As mentioned, I have now closed down Spyglass but the rights to the figures, old and new, have been picked up by other parties. The same is true for Eolith.
What I can tell you right now...
Heresy Miniatures have picked up the rights to nearly all the 28mm (and thereabouts) figures that I have produced. That's at www.heresyminiatures.com
The zO range of figures have been picked up by Elodie Mae at www.elodiemae.com
The 54mm Eolith figures have also found a new home and I'm sure that the new owner will announce them in due course.
So, no panic. If you missed out on stuff (quite easy as I never did a big public closing sale) then it should all turn up again elsewhere before long.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Spyglass Miniatures is closed...
As another aside from my normal rambling about general minis industry shenanigans, I thought this was a good place to make the announcement that I have now closed Spyglass Miniatures (and Eolith was, of course, already closed).
It's not all doom and gloom though (certainly not for me as I'm moving on to other things) as I can tell you that various interested parties have taken on the rights to my figures and pretty much everything has found a new home over the last week or so (did I tell anyone that it's been a mad week). The parties in question will, I'm sure, make their announcements as and when they feel ready to do so. Right at the moment I'm in the process of pulling everything together and getting the relevant bits to their new owners...
Well, it's been a blast. I wont miss doing mail orders I will have to admit. Having just the one Post Office in Truro was no laughing matter. The fact that it was basically impossible to do a mailing run on a Monday (pension day) should say it all. That said I've enjoyed being able to sculpt all manner of weird and wonderful things over the years.
And I really have to paint 54mm Dracula sometime...
It's not all doom and gloom though (certainly not for me as I'm moving on to other things) as I can tell you that various interested parties have taken on the rights to my figures and pretty much everything has found a new home over the last week or so (did I tell anyone that it's been a mad week). The parties in question will, I'm sure, make their announcements as and when they feel ready to do so. Right at the moment I'm in the process of pulling everything together and getting the relevant bits to their new owners...
Well, it's been a blast. I wont miss doing mail orders I will have to admit. Having just the one Post Office in Truro was no laughing matter. The fact that it was basically impossible to do a mailing run on a Monday (pension day) should say it all. That said I've enjoyed being able to sculpt all manner of weird and wonderful things over the years.
And I really have to paint 54mm Dracula sometime...
Monday, 4 July 2011
Eolith 54mm range for sale... SOLD!
Two posts in one day? Yeah. For more abstract ideas scroll down to the next entry (about sculpting styles).
UPDATE: Range has been sold.
Looking to sell the Eolith Miniatures fantasy 54mm range ahead of my move in a couple of weeks. Check out the Eolith site for details...
Eolith Miniatures Site
I hope you'll consider this one of the exceptions that proves the rule about me being blatantly commercial on my blog.
Concerning style...
Over the last year or so I've been thinking a lot about personal styles of painting and sculpting. You may have seen quite a bit about my painting style revamp on here of late.
I'd like to talk a little bit about styles and something that rather surprises me. It's that painters and sculptors rarely work outside their tightly defined style. Personally I like to muck about with mine from time to time to give me a fresh perspective and generally keep the inspiration up. Of course that brings us to a related point: conscious versus unconscious style.
I think I'm a good example to use when it comes to this phenomena. I'm quite well known for reinventing the wheel with regards to my sculpting or painting styles. I'm the guy who was known for this...
and then suddenly went to this...
Quite a dramatic change and personally I don't see much of a style in common but I keep hearing that people can still see the 'Buddle aesthetic' in them and talk of clean lines and elegant forms which are both inherent in my process. But definitely an unconscious thing in this case as one reason I made this massive change was that people kept going on that my figures were undetailed and lacking texture and I'd always considered that to be my intention. Eventually I wanted to go ahead and sculpt something that was totally different.
Despite unconscious stylings bleeding through the change it does bring up an interesting point to ponder upon. That point is not to always do things in the way you always do them just because that's the way you always do them. For most this is a hobby and although you are free to do things in the same way, sometimes it's good to do something totally different. It's then quite fun to look at this totally different approach and see what unconsciously is still there from your normal style.
I kind of got onto thinking about this style issue over the last few days due to a few comments I heard about my new job working for Games Workshop. Obviously this is going to mean that my style will be mutating once more as I work towards adding my figures into a range produced by rather a lot of people and needing it to fit in. A few people seemed worried that my personal style would get lost in the shuffle and I'd end up sculpting cookie cutter figures. I really don't see that happening and, even with another style change, I thoroughly expect people to finally see my work for GW and say 'hey, that's a Buddle fig'. I mean, they've a large team of sculptors and I can still pick out Jes Goodwin's work from Brian Nelson's or Mark Harrison's or Mike Anderson's. They all work in the GW style but there's still loads of room for individuality.
Of course we never know where the changes might end. Five years from now maybe you'll see me sculpting a giant monster on a computer. Now THAT would be a style change...
I'd like to talk a little bit about styles and something that rather surprises me. It's that painters and sculptors rarely work outside their tightly defined style. Personally I like to muck about with mine from time to time to give me a fresh perspective and generally keep the inspiration up. Of course that brings us to a related point: conscious versus unconscious style.
I think I'm a good example to use when it comes to this phenomena. I'm quite well known for reinventing the wheel with regards to my sculpting or painting styles. I'm the guy who was known for this...
and then suddenly went to this...
Quite a dramatic change and personally I don't see much of a style in common but I keep hearing that people can still see the 'Buddle aesthetic' in them and talk of clean lines and elegant forms which are both inherent in my process. But definitely an unconscious thing in this case as one reason I made this massive change was that people kept going on that my figures were undetailed and lacking texture and I'd always considered that to be my intention. Eventually I wanted to go ahead and sculpt something that was totally different.
Despite unconscious stylings bleeding through the change it does bring up an interesting point to ponder upon. That point is not to always do things in the way you always do them just because that's the way you always do them. For most this is a hobby and although you are free to do things in the same way, sometimes it's good to do something totally different. It's then quite fun to look at this totally different approach and see what unconsciously is still there from your normal style.
I kind of got onto thinking about this style issue over the last few days due to a few comments I heard about my new job working for Games Workshop. Obviously this is going to mean that my style will be mutating once more as I work towards adding my figures into a range produced by rather a lot of people and needing it to fit in. A few people seemed worried that my personal style would get lost in the shuffle and I'd end up sculpting cookie cutter figures. I really don't see that happening and, even with another style change, I thoroughly expect people to finally see my work for GW and say 'hey, that's a Buddle fig'. I mean, they've a large team of sculptors and I can still pick out Jes Goodwin's work from Brian Nelson's or Mark Harrison's or Mike Anderson's. They all work in the GW style but there's still loads of room for individuality.
Of course we never know where the changes might end. Five years from now maybe you'll see me sculpting a giant monster on a computer. Now THAT would be a style change...
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Moving on to new things...
If there's ever a lesson to learn it's that as much as things may seem like they're going to stay the same, you never know when life is going to throw you a curveball or a new path. I've been rather up in the air for the last few months with things going on behind the scenes and my future has seemed rather uncertain. You've probably noticed that the blog has been a little erratic of late with regards to updates and that my miniatures releases haven't had a proper focus. This is because three months ago I applied for a position as an in house sculptor with Games Workshop. These things tend to take time to work out and I've now been offered and accepted said position.
This means that over the next week or two I will be shutting down operations on my miniatures business as it's not something I can run alongside my new job and, frankly, I'm looking to be able to relax and have some proper time off outside of work (something that every self employed person out there will no doubtably understand).
Right now I can't wait to get started sculpting cool stuff for GW as many of you will know I'm a long time GW geek and there's always been the part of me that wanted to work with their imagery. Plus it's going to offer me the new challenge of sculpting for plastic. A challenge that I relish as I do like plastic figures.
Not exactly sure what happens to the blog but the plan is to keep it going. I'll just have to work out what I'll be writing about.
Now I think I have a few mad weeks of sorting out a move from Cornwall to Nottingham...
Monday, 20 June 2011
Sculpting a photo of a mini....
I had a conversation with another sculptor the other day regarding another of those curious phenomena that I am so drawn to writing about. In this case it is all about the styles in which we are sculpting these days and the pressure to sculpt in a certain way.
It's no secret that minis are becoming more detailed, scarily so in some cases. The point put to me and something that I have thought myself in a round about way in the past is that we're no longer sculpting for the person to see in reality and that we are now sculpting figures to look good in photographs (usually shown many times larger than the figure itself).
This is perhaps not surprising as very few companies out there are selling their figures to people who will make their decision whether to buy or not based upon looking at the figure itself in reality. No, in this internet age, we are shopping via photos on computer screens and probably looking at a pic that is 500 or even up to 1000 pixels high. The problem with this is that it's a totally different ballgame for a sculptor to make a figure that looks good under such circumstances and it's not uncommon to find that you get the figure and the figure that the sculptor has probably sacrificed his sanity and eyesight to sculpt is not an easy paintjob because it's so finely worked. Such figures are of course incredibly impressive and, as a sculptor, I am constantly blown away by such things but, as a painter, I still gravitate towards a bolder style of sculpture that looks good at 30 odd mm tall but might look a little clumsy/strange when blown up to five times it's actual size. I think the key there is not to show it quite so large. Zoomed in is one thing but there are limits (I try to make my mini pics on the small side but large enough to see the detail).
I do sometimes worry about how many sculptors are going to burn themselves out (or just strain their eyes beyond repair) to live up to the demands of detail and giant pictures. This pressure is there. I've ended up suddenly sculpting in a much more detailed style now and it does worry me a tad. My figures are being very well received but I'm very aware of just how much time I spend under an optivisor these days...
It's no secret that minis are becoming more detailed, scarily so in some cases. The point put to me and something that I have thought myself in a round about way in the past is that we're no longer sculpting for the person to see in reality and that we are now sculpting figures to look good in photographs (usually shown many times larger than the figure itself).
This is perhaps not surprising as very few companies out there are selling their figures to people who will make their decision whether to buy or not based upon looking at the figure itself in reality. No, in this internet age, we are shopping via photos on computer screens and probably looking at a pic that is 500 or even up to 1000 pixels high. The problem with this is that it's a totally different ballgame for a sculptor to make a figure that looks good under such circumstances and it's not uncommon to find that you get the figure and the figure that the sculptor has probably sacrificed his sanity and eyesight to sculpt is not an easy paintjob because it's so finely worked. Such figures are of course incredibly impressive and, as a sculptor, I am constantly blown away by such things but, as a painter, I still gravitate towards a bolder style of sculpture that looks good at 30 odd mm tall but might look a little clumsy/strange when blown up to five times it's actual size. I think the key there is not to show it quite so large. Zoomed in is one thing but there are limits (I try to make my mini pics on the small side but large enough to see the detail).
I do sometimes worry about how many sculptors are going to burn themselves out (or just strain their eyes beyond repair) to live up to the demands of detail and giant pictures. This pressure is there. I've ended up suddenly sculpting in a much more detailed style now and it does worry me a tad. My figures are being very well received but I'm very aware of just how much time I spend under an optivisor these days...
Thursday, 16 June 2011
A pack of rats... with spikes...
Spyglass Asylum is my fairly analytical stream of consciousness regarding the design and manufacture of minis from the point of view of someone inside the industry. Much of this is with regards to the design, sculpture and painting of the minis themselves.
Today, I'd like to introduce you to another blog I read: Spiky Rat Pack. This blog is the home of okkiW and izeColt, two insane hobbyists sharing said insanity with the world. I'm linking there because it's almost an opposite and counterpart to what I do here. I talk the creation of miniatures from my experience and analysis of the industry as I see it and the 'spikys' cover much of the same ground but from the perspective of someone not yet sucked right in to the industry and they do it with an enormous amount of enthusiasm (and there's talent to go with it).
I'm not going to share pics of their works here but instead will just offer you the link to go and check their stuff out. I'm watching their many crazy projects with interest and am greatly looking forward to seeing where it all ends up.
Just click below to enter their world...
Spiky Rat Pack
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