoping
some paint is going to come off onto the eyelashes and you're
going harder and harder and nothing's happening.
And that's what Flow Enhancer does.
It stops that from happening. It it just gives you that tiny
little bit of extra working time to to get from the pot to the
model without it drying out. Now I think it's much less
important these days because paint technology, it's really,
it's really easy for us to ignore how much paints have
improved. Paints are incredible now.
People who are learning to paint now have such an advantage over
people who were dealing with the chalky fast drying or coverage
paints that we we used to try and paint with in the the 90s
and early 2000s. But if you know if that's
something that you're experiencing, to be honest, the
real solution is get a better brush.
Get a brush that has a a thicker body so it holds more liquid.
Yeah, but has an equally fine point.
But if you don't have that option, or you you can't find a
brush that has the fine point you need, and you are working
with a tiny, tiny tiny brush that's only a handful of hairs,
then yeah, flow improver is the absolute secret to making sure
the paint comes off that onto the model where you want it to
go. It also means it's very easy to
smudge it though in the drying process, so you have to give it
a little bit more working time. Yeah.
Now I'm glad we can talk about paints.
It's a really, it's a subject that I really wanted to broach
with people, a guest on the show at some point because we haven't
really touched on it much. But yeah, like, I'm just
astounded how many painting, how many paint companies are out
there just specifically for miniatures.
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I could think like, because
someone said to me, a mate of mine, and he said, oh, do you
want to, do you want to buy these paints?
I've got a couple extra sets. They're from Monument Games and
they're the Pro Acryl paints, and I've heard of them and I've
sort of kind of curious about them.
Then I saw Duncan Rhodes paint set and I thought, wow, he's got
some really nice hues of color in there.
That was really interesting too. Then the Vallejo model color new
range came out. Try one of those paints, They're
absolutely fantastic. Then they've got this new
Express paints, which is sort of their contrast equivalent, which
looks really cool too. Ali Paint has brought out a new
version of their paints and their people are raving on about
that. So we're just engulfed with all
these different paint companies. And that's just mentioning a
few. That's not mentioning all of
them that, you know, because Vallejo, I'm big Vallejo guy.
I've painted. I've used Valleo for now for 20
years since I made the big switch from Citadel to Vallejo
and never looked back. I found it very hard to compete
with other paint companies to have the same level of well,
same range for example, or same quality at a very good price.
But yeah, now it's just seems that there's just saturated with
with different painting company, paint companies and I'm just
thinking these these people must be really brave to do that
because they're competing against some pretty big boys
like Vallejo. And Vallejo probably be the
biggest one I think in Citadel, you know, huge companies when
you think about it and then she'll reach their, you know,
their the, the amount of stock they can get into stores and
that kind of thing and how available they are.
So I really give give credit to those guys like Duncan Rhodes,
like making his own paint range. That's pretty big.
The Internet has democratized it in a way, hasn't it, that it's a
a small paint manufacturer can come and make a big splash on
the Internet. They don't need to by GW for
shelf space in retailers. They can, they can go out and
go, hey guys, we're advertising directly for you the audience.
We've got this niche product and I'm specifically I'm thinking of
the the range of niche paints that are coming out of.
These are the paints you remember from the 90s.
These are the paints you remember from the early 2000s.
They they, they don't have to compete.
They just go out and they say we're we're aiming these at you.
These are the paints you remember from the 90s.
These are the paints from 2000s, These are the paints from
10/20/10. These are the paints that do do
this faster. These are the paints that never
dry out. There's always new additives,
new different ways of selling them to you coming along.
Personally, I have a fairly modest number of paints that I
use daily, and I have a huge number of paints, but I probably
use about 50 paints in total. OK.
I don't know about about you, Josh.
Would you use more or? Not really.
I sort of have a set, you know, set number that I really like
and it's really hard for me to to change them out with
something else. I've I've grabbed a couple of
Citadel paints just because of necessity and availability try
them out and I've been impressed with that.
But I really like drop a bottle paints and it's really hard for
me to budget off Valeo personally.
I do have a set number of favourites but then it's just
it's me, not really you know wanting to experiment and step
out and try something else. Because I think, I I'm think I
think at this this stage and this year I want to really try
to just grab a few AK Interactive paints.
Few you know the TT Combat paints.
Ben always says they're amazing. So there's another, you know we
mentioned two other companies that make paints as well that
people seem to really you know, champion because how good they
are. War Colours is another one
that's stepped on the market. Well he's been around for a
while, but he's got his own nostalgia 94 range as well and
had previously 88 range. So you know, we could just keep
on you know, rifling off many different companies.
They they all offer something interesting and you know, I've
got some of the the Nostalgia 90, sorry Nostalgia 88 inks,
which are just brilliant. They're absolutely fantastic.
They're the best inks I've ever used.
Unfortunately, they don't make them anymore because they're
like a gel based ink. So the contrast with them just
makes them even better. You know, there's really quite
dense, you know, when you're using it.
So I'm I'm sure that these companies that have come out now
and they have something like even Army Painter probably have
something they're talking about their speed, paint metallics,
maybe they're really, really good.
I don't know. I just need to try it.
So yeah, it's been, it's been. I think this year it's going to
be more of an experiment for me because I want to try out
different things in different colors and different paint
ranges. Not that I'm asking any
sponsorship from people send me stuff, it'd be nice.
I'd be more than happy to try it out.
I know that Nick Neo sent me some stuff from wall colors and
I've tried those out with, yeah, some success and some not.
But yeah, it's been interesting though.
But. Ben, Ben, Ben from Whiskey
Wizards. Ben, Ben, Tony.
He's he's a fabulous example of, I think, how I I think maybe in
the last couple of years there was this slight feeling amongst
people getting back into retro Warhammer that the only way to
get the retro Warhammer look was to use the retro Warhammer
paints. Yeah.
And then a couple of painters came out.
Maybe I'm a little bit one of them because of my insistence on
you can get her, you can get a crisp, clean, retro look with
contrast. But then there's also, Ben was a
fabulous example and Will who does this, the space walls, they
all use modern paints. You do not need to use classic
paints to get that classic look, especially like modern Games
Workshop paints like Wild Wild Red or Evil Sun Scarlet.
Evil Sun Scarlet is, in my opinion, the best red paint the
Games Workshop has ever. I'm going to write that name
down. Actually, I'm going to write
that down. Evil Sun scarlet.
It's an incredible paint. Now.
It's not like it doesn't do anything magic.
It doesn't it. It's just the red paint.
But it's it's it's so I don't even know because I I kind of
ignore what the manufacturers say paints are for.
So when Games Workshop started saying base layer, highlight,
edge, doesn't matter. So I don't care what.
I don't care what they say it's for.
It's how does the paint behave? What does it do?
What does the tone look like, What color is it, and how am I
going to use it? And you can get the exact
feeling of a 1994 Army book relying on evil sun scarlet,
very modern, very opaque, very well nicely flowing, super easy
to use Red. You take that paint you, you put
a white base coat on something, you thin that paint down.
I would use Lamian medium. Which is which is Citadel's
Other medium that they sell. They sell contrast medium.
They sell lamium medium. Lamium medium is more.
It doesn't give the contrast effect.
It basically. It mats it.
Bins your paint down without being water.
Right. OK, gotcha.
So you you put you give three coats of Evil Sun Scarlet binned
with lamium medium over white and that is just as crisp and as
vibrant as as if it came out of the heavy metal studio in 1996.
It's it doesn't matter what paint you're using really it's
more about the technique and what you're what you're trying
to achieve and the look you're going for.
I think sometimes people and I I think this is part kind of
sometimes the paint manufacturer's issue they they
they bring this on themselves when they kind of say this is
what our paint is for and and and Games Workshop did that with
contrast and they put people like you and people like me
initially off buying them because when they said this is
for getting your army quickly onto the table.
I don't want my army quickly on the table.
I want my army to look nice and vibrant and and detailed.
I don't want it to look sloppy and fast and and and like I I
didn't keep caring about where. I washed out.
I think that's that's what the initial put off was for me.
Once I saw people using contrast early on, they they look bloody
awful because they looked all washed out.
There was no kind of solid color to them.
There was this just really, yeah, I just was totally.
I just thought it was going to be like just a fad that was just
fade away. But it hasn't.
It's time to stay because like all these other companies are
now making their own versions of it so.
Yeah. Well, I mean games Workshops
also had a certain irony in that again which they brought on
themselves that their flagship models, Stormcast, Eternals and
Space Marines amongst the worst models to paint with contrast
paint because they're just full of large flat areas or
metallics. They're the two worst things to
be painting with contrast paints.
Space Marines can look very nice.
You can do very nice Space Marines with a base of contrast
if you're careful and then you build up the layers afterwards.
But contrast paint just straight onto the flat panels of a Space
Marine. One of the worst combinations of
model and paint technology you can get.
So they kind of caused that themselves.
But Josh, you probably remember when washes came out, like the
when when Agrax Urch State first came out.
Never used it. Every.
You never touched it. That's amazing.
It's both amazing and not surprising.
I. Suppose I'm an ancient beast.
You know, I'm very very simple. But that came out.
I don't know. When did that come out, 2006,
something like that. Maybe a little bit later.
But there was a phase when every army in your local game shop had
that same overall brown tone to it.
That's. Probably why I didn't use it.
Because it sounds exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it it so you know the if
when people talk about the periods of kind of Games
Workshop art, they they always talk about like the red periods
and the early 90s when they were putting red on everything
because it was the best paint they had.
But for me, kind of 1999 to about 2007, I just remember that
as the brown period, right? Everyone's models were sloshed
in Devlin Mud or Agraxler's Shade or, and I think it took me
a while to go, you can actually use this.
This does have uses. Don't lash it on every model,
irregardless of the colour scheme or the vibe you're going
for or what you're trying to achieve.
But there are areas where having this paint as a tool that you
decide how to use it is is great.
The whole kind of liquid talent is basically where I draw the
line. If someone says use this product
as liquid talent, basically to me that says also what you're
saying is everyone's army is going to look kind of broadly
the same and a little bit washed out and a little bit under
detailed. Yeah.
But again, you know I'm not a mass army painter, I'm not
painting a 4000 point army every couple of months.
So I'm not judging the people who do that, but it does produce
a very formulaic result, yeah, which isn't the only thing you
can do with the paint, which I think was my original point.
Yeah, I think, I think it became kind of a process that people,
everyone sort of started doing because they sort of learnt from
other people. They learnt from the game
sweatshop store. Yeah, you just paint it, paint
it blue and then just just dip, you know, just get this Aggrath
Earth shade and just, you know, just, you know, drown it in
that. Because like even when I see
Ed's videos on Minisodes, he's painting his Marines and he's
put it like a red base coat or something on the Marine and then
he puts his aggreth earth shade over it as a Washington.
And I'm like, no, don't do that. You're ruining it.
You know, Like it just, I would never do that, you know.
But for him, he gets his certain results that he's looking for.
But I think, yeah, for that, you're right, it it fits a
certain style at a certain point.
So if I was doing like Dark Age miniatures or something like
that, or and I think that Earth, you know, the Earth shade would
work perfectly for that. They're really grimy, you know
that. You know, a lot of those armies
are just brown, you know, But for a blood Angel, space marine,
I wouldn't put it anywhere near it, you know, so.
So there's there's actually aggress.
I think one of the things that I've painted that people
particularly like were my Chaos Wars.
Yeah, yeah. And you know, they were, they
were vibrant and old fashioned but beautiful models.
Again, I'll say Fable Zell, the, the guy who made them, just
incredible job. But there's a there's an earth,
there's an egg rice earth stage. Earth's, what's it called?
Egg racks, Earth shade stage. There's an egg racks, earth
shade stage in that painting process.
So I use it for the metallics on those models.
Only the metallics. I don't slush it all over
because I've spent an hour per model highlighting individual
scale male from Eelson Scarlett to wild rather red to troll
sailor orange to Dorne yellow and the thought of them washing
agraxas shade over that just sends a shiver down my spine.
But I like my Chaos dwarfs to have kind of not rusty but a a
dull metal a a lustreless metal. And for me, for for that effect
I got, I got. I can't say the name of that
paint. The brown, paint the brown the
brown liquid works really well. Yeah, but I I totally get, I
think, I think like you said, for a certain particular purpose
for an application, it's perfect.
But you know, just thinking about it now, it's kind of like
the modern equivalent to dry brushing.
Because when we got into painting initially in the
Citadel paint guide, I mean this is going back to 1991.
The first thing you learn about was dry brushing and if one dry
brushed and one base coat dry brushed and the.
Earth. Cracks Earth show.
Whatever it's called that thing is what the what the modern
equivalent to Brunt because no one dry brushed.
Everyone just put a base coat and washed it down.
You know what I mean? So that's what the modern day
painters are. But yeah, I mean it's just a
it's just a bad habit people got into.
But maybe some people worked with it and they just got the
results they desired by doing it.
Maybe they didn't or they maybe that's why they just never felt
very satisfied with their paint jobs.
And maybe for some people it's just, yeah, that just hits the
right note and I think Yep, that's done.
You know, I don't need to highlight.
It's a shade and that's it. And you know where we go.
Especially if they're large army painters and they they they step
back and look at their collection and go there's that
army. That army looks fabulous and
they don't get down to an individual model level.
But that's you know who who am I to com?
Who am I to judge in the sense? Because the the fact that I want
my individual models to be display worthy is why I spent 25
years not having any armies. I only had individual display
models, so I'm on a journey basically to bring myself back
from the other extreme, which is, you know, it's been a nice,
a nice journey, a nice experience.
Absolutely, mate. No, it's been really good to
talk to you today and I really appreciate your time.
I know it's early in the morning for you and you're going to have
to start work soon, so but we'll have to get you back on because
like I said, I'm going to do this live stream show series
hopefully if my Internet will survive it.
I'd like to get you back on at some point when it's not in your
early morning, maybe you're in your sort of afternoon on the
weekend or something. We can have a bit of a paint and
chat about more about paints and stuff like that.
And you know the revolution that's happening in the in the
painting world for miniature painting.
That would be fantastic. I would be delighted.
Wonderful, mate. And I'll leave some links in the
show notes of this podcast episode so people can come and
check out your YouTube channel. And you have a blog as well for
Hammer the Black backlog, Is that right?
Www.hammerthebacklog.com. Right.
OK. So people can go and check out
and then they've got a nice point of reference.
They can see, you know, the very start of your projects to
completion, that kind of thing. So it'd be nice.
Exactly. And that especially if the
project management side of it is, is what's more interesting,
right then that's that's where you see that side of things
particularly. Right, OK, Mick.
Well, you take care of yourself mate.
Enjoy your painting. I look forward to the next video
you you drop on the YouTube channel and until then, take
care. Thank you very much.
OK mate. See you then.
Take care.