Welcome to Creative Questions. The podcast where we attempt to review various creative projects we ourselves are part of and, or other people’s unique creations in an attempt to celebrate the creative inspiration in all of us. I am Desiree Silver. Your host and owner of New Nerd Novelties and # Own Your Weird lifestyle brand. Including co-host Liam Hewlett.
Episode Transcript
Desiree: Welcome to Creative Questions. The podcast where we attempt to review various creative projects we ourselves are part of and, or other people’s unique creations in an attempt to celebrate the creative inspiration in all of us. I am Desiree Silver. Your host and owner of New Nerd Novelties and # Own Your Weird lifestyle brand.
Liam: And I’m Liam Hewlett. I am the co-host of this podcast that we’ve just now started after a considerable amount of technical difficulties, as one would expect.
Desiree: And today we’ll be introducing ourselves, our creative history, our creative endeavors, which we would like to do ourselves and that, which we follow one of which is not liking technology for me. So thanks you for joining me today, Liam, and for helping out with all those lovely technical issues, we’ll get a hang of it. Eventually. I know we will.
Liam: Back in my day, this entire process would have required an entire crew of people. This is considerably easier than when you would really expect nowadays.
Desiree: When I honestly thought of doing this, I thought it would be a heck of a lot more work. So a little bit of headache with technology. I’ll take it compared to what it used to be. So I just want to ask you where the idea came from for this podcast? Creative Questions.
Liam: Before we get into that, actually I would like to ask how you doing?
Desiree: Yes. We should always ask that, I guess, cause we’re going to see each other physically. Doing great. It’s the slow, last little drags of summer here in the West Coast looking forward to Fall.
Liam: And that would actually get us into a little bit we’re the West Coast of Canada, both of us are Canadian. While we don’t share a last name, Desiree is my sister. I’m personally just recovering from my week-long vacation after having returned to work. It’s not the work that I’m recovering from. It’s the vacation that takes the tole.
Desiree: It always does, especially when I have to drive five hours to go see you.
Liam: Yeah. So that’s how I’ve been doing. I’m recovering and as much as I’m loathed to admit it, glad to be working again. Just so I have some movement in my life, very sedate lifestyle that’s tied to most of my hobbies, which we’re going to be talking about right around here. So I’ll get back to you here.
Why Podcast
Liam: Your first question you asked me what got me thinking about making this podcast? Cause I was the one that suggested that we start this endeavor. It was really, I just wanted a place where I could talk about things that I enjoy and I have a lot of things that I enjoy and I like to talk about. And I actually really liked to hear other people’s stories as well. I like to just listen and so that’s why it’s a show based around asking people questions.
Desiree: And I like to talk. So to you, we both like to talk too. We like to celebrate different creative endeavors, but like to basically soak up any creative endeavors, we can get our hands on. And I think creativity is actually part of our blood. I don’t feel right in any day if I don’t do something creative myself.
Liam: Yeah. I’m more narrow-focused in that regard. I like to have a use for my creative works. And so if I have a goal or an excuse that I make for myself in order to do or create something, that’s generally how it works for me is I really do need my stuff to have a purpose. And this, at least for me, this would serve a purpose. And so I want to make it.
Desiree: And I think it’s good on my front too, is I want to promote the different things that I need, the different brands that I’m creating for myself. And this is a great idea. An example of sharing knowledge, I think, and appreciation for the creative arts, since everybody in our family does a different type of art. And yet we all come together and understand each other in the fact that we like to make. Make things, that’s it. We just love to make.
What Do We Make
Liam: Yes and so I guess we should talk about what it is that both of you and I make. Why don’t we start with you Desiree, what is it that you enjoy making the most currently? Cause there’s definitely been a history. Both of us have gone through many different mediums and art styles. But what is it that you’ve put the majority of your focus in over the last few years
Desiree: It’s been sewing. I didn’t expect that because growing up in the nineties, there weren’t really computerized sewing machines. There weren’t easy access to interesting fabrics or patterns here in Canada. The States, you guys have a great number of places and materials and opportunities when it comes to that than we do here. So everything was not cool. Quote unquote. As I got older, I was inspired by the alternative community where they always alter and change and elaborate on their current existing clothes. And I taught myself how to sew. YouTube came out. I used YouTube how tos and bought patterns and slowly learned over the last 10, 15 years how to sew for myself.
Liam: Yes and well you have, as I’ve said, gone through many different, fads, this is one that’s kind of stuck with you for the longest and that you definitely have the longest history of it as well. And it’s something that we’ve definitely been inspired with by our family as well. Like our mom used to make all of our Halloween costumes ever since we were little she’s, a very accomplished sewer herself she’s quite, um, quite the feat, actually, some of those costumes that she made for us while we were kids.
Desiree: Yeah, they were never, uh, not complicated. The kind of patterns my mom used to make for us were things with stuffed heads and stuffed tails. And if you know anything about West Coast weather, is it rains in October. So we used to have to drag them around, but we were so happy when we got to go pick out our patterns and fabric and become Sylvester or Tweety bird or a ninja turtle or a stegosaurus.
Liam: One year I was Batman and you were a bat woman and that was a
Desiree: Catwoman
Liam: Catwoman that’s right. Yeah. That’s your Catwoman
Desiree: Because that’s when Catwoman, Batman Returns came out. Man. We had a good time that year. So that Mom did inspire me because those kinds of costumes, you couldn’t even buy at that time. They were so unique and mum taught herself as well. So being able to see that she could do that. I thought, why can’t I, when I got older. Yeah.
Liam: And then the other kids of the schools that we went to certainly were, could be jealous because they were high quality costumes that nobody else had. There was, there was a lot of effort that was put into them.
Desiree: It’d have to be custom-tailored because nothing, nothing you could buy off the rack was anything close to that. That’s for sure. And we always got to pick out our own fabrics and our own patterns. And I remember going to that it was Fanny’s Fabrics to go and do that. And, uh, mum always had it right in time for Halloween. I’m not sure how she did, but she always did.
Liam: Yeah. Especially with running a daycare with six or seven other kids running around the house all at the same time
Desiree: All of our old, old costumes, those kids got to play with all year round because they lasted for 20 years. Cause they were done so well.
Liam: Yep. Much like our father, she made things to last and it still does.
Desiree: Definitely. So yeah, I mostly don’t just make things for myself. I make things for other people, mostly decor items, hand bags, accessories, and such, because you don’t have to have a specific size or shape. I’m hoping one day to learn how to make plus-size clothing for others, as well as myself. Cause it’s a very hard niche to get anything alternative in, but I’m definitely proud of myself, my, my business, New Nerd Novelties, where I list all of my different creations, all handmade by me. And then, I’m eventually moving towards having my own lifestyle brand called Own Your Weird, because we’re all a little bit weird. We’ve all been picked on for it. I don’t know anybody who went through high school who didn’t and I’m just really happy that I can embrace what I consider my weird and make things that other weird people like.
Liam: Yeah, that’s a, it’s a good, it’s a good thing to have. I like speaking of the alternative clothing that you have made, basically everything that you wear, you’ve tailored yourself.
Desiree: It’s kind of funny because I, if I walk out of their house with even my underwear on that’s something I made myself, but most days it’s two or three different items that I carry with me, my wallet, my purse, my underwear, and then usually a top or a bottom that I’ve either altered or created from scratch.
Liam: For sure. Yeah. You’ve even started altering your car as well. Which mom has kind of picked up on she runs around town with a skeleton hanging out in the back of her seat, backseat as she is want to do. Yeah.
Desiree: I got a sticker and I, whenever I go through McDonald’s they’re like, oh dude, backseat driver. Yeah. Yep. That’s my skeleton friend. So, Nope. I can’t take the HOV. I wish I could.
Liam: So on my part rather than creating as much, I do some creation, but most of it is in service to, uh I like to have uses for my things. I like to have multiple uses for the things that I do make nothing terribly practical and all of it, very niche because I like both tabletop war gaming and tabletop role-playing and the miniatures and terrain that are in my opinion, required to either enact those battles or facilitate the role-playing. Those are my primary focus when it comes to miniature painting and tabletop, scenery, construction, and stuff like that. That’s my specialty where I’ve put the most amount of my time and effort into. Though when I initially started, it was not something that I enjoyed. I just had a desire for the finished product.
Desiree: And you do it incredibly well. I know you originally started when you were 10 years old, wanting to play these tabletop games and you didn’t know how to paint and you wanted other people to help you paint your models. Cause you want to play more than you wanted to paint. And it’s, it’s really amazing to see the progression of not being able to paint at all to now you have an airbrush, you make eyes that have pupils. It’s crazy. Cause the size and the scale
Liam: An eye, without an eyelid is a very shocked eye.
Desiree: It is. And you have very big hands for such tiny little models. I’m not quite sure how you do it.
Liam: That’s one of the things I get asked most commonly is how do I avoid shaking? Like how do I avoid, um, like people always say that I’d never be able to do that. My handshake too much. I would just like spiral all over. And it’s just not something that you really. Uh, when you do start painting miniatures, it’s not even really something, that’s an issue. You learn just how to hold yourself and your miniatures in a way where that just doesn’t happen, unless you have some sort of actual disability, your hands are going to naturally be focused on putting paint to that miniature. Even when I first started out, that was never really an issue for me. So at that point, it was very much, I want, I need three colors on this miniture in order for them to be legally playable at the store. And so that’s what they had. It has come a long way from that, but I have kept a lot of, uh, that that’s one of the few things in my life where most of the time, if I’m not going to use something for a period of time, I’ll just get rid of it or give away. But for miniatures, I haven’t ever really gotten rid of any of it., I have still have stuff from back when I first started when I was nine years old. And, uh, just recently I painted a manager from the 19, from like 1996 or something like that. It’s a plastic Ork that I’ve was finally like, you know what, I’m going to paint that just for the novelty of it. And it looks goofy as hell, but I’m going to give it a good paint job and throw it at my D & D party. And they murdered it wholeheartedly. As they should.
Desiree: But it’s not just the fact that you’re painting these models as the type of creativity that you do. You, you are like the dungeon master of your D and D group and you are, and you are developing your own tabletop game slowly with its own lore. As well, aren’t you?
Liam: Yes. I have done a, an awful lot of writing for my DND setting. And that was mostly because I didn’t want to use one that was already made that I wasn’t familiar with and I didn’t want to become familiar with, honestly, I had this a D and D campaign that I am running and have been running for over a year now, as, is my first campaign. It’s the first time I’ve ever played D & D and I’m playing it as a dungeon master with a lot of other people that are that’s their first time playing the D &D as well. And, so I wanted to give them, uh, I wanted to give them a good experience. And I also wanted it to be something that I can join as well. And I just, I didn’t want to have to do decades worth of homework on a setting. I wasn’t even really terribly interested in, I just wanted to make my own. So I did, and I continue to flesh it out as we go.
Desiree: It does. I mean, it’s part of the lore of the D & D and using their settings or is it completely different?
Liam: It’s completely different. Yeah, it’s, it’s usually, it’s my own original setting that I’ve like thought of in bits and pieces throughout periods of time throughout my life. And if I see something interesting, I’ll often incorporate it as a character or as a theme or something like that. There is not a small amount of power Rangers in my D and D setting.
Desiree: You added Power Rangers?
Liam: Uh, well, i, I do it in a very indirect way but one of our party members if you were to ever listened to this-don’t. Party members doesn’t know about it, but that’s like, that’s one of the central themes of his character is to try to, summon Zodiac and get all the teenagers with attitude and one area, uh, he just hasn’t realized it yet.
Desiree: Oh, so he has minions and doesn’t know.
Liam: Well, he, he could eventually, but he could form the Megazord if he could just figure it out.
Desiree: Well, it’s, let’s hope he doesn’t hear this, even though we’re going to encourage them. Not that one. That’s the one thing you, spoiler alert. Spoiler alert.
Liam: Yeah. They wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. Yeah. I, I, I keep it. I do keep it very vague and I have, I have a lot of fun writing for that stuff. I like everything that you do, um, you have in order to improve at it, you have to just do it. And, um, so I certainly could have done better, especially in some of my earlier scenarios and settings for how I presented things to the guys. Uh, but you know, you just you’ll learn as you go.
Desiree: And if it bothers you, you can go back and rewrite it. Cause I know you, you do keep track and you have put up all of your campaigns online on your website.
Liam: I, yeah, I keep track of most of the lore and there have been, I try my, one of the things I want the most is consistency. So I, even though the guys might not remember like all of the characters they’ve met and like all of the gods I’ve said exist in this world and stuff like that, I try to keep it as consistent as possible. Cause they remember some of the strangest things and I don’t know what they’re going to fixate on sometimes. Uh, so I, I try to keep it as consistent as, as is possible. It was another thing that I found that I really enjoyed. I had an idea that I might, um, despite being as antisocial as I am, and it’s a very much a social game. But I, I do really quite enjoy it and I really just started it as an excuse. To paint, miniatures, uh, that I was happy with it. As long as it gave me a reason to paint some of the hundreds, if not thousands of unassembled, unpainted, miniatures, I have. Uh, and it’s done quite a good job at that. I’ve over the last year painted a lot of miniatures.
Desiree: I think you and I are the same and that way there’s a family resemblance of we’re going to do this anyway. How should we do this for it to be the most economical and best, you know, reason for doing this? Cause I’m going to, sew no matter what, it might be nice to sew, and actually sell it because I’m going to use all the materials anyway, and I’m going to make it anyway. And I like to make things, even that aren’t for me, like I would say I’m a goth, alternative, spooky type person. I, I sometimes make pastel things. I do not like pastels. It’s just one of those things where I wanted, I had a good idea. It came to me. I made it, I gave it to somebody or sold it to somebody who likes pastels.
Liam: Yep. I got you to make me a Ponita, a stained glass Ponita.
Desiree: Yeah. That was a Christmas present. I just asked you what your favorite Pokemon is. And of course it had to be the rainbow pony. So I painted it. I painted a frame with a glue and paint to look like a photo stained glass with sparkles and pastels, and I gave it to him and it lights up because I’m just that kind of big sister.
Liam: Yeah. I’m not a decorating kind of person. And the pretty much all of the decorations in my abode are done by either Desiree or my mom, the majority of which done by Desiree. And yeah, I, well, I do enjoy them. It’s not something I would have put effort into myself, but I appreciate having them.
Desiree: Man. It is pretty much your style. So one of these days we’ll get a YouTube video of that whole thing made it, made it, made it, made it. This is for this cause. Yeah. Yep. Almost. All
Liam: So the other things that I do as well, besides painting miniatures and writing for the D and D campaign is the terrain that I construct. And that’s one of the things that can seem daunting to a lot of people in my hobby, but is actually the, the easiest part about it. Uh, miniature painting. When you get down to it is a lot of painting by numbers. Sometimes you construct those numbers yourself, but even then you, uh when you finalize how a miniature is going to look, and then you start putting paint to the miniature you know, what its physical form is going to be by the time you put the brush to it’s kinda like a drawer would like make their, their baseline sketch and then they color it later, right? Like you’ve got the form for a terrain. A lot of it comes out. Of a fully formed out of just junk. You have lying around the house. And so quite a bit of people can kind of get intimidated by that, but I, I find it very freeing in that. Um, you can fuck up as much as you want on terrain and it doesn’t really matter. A bad rock is a bad rock. Can you just chuck it a bad tent you don’t use, right. You just rip up another t-shirt and crack open some bamboo skewers and try again until you get it looking good.
Desiree: I think terrain too, most people might not know is mostly recycled craft. And that’s something that moms got us into. And as we said before, she had a daycare, she always did all kinds of weird recycled crafts. You know, let’s make things out of pipe cleaners. Let’s make things out of Popsicle sticks and glue and glitter and whatever we can find in the backyard
Liam: it really gets you looking at things that are just lying around and being like, what can I turn that into?
Desiree: You used to use the grape vines mom would eat the grapes and then dry out the vines for you.
Liam: Yeah. Um, I’ve also used them as trees. I also use tea leaves from teabags. You dry them out, like rip open the teabags. You’ve got all these coarse leaves that you can use as foliage or sawdust. Uh, I use a lot of that for flock, things like that, you know, t-shirts which I have way too many of. Yeah, you have so many different uses for those.
Desiree: And the fact that dad drinks so much tea, and makes so much sawdust. We just,
Liam: yeah, I’ve, I’ve stopped collecting tea leaves. Well, uh, especially when I attach them to trees with hairspray, extra strength, hair spray.
Desiree: Some of your terrains are very, very complicated. My mom will use his discarded ones if he doesn’t want them anymore for her Halloween village, Christmas village, but for Halloween. Yeah. So he’s got like Hills and trees and pathways and just whatever he didn’t want to use anymore.
Liam: Yes. I don’t become overly attached besides to the miniatures. Cause I, told myself, I’m not gonna pass out the miniature, even if I don’t use them anymore, or I don’t like them or whatever, I’ll never get rid of a miniature, but, the terrian, I have no such vow. So if I’m not going to be using it, if I like, if it served its purpose it’s and it’s wasting space, I will get rid of it.
Desiree: Well, it’s mostly made of garbage anyway, so it’s kinda cool.
Liam: I can just make it again. Most of the time it only took a day or two. So like if I have something in my head I want to make, I can make it. It doesn’t require that much in the way of a commitment. Whereas some of these miniatures, they can be a considerable commitment, both in time and money
Desiree: and quite a lot of work to repaint them too, with the different layers of paint you might have to strip, but compared to like the foliage, nothing much. Do you find that you don’t like repeating doing the same thing over and over again, or you don’t care if it’s for a purpose?
Liam: If it’s for a purpose. I have a very high tolerance to repetition. There have been some armies that I’ve had where for example, I had an undead army back when I played Warhammer fantasy. And I was like, all these people are running around with vampires and dragons. I like zombies. And I like, uh, skeleton skeletons are really cool. Zombies and skeletons are really bad and there’s, uh, they only make up for their lack of quality with quantity. And so I have at one point in time painted 40 skeletons in a day, or, uh, at, at one point I had 160 zombies in the army and that was just like, just going for it.
Desiree: And each of them were kind of unique. He liked to use random body parts for zombies too. I remember that
Liam: They were, yeah, I very much, I had one zombie that was just a head in a bucket.
Desiree: So do we want to do the full hour then?
Liam: I’d like to try.
Desiree: Okay. We can try.
Creativity Definition
Liam: Yeah. Uh, so if you wanted to we could always look at your question.
Desiree: Yeah. So let’s see. I was thinking about this one. So what was your definition of creativity be?
Liam: Uh, okay. So my definition of creativity would be pretty loose, right?
For me, as long as you are, um, like I think creativity doesn’t even necessarily mean that you need to be making something. I think creativity can be just displayed in a lot of different ways, but as long as there’s some sort of permanance to whatever it is that you are doing even if it’s just like a recording of it, uh, whether it be like pictures or videos or something like that.
That’s my, um, my line is like you are making something or expressing yourself in a way that can be expressed to others.
Desiree: I would agree. And like for myself, probably expand on that a bit because a lot of people would think creativity is just fine art, painting, graphic art, making comics, you know, like that kind of thing.
But I say painting miniatures, creating miniatures, sewing, quilting, doing things like art and dance and singing, musicians, all of that. Every single time, everything that you do that expresses, I guess, feeling, or, or emotion, or even if you’re just doing fan arts or something that’s derivative. As long as, as you are thinking about it in a way of creating something, like you said, either recorded or pictures.
Liam: Yeah, something that can be shared with other people.
Desiree: Yeah. Because even foods creative, but you eat it and it’s gone
Liam: Yeah. And I was thinking like, um, like fireworks, you can’t argue that a firework display or a firework itself is not creative. That requires actually a great deal of creativity and ingenuity to do with some of the firework shows that are displayed, but they are not permanent.
Like there’s no permeance to that. Right. It’s just the memories that you have of the display or any recordings that are involved in it. But there’s no argument in my part that that is a creative endeavor. Right. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that is, that has a product or is produced, but it does, I think, have to be something that can be shared with other people.
Liam: Yeah. I agree. I think even like, I don’t know, uh, I guess dancing. And just because you can be recorded or anything, basically writing it’s all just recorded in different ways, but definitely all creativity, in my opinion, I wish I could do it all, but there’s only certain types I can do myself. And that leads to the next question.
Desiree: I know. Which ones do you prefer to do? What type of creative outlets?
Creative Outlet Types
Liam: Uh, yeah, for my, my creative outlets are generally there. Like I said, they, the things that serve a purpose. Right. So, um, It very much to me, it has to be in service to something. And so that doesn’t always have to be the same thing. Like for me at the moment, it’s a miniatures terrain making and writing, but that was because like the writing came from the necessity of the campaign, right.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the campaign in my opinion needs to have a, well-written a story and characters, then I wouldn’t have done it. It’s the same with the website that I’ve worked on, which is another creative endeavor that is in service to the campaign. It’s only a benefit to the campaign that we have a website where the guys can look for their magic items or see maps of places that they’ve been and things like that.
Desiree: And then this as also a creative endeavor what would be the purpose for this, do you think?
Liam: This was another excuse to get me to create stuff it was what it was. Right. Because without the excuse of creating things, I won’t. I will just absorb. I’m like a media sponge.
Right? I’ll I’ll. Uh, listen, I’ll read and I’ll play a hell of a lot of video games and then I’ll spend that’s the entirety of my time on it. So I I’m giving myself an excuse to create things. And that’s what this is for. It’s a, it’s a nice excuse to make something.
Desiree: And it gives back to the community that you obviously absorbed.
Cause we all do. It’s just nice to have something to give back as well. Even if it’s something as simple as a podcast.
LIam: I enjoy podcasts. I like, I like listening to them. Right. Like I said, I absorbed a lot of the stuff like that. And I like to listen to other people’s stories. So if I can use this as an excuse to listen to like what you’ve been up to or what in the future, any of our friends or guests that we bring on might be up to in their projects or creative endeavors, it gives me a platform to do that.
Uh, so yeah, it also gives me an excuse to touch base with you. We don’t get a chance to talk all that often. I’m not sure without a structured excuse. I’m not a phone person.
Desiree: Uh, even my mother doesn’t call me for my birthday. She texts me. So really I sometimes technology is a good thing. And sometimes I don’t know,
Liam: I got reprimanded when I was living alone for not calling, often enough because I would just get in my own little zone and after a month or so dad would call and be like, you need to talk to mom.
Desiree: Are you alive? Hello? Yes, I’m alive. You didn’t get told I was dead. Hello.
Um, my creative endeavors that I like to do are basically the sewing. , I’m currently working on this podcast with you so I can generate more interest for all of the different things. We’ll be plugging here, obviously. I want to do my lifestyle brand, which I’ve just decided, is going to be Own Your Weird, which is something that was inspired by actually Margot Robbie’s line in the Suicide Squad movie, where she goes, “own that shit”, when they were talking about how, you know, they’re kind of evil, they’re the bad guys.
And she goes, “own that shit”. And it just kind of spoke to me. It’s not just your good things that you need to embrace and, and utilize and, and continue on to like celebrate, but your bad things too. So the, the weird is the stuff that everybody picked on you for, but you like anyway, and I just want to create stuff and help other people feel good about themselves in knowing that as it doesn’t harm anybody Own that Weird, that’s your weird celebrate it.
So that’s what I’m working on now is the website. And soon I’m hoping to do a web comic that was actually inspired by you. Cause I know you like to read a heck of a lot of web comments too.
Liam: I’ve gotten into a habit of reading. Some web comics I’ve read for over a decade. Well, over a decade at this point, because I started reading while I was a teenager.
Desiree: Podcasts, probably just as long too don’t you.
Liam: Some of them. Yeah, I think so. More in and out. Cause I consume media at such a rapid pace that I run out and then, uh, I have to wait for them to come out again.
Desiree: Well, I definitely wouldn’t be able to keep up with you, but I had an idea for a web comic called Witches of Wizdom because I was thinking about that duality of everybody who has got the kind of dark side and the kind of light side, I don’t want to say they’re both good and evil.
They just are. And so these two, witches one, that’s obviously the goth alternative, dark, which supposedly, and the unicorn puppies and rainbows, witch, and how they juxtapose against each other. I also was thinking of making a tarot deck cause I, I read tarot and it would be more like a blessings or a goddess deck.
And it would be like you pick one good and one bad thing, and then how that relates to your life. And it would be more like the demotivtional posters versus the motivational posters. You know what I mean? So that you just kind of get, I’ve noticed a lot of people doing a lot of motivational things, and I liked the idea of helping people like themselves.
Just a little bit more accept themselves for who they are, because everybody needs to love themselves or at least accept who they are.
Liam: Well, and talking about owning your weird what my like personal philosophy definitely ends, uh, like edges more towards the, like, if you’re going to be something, be it confidently, right.
If you’re going to be an asshole. Be an asshole and become, just be just commit to the bit, right? Like if you’re going to be something, just be that thing.
Desiree: Yeah. And it’s okay if you, if you choose to be an asshole, I mean, I prefer you didn’t
Liam: Be confident in that, but know what you’re doing. Right. Like make it a conscious choice.
That’s always, my thing is like, as long as you know, you’re doing it and you are confident that that was your choice than any repercussions that come from that, and there are repercussions for being an asshole, uh, then you just have to recognize that that was a part of your choice. Right. You made that choice.
Like you made your bed nicely, but yeah.
Desiree: Lean into it. It doesn’t mean that you don’t get to change if you want to change later, but
Be confident in it. Right? Like make the decision don’t fall into it. Decide to do it.
I do believe in the whole like, you, you can do things half-assed though.
Um, you can do things whole ass. You know, full, or you could do things half-assed but when it comes to who you are, there is no half-ass.
Liam: Yeah.
Desiree: That’s, that’s just who you are. And you know, there are things you can, you can fix and, or work on. Cause nobody’s perfect. Believe me I’d have never met a perfect person if I did.
I probably wouldn’t like them.
Liam: Right.
Desiree: Yeah. Because nobody’s perfect. And so I just want people to work on being the authentically them, if you know what I mean.
Liam: Yeah. I can’t stand fake people. Uh, and I, I really don’t like when people say what they don’t mean, I much prefer if you’re, if you’re going to lie to my face, just tell me that you don’t like tell me the truth that you think is going to hurt me.
Future Guests
Uh, especially as I get older and I become more of a grumpy old man and I doubled down on that , I’m enjoying, leaning into that. So one of the things I actually wouldn’t mind asking is for the future of this podcast, if we had other people and we do have quite a bit of creative friends and family, who do you think you would want to have onto the show and what you will want?
Uh, what do you think you would want them to talk about?
Desiree: So I would definitely have my husband Doron because he’s a writer. So he would probably be one of the very first, simply because he’s accessible and he loves to write, he loves to create worlds. He’s the type of person who would, you know, um, play Sims and create this entire thing.
In fact, he was using Sims to start to lay out his new book that he was writing.
Liam: I fell into it. It was his default mode.
Desiree: It was his like, rewritten his book several times trying to figure out exactly the flavor he wanted to do. because they originally started doing horror stuff. But you know, when you’re happy, he doesn’t write horror because he’s happy.
So it doesn’t work out. We’re happy. So he’s thinking more of a different genre and he’s very into Egyptian religions. So, and Egypt typed a based theme as well as much other things. And I’m sure, definitely correct me and will when we get on here. He loves to talk about the things that he is very passionate about and Egyptology and writing are two of them.
So he’d be a great one because he is autistic. So in a lot of ways, he deep dives on anything. He likes, it’s a deep dive. He knows everything that anyone will ever need to know. Uh, he still remembers all the dinosaurs because he loved those when he was a kid and he still keeps up on all the new ones.
Like there are quite interesting things to learn from my husband origins. He will definitely be on the show at some point. And I have a lot of overachieving friends I say that in the most positive, loving blessing way possible that Teela Hudak one of my friends that I’ve had since I was 16. And I’m not going to tell you how many years ago that was.
And she basically what we like to say, empire wants to take over the world and has three or four different businesses. She has a degree in psychology and she wrote a book called Got Consent, which is all about consent it’s origins, history, and why it’s important. And so she goes to the taboo sex show every year because she wants to teach people how to talk about sex and all, everything around it when it comes to consent and safety and how to talk to your kids about it.
And that’s just one of the many businesses. .
Liam: And also every machine that could possibly be used to make or create something that’s ever been.
Desiree: She’s got a website where you could put all the different Goth, connections and businesses together, as well as she runs Descent, which is a Gothic night digitally now she’s a DJ.
She has every single yes. If you can think of a tool, she’s got it. She just bought herself a bookbinding machine so she can sell, cut, print her own books for sale, because it’s just cheaper than doing it any other way. She’s got a 3d printer and a CNC machine. If you know what those are, you can make just about anything.
She makes penis candles and her own specialty toys for adults. She has her own website. It’s, it’s really exciting.
Liam: Yeah, just altogether the female version of the world’s most interesting woman.
Desiree: Yeah. If I could get her to run the world, I probably would. She wouldn’t sweat too much. And she, she, she creates so many different things as well as websites, digital things, as well as physical things.
So if we just pick one, we’d have to give her one subject to tell her she can’t go off..
Liam: If we have Teela on it, we’ll have, we’ll have to have a subject. Most likely I would imagine her book to start off with, but yeah, it would be something that we would want to narrow it down. Cause she’s just got too much expertise and everything.
Desiree: Yeah, of course, about kink, I believe as well as, uh, sexuality and, and talking to your kids about sex as well. So two different courses that she can actually get people to opt into too. So it’ll be really interesting.
Liam: We love Teela. She is great.
Desiree: Yeah. And then there’s mom who literally
Liam: I would love to have mom on the show at some point, if we could nail her down as
English is a second language.
So she’s always scared, but at least she doesn’t have to look at anybody while doing this. So talking to nothings a little bit nicer than
Liam: the real, the real challenge will be there to get her to sit down and not be puttering around doing something. Cause she’s always got some.
Desiree: Yeah, she’s the one that taught us, I think, to be creative, not just, you know, dad’s woodworking, but because it’s not really accessible to a little kid as much moms recycled crafts are, and she did sewing and she still does decor.
She loves decor, especially Halloween and Christmas, particularly Halloween lately. Uh, the other year, she decided to make a ginormous cannon that her fog machine would go through because we were having a pirate themed halloween party every year is something different.
Liam: Currently she’s busy constructing a giant spider for the front of the house.
That’s her new project. Um, yeah. Well one of these days we’ll definitely have to get mom on to the podcast and also show some of her Halloween decorations throughout the years. She’s a, she’s a decorator and a collector. That’s her passion.
Desiree: Dad does woodworking, he likes to recreate things or make things, uh, that are suggested by other people.
For sure. I look forward to collaborating with him on all kinds of things. The bunk bed we grew up on was a Mickey and Minnie mouse that my dad made with hand tools mostly instead of actual plugin tools. Cause he didn’t have any. So he made those by hand for us and that lasted until it’s still going.
We gave it to somebody’s kids. Yeah. And I’m 36, so that’s a long time for a bunk bed.
Fandoms
Liam: What fandoms do you think? Like what, um, what besides, cause I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts, right. So I like to hear people talk about what they’re interested in and that’s one of the things I got me to encourage you to like, encourage us to get together and start talking about the stuff that we enjoy.
What are some of the things that you enjoy, like on a daily or weekly basis? Like what are some of the things that inspire you?
Desiree: There are so many, we could probably talk for hours about it. I’d like to see a bitrekkual because I love Star Wars and Star Trek. I am, I was the generation where episode one came out in the theaters and I watched that thing six times over the summer.
You can say what you want about it now, but man, did I love it then. And all my friends did too. We’re big nerds.
Liam: Alot that stuff that you like, you do enjoy especially star wars lately. That a lot of that does come out in your works. Like you have a lot of stuff that is Star Wars pattern or Star Trek or the other ones that you’ll probably be mentioning it.
Desiree: Yeah. Thankfully a lot of the different nerdoms that I follow is taken over by Disney. So it’s everywhere. Disney’s really great for that. So there’s actually fabric patterns and printed fabrics of almost every business Disney license thing, which I liked Disney originally too. My brother and I went to watch quite a few Disney movies when we were kids.
I remember seeing Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid in the theaters. So I’m, I’m a fan of the villains for sure, from Disney and some of their new stuff. I love Star Wars. I love the original Star Trek and some of their newest items like the Mandalorian and some of Star Trek’s newest items like Lower Decks, which is a cartoon series, which I did not expect to like at all, but somehow.
I don’t know, it’s snuck in there. I also, I’m a what we’ve considered Goth Alternatives. So, you know, Nightmare Before Christmas, Tim Burton.
Liam: Yeah. And we did definitely see the Nightmare Before Christmas.
Desiree: And we did, my parents were scared because we’re a bunch of chickens and we’re scared that we would be scared of it.
Cause they sillily took us to Jurassic Park and we were scared.
Liam: Well, they, yeah, they took us to Jurassic Park and I was maybe four at the time
Desiree: and I was seven.
Liam: It did not go well. We were, we were traumatized by that, here to that movie. But you watch it.
Desiree: I can’t,no zombies or dinosaurs for Dez Liam got over it.
But, uh, yeah, we like, I like some horror movies cause my, my husband and our best friend Teela, they’re obsessed with Halloween and horror movies, but I’m scared of zombies. I’m scared of like spirit type movies
Liam: But do you incorporate any of it in your, yeah, I do have some of that aesthetic.
Desiree: They’re cool. But I, they scare me and I have night terrors.
Right.
Liam: So you don’t watch anything with them, but you can make stuff that’s like based in their aesthetics.
Desiree: Yeah, for sure. I watch, I love Shawn of the Dead. Uh, there are a couple of army of darkness. You know, the funny zombies, not the serious, I’m going to chase you like a ninja zombies, no ninja zombies.
Even like resident evil, which are mostly regulars I like Tim Burton movies, like Edward Scissorhands and any of the greats, like Beetlejuice. His newest stuff wasn’t quite as good, but a Red Dwarf, our family shares this dark humor of British, British dark humor.
We all like Red Dwarf and Black Adder.
Liam: Yes both our parents are veterans. So that, that dark humor does like we were raised up around it and that’s just our brand of humor. Um, especially sarcastic. Blackadder and just any British comedy in general is very snappy.
And, uh, I certainly,
Desiree: I sure like the supernatural type shows too, like Supernatural, Angel, Buffy, anything, girl power from the nineties. Cause I was very girl power the nineties because there wasn’t really an alternative. Now I’m more like, you know, all power, but in those days it was one of the other you know, patriarchy or girl power.
I picked girl power. So I prefer all those things, but I like even the, the stuff that I make is kind of ironic. I like to put a dark spin on things sometimes.
Liam: And the older I get, the more I appreciate camp. Right. As I love camp. Yeah. As I, as I get older, the more I appreciate it. Right. I did not like Batman forever and Batman, Robin when they came out, that was not the Batman I was looking for.
Especially not after Batman returns. Man. I really, I started appreciating it more and more as I get older, especially Batman and Robin. I fucking, I love how cheesy that movie is.
Desiree: It’s only when we go back. And we watched the original Batman and tights, my favorite sixties show, and then you’d go back and you go, that’s what they were trying to do, especially Batman Forever, but not entirely until you got to Batman and Robin
Liam:It was the wrong time for them to attempt that on the screen. I was choice on their part.
Desiree: I mean, name camp that people get right now. They don’t really get camp. Not really. I was thinking some of the horror movies have camp like Tucker and Dale The Cabin in the Woods. Shawn of the Dead is camp.
Liam: It was parody.
So for the future of this podcasts but specifically for like the next week or two, what do you have, like going on your plate while you working on projects?
Desiree: So right now, I’m obviously working on the website, working on the podcasts taking pictures of everything I own because I’m trying to post everything on Poshmark so I can sell it move, but I just started a little SAM decoration as in Sam Hain from Trick-Or-Treat.
He’s my favorite horror icon. He’s the little guy that’s got a pumpkin head and wears pajamas and then has a little scarcrow mask on. And he goes around punishing people who don’t celebrate Halloween properly. He has a couple of rules and he’s just going to be a little stuffed animal ornament.
You can put on tree or out decorations. My trees are up all year round. My trees aren’t for Christmas. My trees are for Halloween, Christmas, whatever theme I want to put out. I guess that’s just part of being pagan. I have trees everywhere, so Sam will go on the trees and I’ll be selling him too along with a bunch of other like Halloween trees that I have that are miniature and stuffed. And little Gothic stockings. These are just things I like to make because I can. Mom inspired me cause she’s making a giant Sam for the decorations outside for Christmas this year. So I’m going to make mini ones.
Liam: Well, for, for Halloween, I believe for Halloween big Halloween party. Yeah. Yeah.
Desiree: Sorry, Halloween and Christmas run together for me because it’s kind of like Nightmare Before Christmas starts Halloween. Then you put the stuff that’s got skulls kind of a way and bring out the Christmas Krampus things.
Liam: So one of the things I actually forgot to mention, um, that I like one of the few things I actually did do hobby-wise over the last, like two weeks.
Cause I’ve just been like, uh, my head buried in Final Fantasy 14. I did actually pull myself out to get enough air to make something that I had wanted to make for quite some time, for D and D. And that is, basically a tree top village, or at least the modular components. So I could represent one.
I always liked that sort of aesthetic of having a tree Fort and having, you know, enemies inside them, whether they be Elves or Ewoks or what the hell ever. It’s a common fantasy trope to have, you know, stuff in the trees. And I didn’t really have a good way to represent that so I mostly with Popsicle sticks and bamboo skewers. I put together a bunch of like ladders and scaffolding and stuff like that, so that I can assemble it in many different ways and use it in many different situations. Like I can put it in the trees, but I could also put in caves and stuff like that.
That’s what I was actually doing over the last like week or two in that I put a few hours into it as as I managed to draw myself away from video games. I’ve actually got pictures of that. I could share that here for you. I’ve made a post on my website. That’s going to be related to the podcast.
So if anybody that is listening to the podcast wanted to actually see what I’m talking about. There’ll be able to look at that. I’ll give you the link to it and you can see it on my website.
Desiree: Yeah, we’ll be posting this on my YouTube channel once I’ve done the cleanup of it. And we’ll definitely post links to your website and to my social media accounts, as my website’s not up yet, just in case you want to follow any of the new stuff that we’re talking about.
Liam: So that’s what I did over the last like week or so, but that’s really the, in my opinion, the bare minimum I could do for the campaign, I’ve been up in my opinion, I’ve been.
Less than stellar DM, just because I’ve been putting so much time. Why, when I play MMOs, I just, that’s all I do until I get tired of it. And then I stopped cold Turkey. So I was proud that I actually managed to at least do that much. I painted three miniatures and I made something that I wanted to make for some time.
But going into this next session, that’s generally how I measure my crafting like, what do I need to get done before the next DMV session? And there’s always more that I should do that I just don’t manage to get to right. Like working on the website or taking pictures or writing up recaps and stuff like that.
So my goals for like the next time we meet for D and D is they have a, the potential to meet a group of enemies that they have. Sort of skirted the edges of before. And so I kind of want them to have miniatures to fight that represent those groups of enemies that they’ve run across, but not actually fought yet.
So that’s going to be my goal coming up.
Desiree: And, I think that that’s the creators I guess curse, there’s always more on your to-do list than what you can do, but it’s not just creators. I mean, just in general, everybody’s got more on their to-do lists that they can do, except for maybe mom. I don’t know anybody else could finish everything on or to do list.
Liam: Well as a hardcore procrastinator.
I have to have like a, a massive list that I can not finish. And then I get 90% of it done and it’s more than pretty much anybody else would be able to accomplish if they’d hadn’t had that. Like, yeah, that’s the, one of the things I do pride myself on is efficiency. And I can get, when I’m in a time crunch, I can get a lot of stuff done in a very short amount of time.
Desiree: That is not one of my gifts. I have to plug along like Eeyore, and slowly do things like Baymax. I am not fast, not in any way, shape or form.
Liam: Great. And that is one of the things that creators create differently. Right. Have different mindsets about their projects. They have different work ethics as well as just like energy levels or tolerances for whatever it is that they’re doing.
And you just have to kind of know your own limits, right? Like I wouldn’t be able to do that all the time, but if I have like a deadline and a purpose, like I once painted an assemble, the full army, I assembled it in a month. Then I painted it in the other month. And it was somewhere along the lines of 120 minutes years.
Not all of them small. And that’s because I had a tournament that I wanted that army to be ready for in two months. And so I literally. Every day after work. That’s all I did. I spent 100% of my free time assembling and painting miniatures for two months. Then when I was done, I was like, all right, cool.
Didn’t touch miniatures for like three months afterwards.
Desiree: You’re like, you’re the exact opposite of me. I like to have like four or five projects on the go. So like, if I get tired of one or if I run into a wall or if I just don’t feel well enough for one, I can go to a different one. So there’s always something, but they’re all at various stages of disarray because they’re not finished.
Liam: Right. And then when they are, I have no project whatsoever and I’m totally fine with it. Right. And when I have a project, I can get it done until I’m done. And then now I don’t do like anything else, except for like stuff I can do at the same time, like listening or watching something or whatever. Yeah.
Desiree: The last four days I’ve been doing this kind of stuff, tech stuff, website stuff, nothing physical with my hands for creating. And I’m like, I couldn’t sleep last night one I was anxious about this, because, well, I’m talking to my brother. It’s not a big deal, but it’s still talking for an hour. Look at me, I’m losing my voice.
Right, right.
Liam: And we’ve managed it. Right.
Desiree: We have. Yeah, for sure. And it’s different. It’s something new. But at the same time, I hadn’t created for four days. So my body was like, you’re going to sit here and think about things you should be doing rather than what you are doing.
Liam: Well, this is one of the things that you should have been doing and you have done it.
And I have, yes, I have.
Well, this is , I’d say a good place to wrap up. So for the pilot episode of Creative Questions where can we find you Dez?
Desiree: So for the pilot episode of Creative Questions, we’re going to be on YouTube. I will definitely post it under New Nerd Novelties. My YouTube,
I’ll definitely add links for Liam’s website, as well as my social media sites.
Liam: You send it to me, I’ll be putting it on my website as well as well.
Desiree: Okay. And then for sure, once my website is up and running, because I do have a space for New Nerd Novelties, it will be on there as well, hopefully by the end of the week, So thanks so much for joining me and for thinking of this idea and poking me until we got the systems working.
Hopefully it works out great.
Liam Yeah. And we’ll meet again in a week’s time. I think I’d like to talk about next week would probably be mediums, like the materials that we actually work with. Maybe a little bit more of the, the nitty gritty of learning to use the mediums that we have.
We do use the stuff that’s been challenges for us or has been surprisingly easy, things that we kind of bounced off of or things that we want to go to maybe return to in the future at some point.
Desiree: Sounds like a great idea for sure. I’ll think about it. We’ll get some questions going on for next.
Liam: Yeah. All right. So I’ve been Liam Hewlett, your secondary host here at Creative Questions
Desiree: And I’m Desiree Silver. We’re the brother, sister pair bringing you Creative Questions. Have yourself a great day.
All right. Thanks for listening.