Creative Questions: Episode 4

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. All of us, I am Desiree Silver, your host and owner of New Nerd Novelties and #OwnYourWeird lifestyle brand.

Liam: And I’m your co-host Liam Hewlett back again to discuss this week. Our topic would be mentality and our inspirations,

Desiree: Awesome.

Liam: Yeah. Before we get to that though. What’ve, you’ve been up to this week, Sis?

Desiree: Well, actually, we were supposed to ask how we’re doing first. So how are you

Liam: Yeah. There’s that,

Uh, getting by. I slept through most of yesterday.  So yeah, getting by as a standard for myself.

Desiree: Yeah. This week was supposed to be hell week for me, which is kind of where all of my different side effects and conditions kind of flare up for one week, every eight weeks. And it was actually more of what Dori I referred to a, a low week as in lower gear. So it was better than my previous hell weeks due to some changes in medications.

So I’m happy about that, but I still didn’t, you know, do much to report, but I will definitely tell you what soon.  But I’ll let you start. Cause it looks like you got a lot of cool stuff started this week.

Liam: Yeah.  I actually, I started a project on Monday and I’ve got the campaign for D and D they’re going into winter. That’s what the whole last session was about. Was them like preparing people for winter and  making sure the area doesn’t starve or wind up not having proper winter preparations. So now that the campaign is fully in winter, I wanted some terrain to represent that cause I could fudge it with the stuff that I currently have, but it wouldn’t really be adequate for my needs.

So instead I decided to make some bare trees, which would also help for spooky terrain. That’s what I’ve kind of called them. There’s spooky trees. We’re going into Halloween. We’re going into winter for the campaign. I wanted to have a tile set that could be able to make a spooky forest, especially for areas that guys are going into it.

It’s relevant, whether or not it be, winter or just barren. So I started making some trees. And like I said, I started that on Monday and I finished it this morning before I took the pictures that I’ve put in link dump. And I’m quite happy with how they turned out. I’ve been pretty lazy when it comes to my tree manufacturing for my terrain, because there’s a lot of very adequate or even good trees that you can get with very low effort.

You don’t have to make every single individual tree by hand. So when I first started my hobby, in my Warhammer days, I got a large amount of magnetised trees and tree bases sent to me from another hobbyist. I bought it and he was making them by the batch load, sending them out from the east coast.

And so I just bought a ton of them because I, at the time, wasn’t confident in my ability to make my own trees or to magnetize them or anything like that. And those have been. Solid workhorses for the majority of my hobby. I use them all the time. And so I haven’t had to make too many of my own trees except for diorama’s or other specific things.

I’ve done some of it, but never put a whole bunch of effort into it. So, this was the first time where I sat down. I’m like, I’m just going to make some trees and I’m not going to have to worry about the leaves. Right. And like that, I’m just going to have to make them spooky

Desiree: So it looks like you. What materials did you use? Cause I’m not really following. What types of materials did you use in it?

Liam: Yeah, I’ve got some of the in progress shots there in the link dump.  I used wire that was held together with aluminum foil. And then with, from like wrapping it with the aluminum foil and bending it into place, putting it into pink polystyrene as a base, which pink polystyrene is like your, you use that for practically everything in terrain making, because it’s so easy to manipulate.

Like the only downside of it is it doesn’t spray well, so you can’t use spray paint because it melts, but other than that, you can stick things in it, cut it up real easily.  Move it around and interact with it in a super like you can sand it and you can give a texture. It’s a very easy material to use.

So I assembled these trees basically by taking eight or nine separate cuts of wire.  Wrapping it, like you’re wrapping like a bacon wrapped asparagus or something like that.  Literally just wrapping it with tinfoil and then starting to bend it so that they would have roots on the bottom and then branches in the top.

And then I would take more aluminum foil and wrap it around all of the individual branches, put it into the pink polystyrene. And then once it was like in a position that I would want, I use dry wall mud in order to solidify it rather than like glue. I use drywall mud to cover it. Like I applied it with a Popsicle stick that’s what my experience with drywall mud.

It’s great for terrain, like to solidify it even better than some glue, it just takes like 24 hours to dry. And it has some of its own limitations, but I knew it would fit my needs in this case.

Desiree: It did well with the styrofoam?

Liam: Yeah, you don’t have to worry about, it’s not caustic in any way.  Yeah, it actually does a good job at behaving.

Like the polystyrene in that you can sand it, you can chisel away at it. You can manipulate it. Like you can manipulate it after it’s been set because it’s a soft material. So like the only downside of that is it means that if it’s a construction of like wire tinfoil and drywall mud, I couldn’t dry brush this project because if I did it with just start flicking drywall pieces off of it.

So that’s the only thing I couldn’t do. And instead what I did is I use the airbrush.  Now that I’ve got it, like, I can’t use a spray can on the polystyrene, but I can use the airbrush, no problem. And I think it turned out quite well. That was like, I airbrushed it yesterday. Let it dry. And then today, all I did was do the base and like add some flock to it and stuff like that.

Desiree: So the airbrush doesn’t blow chunksoff it as it is not as strong.

Liam: No, the, well, the reason why spray paint and pink polystyrene don’t interact well is because the spray paint will actually make. The polystyrene, there’s some caustic agent in it. Like you can get sprays that are specifically made like hobby sprays that won’t do that to the pink polystyrene, but the most common ones, especially the ones you buy in the hardware store, hardware store will melt styrofoam.

So with the airbrush, you’re just using regular paint. There’s nothing caustic about it. You don’t have to worry

Desiree: It’s the same model paint that you use for everything

Liam: Yeah.

Desiree: Yes. Nice.

Liam: Yeah, I had to do all the shading with the airbrush rather than with dry brushing. There was very little dry brushing that I did on this project, which is in terrain making that’s your go-to of a dry brushing, which is when you have very little paint on your brush and then just rubbing it across the raised surfaces. That’s the easiest way to do terrain is rather than focusing on a painting, a whole lot of detail. What you do is you give your terrain a lot of texture and then the dry brush will make it look like it’s got a lot of detail.

So I’ve done that sheet in practically every piece of terrain that I make. But especially when it comes to like rocks or rough terrain is you just scrape up a smooth surface to give it as much texture as possible. And then one base coat of some darker tint, and then several dry brushes. And it requires very little effort in the way to get what looks like a great deal amount of detail on a terrain piece.

But I was happy with this project and how little time it took me. And it was exact, it turned out exactly how I wanted it to, um, yeah, I got tired partway through. That’s why I only made like five trees on two bases I could made considerably more, but it was about five to six hours of assembling aluminum trees before I got bored of it.

Desiree: Well, it’s about an hour a tree, so I see why that’s a bit much.

Liam: Yeah. I was doing it all before I had to go to work too. So I was like, yeah.

Desiree: Yeah, that’s fair. I mean when do your guys going to be using it so you can add more later. I’m guessing

Liam: Oh, yeah, I can definitely add more, most likely in the upcoming week, I’ll do something rather than trees because these are barren trees that I’m using, but if it’s an evergreen forest, they would have needles. Right. So I thought about making my own, but the way that I would do that would be a similar function to how I made these.

And I think it would just be too much effort, especially with, uh, Christmas coming. There are always a lot of miniature trees for holiday decorations that are perfectly suitable to my needs. So I can just buy a bag of those and save us a whole bunch of time.

Desiree: Yeah. And

Liam: Need to make every single tree.

Desiree: They won’t be too expensive compared to the one hour tree effort you’re already working on.

Liam: Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn’t be able to find satisfactory spooky trees, especially not for the price that I made these things.

Yeah there are kits that games workshop, or even like places like Michael’s would make for their Halloween towns, but they would be prohibitively expensive for such a small project. So I wouldn’t do that, but if I’m going to buy like a forest worth of snow-covered pine trees, it doesn’t matter to me if it’s just a green brush with some flock on it.

Desiree: Yeah, that wouldn’t be too hard to make a green tree, take a green tree, make it snowy.

Liam: Yeah.

Desiree: So that’s what you made this week.  Was there anything else, like talk about, do you did this week?

Liam: Uh, no, I was pretty happy about this project because I was like, I want to get something done this week. And I had by Monday I hadn’t done anything.

Desiree: Yeah, I feel the same this week anyway. I really want to do something, but this is hell week. So I tried togive myself the time to rest and my husband’s been having migraines. So I don’t really want to like turn on the lights on, in the house and do something with lots of light and lots of noise. So I was like, Hmm, what can I do that I can do while sitting here on the couch, basically almost in the dark doing nothing.

Hm. Ah chainmail. Cause we talked about it last week. I’m like, you know what? I’ve still got rings leftover that I

Liam: Yeah, I was wondering if it was our discussion that got you. Cause it’s been a while since you’ve made any kind of chainmail

Desiree: Well, it’s easy. These rings are really small and they are stainless steel. The ones that I picked up, but I saw someone I was watching. You’ll laugh at this hallmark movies, basically like mom likes to watch their it’s called the Good Witch, the Good Witch. And it’s like soccer mom, witches basically, and one of them had a

Liam: the most inoffensive of

Desiree: Yes. I, you know, people don’t have sex in this town. People don’t curse each other. There’s no such thing as sex.

Liam: They were here. They reproduced with storks.

Desiree: And, and, and they kiss with their mouths closed, you know, but I was watching, cause sometimes they have cool outfits and one of the characters have these really interesting chain mail earrings.

And I’m like, okay, speaking of inspiration, I’m going to do that because I’ve got chain mail rings. And so basically they’re not entirely done yet. I want to do a really cool Tik Tok when they are done cause Dori’s like, Hey, Hey, you know, Coffee Mate is like flash powder. Right. So we can do like a cool tik tok where you throw everything in the cauldron and you then go, boom.

And then there’s earrings. I’m like, ah, that’s cool. That’s what Tik TOK does. So once they’re done, I’ll definitely have that up. But I had to wait for some like delicate chain to go around the chain mail. So I had to order some delicate chain. So it wasn’t, I don’t have all sizes. Rings right

Liam: More fancy than the stainless steel.

Desiree: Yeah, no, I only have certain sizes cause it’s not like I’m ordering, I ordered a big bulk order 15 years ago and I’m still working through some stuff,

Liam: I had a box of it. I think eventually it, that box got to you. Cause I never went through all of it.

Desiree: gave it back yet. And then I think I gave it to Teela so I’ve only got the like tiny rings. These rings are like, not even a quarter inch.  But they are stainless steel. My hands have been feeling it this week, but I did it to myself. So, but they are a steel and it is going to be a little heavy, but I think there’ll be super cute.

And I also put a whole bunch of my shoe collection up on Poshmark, which is like this resell site that they ship it out to people. And I actually sold three items. I was pretty proud of myself.

Liam: Yeah. There you go. Yeah. There’s talk about collections, man. You have a shoe one!

Desiree: I do. I’ve got 20 items up right now. I sold three. Some are going to donate some I’m gonna give away, but most of my heels, if they’re not comfortable, they’re not staying.

Liam: You made some special shoe racks for yourself. Haven’t you?

Desiree: Yeah. I use a tomato plant holders. I don’t know if anybody knows, but those are like actual craft items. You don’t just put them on tomatoes.

If you take a tomatoe plant holder, which is basically just a cylinder of metal with metal holding it together. So it looks kind of like a tube with one side smaller than the other.  You can turn them around and make them into all kinds of crafts. I made it into a shoe tree one year so that there was lights around it.

And then I shoved all my shoes on this tree. Cause they all have heels. You can hook them in. So i had a shoe tree one year, because I’m extra like that.

Liam: Yeah, you should definitely take a picture of those. Cause I think you still use, like you have a shoe tree. You also have like a shoe a rack, right?

Desiree: Yeah, I have a shoe. Um, I guess you’d

Liam: It’s like a coat rack, but she was hanging off of it.

Desiree: So they take the regular curtain rods, and then I put them up on this almost a ceiling without any curtains on them. And then I put shoes on them instead I hook the heels in. So it only really works for like heel hook shoes, not like platforms

Liam: No boots.

Desiree: No boots, no wedges, but I have a lot of those.

Liam: And those are the most of the ones that actually selling though.

Desiree: Yeah, that was a part of, that was definitely necessity. Cause I remember one of the apartments that you lived in had a long hallway when you first entered in to the two bedroom apartment and that one hallway was just use the entire way down and only your shoes. Nobody else shoes.

Liam: There was like four people that live there and just Desiree shoes

Desiree: Well, yeah, I don’t know where they put theirs. I don’t remember.

Liam: In their rooms because there was no room.

Desiree: Nope. My shoes have a place I’ve pared down a lot, but the only way I’ve been able to do so, because I’m such an avid collector and it was so part of what I considered to be my personality and my, my self image that, getting rid of these bothers me. But if they hurt, I’m never going to wear them again.

So they no longer bother me because I’m buying flats to replace them flats, take up a lot less space and are a lot more comfortable. So I’m trading out for some flats, but I

Liam: well, and that’s a, that’s a good, I’d say a good place where we can go into our topic for the week of,  the mentality that we have as creators. And,  that’s something that varies quite differently between creators, but also between you and I, where,  like you generally you’ll make stuff and then you’ll keep it right. Very much. So, uh, or you’ll make it for somebody else. Right. That’s something that you do quite often.

Desiree: Very often.

Liam: Right. But if you make it and you don’t have somebody that you intend to give it away, it just sort of does stay there. And it like is a part of you become quite attached to it.

Isn’t that right?

Desiree: Well it’s because anything that I make, like I said, I’m not very fast at it. I’m Baymax. I am not fast. So anything I do has a lot of effort put into it and there’s no way I could sell it for the amount of effort I put into it, even the material sometimes. So it’s always a give or take of whether or not I want to sell it.

It’s probably going to be a deal for you for whoever buys it, because no matter what, I put more effort than what it’s worth into it. So

Liam: I think that’s true of almost all creators,  like it’s a very rare for any creator to be able to get what would be considered a competitive, hourly wage, unless they are incredibly popular or fame. Like they they’d have to be somebody with a very significant pull to their name,

Desiree: Or outsourcing, outsourcing, and then having other people make it for them. And it’s just their patterns or whatever. Yeah.

Liam: Right. Yeah. They make  the concept of it, like they, Martha Stewart. Right, right. You can, you can definitely get, your bang for your buck in that regard when it comes to like your amount of time put into a project, but for the majority of creators, like the guys that do chainsaw art, for example, Any individual art piece that they might make, maybe it wouldn’t take them too long, , but you have to consider just how much material goes into practicing to make that one that they could make on the spot.

Like, even if they’re doing it for an exhibition, right. To like, just to show off their craft, that’s something that you do. Like you don’t generally think about it is just how many times he had to try to make that one thing. And just how much cost and time and materials goes into making like one completed project that like probably won’t even sell for all that much.

Desiree: Yeah, that’s a lot of things that I guess I call it like sweat equity in some ways is, is people put in a, it might take me 10 minutes to make, but it took me 10 years of study to learn how to make it in 10 minutes. So there’s that too. I don’t know if I’ve, I’ve really learned the whole quickness thing yet, but I definitely

Liam: Well, but even comparative, right? It’s a it’s comparative because you are experienced lessons, the amount of time that you have to put in like the redundant stuff. Right? So, uh, for somebody with a similar mindset or similar ability to you that has  less experience in whatever it is that you’re creating, they adjust will take longer to do it, or they will fuck up more often and have to go back and redo it, which adds more time to completing the

Desiree: You use lesser materials or not as good like tricks and whatever else. Yeah.

Liam: Yeah. Or just come up with a less quality product.

Desiree: Everything takes, practice, everything

Liam: Yes. Uh, that was that was something we talked about before.

Desiree: Yeah. I was really surprised about the chain mail because,  literally I guess we said it last week. It’s been 10 years since I touched it 10 to 15, and I managed to do this particular weave, which is called Kingsmaille Twist without even remembering the full name of the actual,  chainmail pattern.

I just did it. And then I went, oh, this is chainmail and this is King’s mail. And then I’m like, wait, this is King’s mail twist. Like I did this without like, cause I did it so much. I just did it.

Liam: And you, and you put a lot more time into it. There’s a lot more that you can do with chain mail than I ever could. I very much like I had the one a weave that I would do.  But for you, you’ve got like you’ve made,  bands out of it. You’ve made all different kinds of things.  Our dad still has a hat where you made a chain mail headband for the hat.

So it’s a, a heavy cowboy hat.

Desiree: And then mom’s got the arms on her purse, like her purse straps, her straps on her hand bag are chainmail too. And they’re different weaves. Of course. Both of those are steel too.

Liam: Yeah. And they’re, they’re complicated weaves and they turn out to be almost like ropes or cylinders. Right. Much different than what you would imagine, like a chain mail shirt or,  swatch would be. So it’s cool that you’re dabbling in that a little bit.

Desiree: Yeah, something else. I was also thinking of Shrink Its. Do you remember Shrink Its or Shrinky Dinks?

Liam: Can’t say that. I do.

Desiree: It’s this plastic that you write, you paint, you draw on and you put it in the oven and it shrinks.

Liam: Okay. Yeah. We’ve got some Christmas ornaments of that.

Desiree: Yeah. And so I ordered some more, even though I had some kicking around the house, you can actually apparently use some recycled clamshell containers sometimes depending on what type they are and you can use those.

But I bought some off Amazon for the hell of it, because then I can make like little buttons and stuff if I wanted to, or broaches or earrings. And I saw on Poshmark, some people make new stuff and post it there. And some of them were making stuff out of Shrinky Dinks, and I’m like, oh, okay. That’s something I can do when it’s hell week.

And my brain is fried. So I’ve been printing out now that I have a printer, some images, and then I’m gonna draw those up and shrink them and see what I can make out of them.

Liam: So it does seem like you actually get quite a bit of inspiration for your projects, at least on like a daily basis from social media.

Desiree: Yeah. It’s mostly social media and whatever media I’m. I’m absorbing on the TV too. Like there’s TV shows and even stuff I’ve watched several times, especially if it’s a creative show, I have all kinds of screenshots from the TV, saved all my phone for later on. Usually it’s clothing or accessory related, but sometimes it can be things like cakes or crafts, because I have all of the channels and all of the streaming, everything.

So even things I’ve seen several times, if I see it again and I haven’t already screenshot it, sometimes my husband would go, Hey, that’s cool. Like, yeah, I thought that last time, but I didn’t screenshot it. We’ll screenshot it down. Cause I’ll probably be inspired to do something about that at some point, just like these chainmail earrings.

Liam: So what kind of creative shows you actually watch then? I know one of them at least would be Face Off while I was still going on if it still is.

Desiree: Yeah. Face-off even what they’re wearing sometimes would inspire me or their tattoos. And those are just the contestants of the show that do a special effects, makeup artists that do special effects. Sometimes the costumes themselves, I watch body paint, Skin Wars as well. Once again, sometimes the stuff that they make, sometimes the stuff they’re wearing or the stuff they, the accessories they have.

I’m always looking at what everybody’s wearing or what everybody’s like makeup is or accessories. I watched a lot of shows just for the look. Sometimes even if I know they’re horrible acting or it’s a horrible story, I’m still like, oh, the clothes are good. So I’m going to watch this.

Liam: Yeah, I, and I think that our mom is similar in that regard as well. She sees something that she likes and she wants to try to replicate it for herself. Right.

Desiree: I think so.

Liam: Try to make it in her own idea of like her own image.  Whereas I was thinking about this earlier in the week, I’m more, I think, along our dad’s side of creativity and that dad makes things to he makes his projects to solve problems, right. Basically everything he’s ever created that I can think off the top of my head has been an answer to like a problem. It’s a solution. Right? Well, he’ll make a step stool for my mom cause she wants to reach the top shelf. Right. All of the renovations that have been done around the house, they’re very logical in how they’re made.

And there are quite creative and very beautiful, especially like some of the cabinetry that he’s done is just,  it’s custom work that we would never be able to afford if we had to pay for it without dad having made it.

Desiree: True. And like, even he decided to put diamonds in the, in the wood floor. It’s not necessary. It has a hell of a lot of work, but it looks great.

Liam: Yeah, very much so, but it was also a part of that floor needed to be done. Right.  And, and I’m more along that sort of line where it’s, I have either a problem that I want, like I’ll make solutions and sometimes I’ll present myself with my own problems because I want to get to the solution. Like I’ll force myself to have excuses to create, because if I don’t have an excuse, I won’t right, I won’t do it.

I make my own requirements.  I know myself well enough that like, unless I have a reason to do something, I won’t do it. So I just make a reason,  this podcast being an example,  it’s already got me to complete several projects weeks earlier than I probably would have ever done because I don’t have like D and D in itself.

When I started, it was an excuse for me to paint miniatures and to write about my world that I wanted to create, it was all, an excuse to be able to do that. And I get to play D and D on top of it.

Desiree: I think this helps.

Liam: Uh, the, yeah, the podcast is helping that.

Desiree: I think, yeah, the podcast has also gotten you to take more pictures. I mean, you were already trying to take pictures of your campaign and stuff, but now you have an excuse and a deadline to do so

Liam: Right. Yeah.  When especially when COVID first hit and we were, uh, or when we were having our sessions monthly, rather than biweekly, or even further than that, I would take pictures to represent what the,  events of the last D and D session would be. And I would send out pictures to all of the guys and anybody that was interested with like captions for the recap.

And I haven’t had to do that, for quite some time because we meet on a pretty regular basis. And I have the recap there available for them when they get there during the week. But before that, I, it was very much like I wanted to communicate to the guys what happened last week to remind them. Right.

If it had been awhile, but it also gave me an excuse to take pictures of the minatures that I most likely had painted for that individual encounter

Desiree: I did like the storytelling aspect of it. You’re still doing that though. I think like telling the recaps.

Liam:  Like I said, I haven’t done it recently because I made the website and the website is where I would want to put more of  my pictures in that regard. Right. Like when I w when I do a gallery, it’ll be of an event that happened in the D and D campaign. And since I started working on the website, it’s very much like that’s taken up my time for what I would have put into the recap.

I also just have less time since it’s not on a monthly basis. After a month, I run out of things to paint or do for the D and D sessions. So I made some stuff for me to do in the taking pictures for the recap and stuff like that. But on a bi-weekly basis, I actually have to kind of knuckle down sometimes if I want to paint a bunch of miniatures. Like I made this terrain this week, because I know next week I need some miniatures to get painted.  The ones that I assembled last week,

Desiree: So if you think dad and you are more of solution-based creativity, what kind of like problems have you said you’ve been making for yourself to solution? You know what I mean?

Liam: Mostly, most of my problems I make for myself are deadlines. Right.  Cause if I don’t have a set point in time for a deadline, then, it won’t get done. But a lot of problems. Like I said, I will make for myself, I deliberately made it. I, cause I’m the one that determines how much time passes in the world of our D and D campaign.

I decided to make it winter because I felt like they guys have spent enough months of traveling. It will eventually change seasons. And when that happens, I’m not currently prepared for it, but I will be because I’m going to work at it. Right. So I’ve made that problem for myself. I didn’t have to advance the calendar if I didn’t want to.

I’ve set up the place that they’re in to be of an indeterminant season for however long I ever wanted it to be. But I decided now some time now’s the time for the guys to experience winter in their D and D session and I’m going to help them accomplish that. But in order to do so, I need miniatures and terrain.

Desiree: I think the way you and dad looked at it, you think you’re right in saying that because even when dad gets inspired to do something, even kind of out of the blue it’s, it’s a solution to something like even the, he used to make ironing boards and used to make toilet paper, cat, cat shaped toilet paper holders will obviously that’s for a reason it’s to put toilet paper in and I have not seen people make that since.

And

Liam: Yeah, I can’t think of any projects that dad hasn’t done that ha that weren’t a solution to some sort of problem.

Desiree: Well, he made the reindeers,  to pointettas in, um,

Liam: But I think that that problem was a mom needs something to put her plants in.

Desiree: It’s a possibility. I know grandma had one, a mom probably wanted one and he just went well, she wants one I’ll make one. I’m bringing them with me.  I guess he says they’re not deer they got horns and it’s true. Male, male deer don’t have horns and he’s like, they’re looked like moose, but I like them and they’re cute. And they havepointsettas in them. And then he ever got like a mini stool he made for like the daycare kids, the chair stool. I use, I use it to put all my books on, but I don’t really need a stool. That’s only four inches high. I am short, but that doesn’t help me any

Liam: Yeah, it’s a stool. That’s one of the stools that can also turn into a chair

Desiree: Yeah. For a little kid so they can get up to the sink, but I’m sure if I bring it back, which I’m gonna, we’ll probably wind up using it for our cousins. When they come over.

Liam: Oh yeah. They’ve got little kids.

Desiree: Yeah, the way I think about it,  for like craft stuff is just inspiration. Like mom and I are like, we, we can make this, it looks interesting.

Usually it has some sort of part or portion of it. That’s new, like a new,  artistic medium, or, or technique that we’ve never done before. And we’re like, that looks cool. I want to do that. And I obviously don’t want to buy that because I could make it either for me or for just general shits and giggles.

Cause I do a lot of that too.

Liam: Yah, that’s one of my other motivators is while my large motivators is I’m just in general, a very stingy person. And there’s a lot of stuff that I make that I’m like, yeah, I could buy this, but I can make it way cheaper.

Desiree: Um, we say stingy as you and dad, but at the same time, I will pay a hundred dollars for the materials to make something I could buy for 30 bucks because I like the materials and the craft.

Liam: Yeah, that’s the thing it’s like, I I’m super stingy about some certain things, but then I’ve got literally thousands of dollars worth of miniatures in a box un assembled and unpainted. Right. But I’m like, I don’t know if I want to buy another miniature.

Desiree: I discovered the custom fabric groups, mostly in the states, which shipping is horrible and I’ve just got boxes and boxes and boxes of this stuff. And I’m, I’m all excited about it, but I’ve got so much stockpile now that, you know, when my severance is out and I have no money, I can’t buy anymore.

I shouldn’t cry because I’ve got so much shit that I can still work with, even though I’ve designated it a lot of it Dez only because it was that expensive. I’ve still got so much. That I have this habit of stockpiling craft supplies so that when I’m really poor and I don’t have any money, I’ve still got shit.

Liam: Oh yeah, I am. I’m absolutely the same way.  I, like, I I’ve said before,  if I don’t use something and within a month, if I haven’t used something within the last month, unless it’s a seasonal thing, like a winter jacket or something like that, if I haven’t used it in a month, I I’ll give it away or get rid of it, but not when it comes to my hobby.

Whereas with miniatures and terrain, I still have cardboard towers. I got when I originally got my very first Warhammer miniatures and I will not get rid of any of it completed projects I’m actually less attached to than potential materials for another project. Right. I that’s actually not. I think, I didn’t think about that.

I’m less attached to my finished projects than I am attached to potential.  Project fodder like to materials, I’m more attached to materials and finished products. What does that say about me?

Desiree: I’m kind of like that too. It’s like, I’m not going to give away my sewing machine, but I made this on the sewing machine. You can have that.

Liam: Well, yeah, that’s a tool. I even more so, right, because of

Desiree:  I want all of the tools all mine, all, all mine.

Liam: Yeah. Yeah. So a tools very much.  Yeah, I wouldn’t get rid of my airbrush until it dies. Right.  But I go through brushes way more than most,  miniature hobbyists.  Yeah, but I definitely have finished product products, especially terrain, because I put very little emphasis on my terrain because it’s almost all recycled products.

Right. I don’t get too attached to the materials I’m going to use to make a piece of terrain because most of the time I make it out of what’s lying around or just straight up and garbage.  So I don’t get too attached to terrain, but when I finish a miniature or especially a painted, I won’t ever get rid of it.

I might eventually repaint it if I, if it’s not up to my standards, but I won’t ever get rid of it.

Desiree: Yeah, there’s no resell value of any or stuff. If terrain is too expensive to ship, but Hey, if you ever want to get rid of the trees or something, those are small enough, at least

Liam: Right. I mean, like, it would also depend  on your market. I think there is like, uh, there’s a market for those painted miniatures and for terrain. It’s not something that I would ever want to put the amount of like effort into it. It’s not something I’m interested in that regard. Cause I’ve bought terrain from people and I’ve played against people that have had their armies painted by someone else.

There’s definitely a market for it.  I just don’t think it’s worth my time to do

Desiree: And that’s fair. Yeah. I’m all about the tools and the materials, like, like some sort of dragon hoard. So of the stuff I’m going to get rid of in the house. I’ll get rid of my shoes and I’m already doing it and my clothes and my accessories and my stuff before any of the craft supplies

Liam: But you’re never going to get rid of those fabrics.

Desiree: Who knows, I actually give away some of my fabric.

Cause I did get some of my fabric for free. So I am giving some of it away that I know I’m not going to use, but yeah, no, none of the tools ever, if they, as long as they work, I still have it though. I did give away my old sewing machine because it wasn’t computerized. And I, I found someone who was greatly in need of a sewing machine.

So I gave it to

Liam: well, yeah, you can’t use two at the same time.

Desiree:you can’t.

Liam: It is, that is redundancy.

Desiree: I have an embroidery machine as well, so I technically have another backup sewing machine if I needed it. It’s I mean, it might take work, but I have, I have backup

Liam: but the way I think about it now, like why I’m so attached to materials and not just tools it’s because materials are just another form of tools like that. It’s like, it’s your argument as what it feels like, it’s like, why would you want to give away or toss out your weapons is basically like, if I got rid of all of those miniatures I have in the boxes, Then when I go to make a project I’m unarmed.

I don’t have what I need. Okay.

Desiree: Dori, I have this thing in our house said books and materials don’t count. Like we won’t spend our whole, you know, rent check on books and materials, but if we spend money on those things, we don’t, we’re not allowed to feel guilty because those are the two things that don’t count. I will even eat macaroni and cheese over not buying books and materials.

Liam: I got a roommate so I could continue hobbying. That was like a part of my budgeting process because before I, when I was living alone down in Vancouver, which is a very high cost of living.  I didn’t have enough to be able to afford any kind of hobby really.  But I did want to get back into the hobby.

So after about like four or five years living alone, I got myself a roommate. When I found that I was draining my savings and just that alone, having somebody to help pay for rent gave me enough leeway. I could get back into a hobby again.

Desiree: I don’t like it when I can’t. Yeah. But I have so many different types of hobbies, a little bit easier for me. I can buy a $5 roll of yarn and I’m done, you know, I, I, yours a little bit more expensive, but you can always write though. And that was almost free.

Liam: I could, yeah. If I had a purpose for it, I would write like, if I had been playing D and D at the time, I would have been totally fine with playing pen and paper and I probably wouldn’t have needed to start collecting as many. Well, I wouldn’t, I was probably still collected miniatures, but, if I was living on my own and had, at the time, it was a $50 entertainment budget for the month,  which was most of the time, good enough for a game that was on sale and like a wow, or I wasn’t even wow at the time, but, an MMO subscription.

And that would be my entertainment budget for the month.  But if I had been playing pen and paper D and D, then I probably could have done it just fine. And that would have encouraged me to write quite a bit.

Desiree: I’m glad that it’s giving you the ability to do so. I’ve been talking to Dori because you guys’s opportunity. I, I appreciate the opportunity to do this business as my full-time business. I mean, I’m slow to start because everything that’s going on right now, but I really appreciate the privilege that you guys have given me to be able to make this into my own business, because that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.

Even when we were kids. Remember, we always wanted to own our own business as a family generally, but this would obviously

Liam: Dad’s always been super big on that. That’s always been his big thing.

Desiree: And I know it’s difficult, especially if I lived here to like, be able to have the cost of living workout for my business. So I  very much appreciate the privilege that you guys are giving me to choose to be able to do this and to help me with it.  It’s huge. I’m still like in awe over this whole concept, and I’m hoping that by the time I get up there I’ll have enough baseline done that I’ll have something coming in and it’s, I’m just so excited about it though.

Liam: Yeah. And like myself and everybody here at the family says you take however long it is that you need to take. Uh, it will take however long it takes. That’s just what matters to us is that your. Like living your best life, right. You’re not unhappy and you’re not deliberately doing something to make yourself unhappy.

Desiree: It’s such a blessing.

Liam: I don’t mind working.  I’ve never minded it. It’s just like however much I can physically do is limited by my condition, but I still have never minded working and putting my hobby time as my hobby time. Right. I don’t want to make my hobby, my job. I’ve never wanted that.

Desiree: I didn’t think I wanted to, but honestly my hobbies take up so much time it’s and because it’s not just that as my lifestyle brand and, and the branding of, uh, of the lifestyle brand is about your whole life. So I kind of really liked this. I just feel like everywhere I’ve ever worked, it feels like I had to wear a mask and now I don’t have to.

And that would be really, really cool and very good for my body. And my anxiety is to live authentically the weirdo that I am. I appreciate you guys gave me the ability to do that. And I just, I talked with Dori the other day because he’s a writer he does want to write and I wish he could do that.

Full-time but writing’s one of his dreams.

Liam: That’s your husband for the reference? Because I don’t think we’ve referenced a

Desiree: My, my husband Doron. Yeah.  He’s a writer.  Unfortunately with writing, the only way you could do it as a living is if you kind of get lucky and worked very hard at it. And as a full-time job, it’s not really great for, you know, bringing in money and he may not want to do it for money.

He just wants to write. Right. So I was talking to him. I don’t think it’s fair that, you know, my more disabled husband continues to work when I don’t, but he’s like, if, if I don’t do this, what am I going to do? I mean, I, I can write when I retire. I can write. Now if I want to write, I don’t have to do it for money.

So I’m pretty excited

Liam: Yeah. And there’s a, it’s nice to not to have any pressure on yourself like, or to, because people will put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform when they feel that their livelihood is tied to their creativity. Right. And I just don’t feel like that is going to be something that you need to have in your life.

But it’s also something I don’t need to have in my life. I don’t need to have my livelihood dependent on my creativity. I just enjoy being creative when I feel like it at my leisure.

Desiree: I am putting a lot on myself now, but that’s just cause I’m coming out of a very stressful job. I was very surprised the other day I went to party city and they had balloons there. Right. And they were filling up balloons, which is very noisy and one of them popped and I didn’t even blink when I was working full time, I would have jumped up and hung on the ceiling.

I was so stressed out and so anxious that I was so proud of myself when that happened. And I didn’t even blink. Thank you for, that’s such a huge reduction in stress for me. I mean, I don’t, nothing’s moving as fast as I want it to, because like I said, I’m not fast, but I’m just going to have to come to terms.

Baymax and I just keep trucking along.

Liam: Well, and that’s one of the other things I wanted to talk about was like, knowing yourself, like, as both as a creator, but as a person, like knowing yourself helps your hobby in a significant way.  I know that I need to make excuses for myself in order to force myself to create.  That’s just something I’ve known for quite some time.

I didn’t start knowing that I started wanting to do everything all the time and work at it all the time.  And it just isn’t, wasn’t at least sustainable for me. But when I set myself a goal, whether it be an  upcoming tournament or a D and D session, or somebody needs something for something, then I can knuckle down and get that done.

Even if I procrastinate to the last minute, I’ll still make sure it gets done because there’s a need. Even if I have forced that need, and I’m tricking myself into thinking it’s a need.  For example, when the D and D party that I run ran into a dungeon that I had established as a part of the setting was an abandoned city, not just abandoned.

It had fallen to and previous invasion by an evil empire. And so it had been lost for hundreds of years and that people had not been able to reclaim it. They went into that city and I was like, well, now I have to make the whole city. And so I plannedout a large majority of it. And eventually, like I was, I was, that was one of the times where I was definitely knuckled down in it, where I was like, I was creating floor by floor plans of what the city could be.

And the guys spent, um, we, at that time started doing weekly sessions because I had so much stuff prepared for it that, uh, week. Like two to three months worth of sessions, just in that one dungeon. And there was miniatures and cave and Dudgeon systems and just so much stuff that I had to write and create, but it was, an impossibly high goal that I set for myself that I wanted this to be prepared for when they did actually go into it that I had, I did not complete everything, but they’ll never know that there was a lot of extra goblins, orcs, bugbears, hobgoblins, dark elves, and the stuff like that they never did run into, but they definitely remember the stuff they did run into.

Right. So they don’t know just how much of this stuff I assembled and didn’t actually paint in time for a session.

Desiree: And they can always be used in something else. But yeah, I know what you mean. You a lot more than the basic stuff you got like seven eights, I guess all done.

Liam: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I got, I shot for the moon and I I’d say five eights of that was done, but I prioritized it. So the important stuff was done.

Desiree: And they had a really good time and I saw those miniatures and, and the surrounds and the scenery. It looked great.

Liam: Yeah. And it’s, uh, like most things that I do, I make it so that it’s reusable in that it’s not going to only be for that one location in my setting. I can use those Dungeons systems. They made the modular. So I can now when they go into a crypt, I have a hundred different layouts I can make for that crypt, because I made all of this modular stuff for those sessions.

Desiree: And it’s never boring doing it again.

Liam: Yeah. Like when I made just for our last DND session, I, like I said, I made that board game basically for the guys to play and they,  had two major combat encounters during that session. They raided a bandit encampment and they fought the Yeti that I had painted the Yeti.

I literally just put in two of my cave sections with one of my towers that I had made like lying down. So it looked like it was like coming out of the wall and that makes a completely unique cave that they’ve never run across before and never will again, but it’s, it was something for them to explore.

Right. I made it. So there was a little passageway underneath that fallen like a collapsed tower into a room that held some treasure for them. So they were. Rewarded for investigating the area and it gave them like a memorable cave to visit, but it was literally just three of my modular cave pieces, stuck together with a tower flopped down on top of it.

You know, it looked good.

Desiree: My stuff isn’t the same.It doesn’t have the same reusability that way. So that’s pretty cool.

Liam: I like to, um, I definitely liked things to serve multiple purposes, especially when it comes to miniatures or terrain, right? Like,  I might paint up a bunch of goblins for, an encounter that the guys are going to have specifically, but then those goblins are now they’re a part of my arsenal, as I would say right there, there, I can bring them out whenever I feel like they’re available fully painted and ready to go whenever.

Desiree: That’s cool.

Liam: Yeah. It’s always like now, anytime I ever feel like I wanna, I wanna fight a Yeti or put a Yeti in front of them yet. He’s done. Right. He’s ready.

Desiree: And it is the Yeti.

Liam: Yeah. I certainly like to have them run into new stuff that they haven’t run before, but especially when they are dealing with humanoids, a lot of the times there’ll be like, okay, you guys have, like, there might be one or two new miniatures or kinks in this encounter, but there’s also hoards of stuff you’ve dealt with before now.

There’s only so many different kinds of bandits. It’s like this bandit encampement now has guns and a wizard. Yeah. That’s potentially more dangerous. The, the wizard summoned in earth, elemental and that earth elemental legs stomped them pretty hard. So the, one of the things that I do try to do, though for all of my projects is I do try to always improve, even if it’s just by a little bit.  I don’t go at it nearly as hard as when I first started in the hobby.

Like when I first started in the hobby, I was really hard on myself for trying to improve by significant amounts. Every time I did something,  now that I’m more experienced in it, I definitely am more lenient in how I improve. It. Doesn’t always have to be quality. Cause I was always really focused on getting my quality to improve, which can be detrimental to other aspects of like,  your speed of production and quantity

I was saying at that im, Always trying to improve.  But I’m not pushing at it. As hard as when I first originally started in the hobby, I used to be super focused on improving the quality of my finished product. That was all I focus on. I just saw. And this is some, one of the things that I wanted to show you about what my inspirations were when I was getting into the hobby, were the games, workshop, miniatures that I was buying and painting.

They had their own magazine in order to show,  like showcase, finished products, introduced new rules, you know, show new miniatures, had battle reports in it. And I had a subscription to that magazine for several years and I loved reading them because it showed just like beautifully painted, miniatures and beautifully painted.

Scenes fighting against each other. And they would generally be like new miniatures or there would be some interesting hobby lore or trivia or rules that were involved with the stuff of the month. And that stuff really like, it made me feel bad for having shitty miniatures, right. Not the minaitures themselves, but just having a bad paint job.

It got me really motivated to try to up my quality. And I focus so much on trying to up my quality that eventually my other parts of my miniature or my hobby did start to suffer in that, like there’s only so much quality that you really need to put into each individual foot soldier, unless you’re trying to make every single miniature a showcase.

You don’t have to put, you know, hours and hours and hours worth of work and every single individual piece that you did.  And so learning to improve yourself in not just quality, but also other aspects like your shorthand, right? Like knowing how to fix mistakes on the fly, knowing how to be able to bounce back from stuff like dropping your entire army on the floor or other situations like that, unexpected things that happen.

Desiree: I think that’s my problem too. I think you just want to be good at it right away. No matter what you’re doing

Liam: That’s the sort of thing that you can improve in as well. You don’t always have to focus so
hard on quality.

Desiree: True. It’s just the, I think the real, the real artists, the real creator, the real person who wants to continue doing this, sorry, you got to climb or go through the walls. There’s no easy. There’s no easy way out.

Liam: But they’re never the best starting at it to but nobody’s ever the best when they start off. And some, like everybody hits a wall at some point. Right. Whatever it might be, it might be a different kind of wall for a different kind of person, whether it be a mental or physical block,

There’s always a wall that like there’s multiple walls that will appear before you that you’ll have to persevere through or find a way around or, even just like take a break from and come back to later.

Desiree: If you want to do it really well. I mean, that doesn’t mean we don’t quit or put things down or, or not do certain things for awhile. Like that’s why I have So many different projects on the run at the same time, but the only way you’re going to get better is through.  The little guys in your, your army, your footmen aren’t exactly the same, even though they’re the same kind of models, they’re all painted slightly different. or juxtaposed different Or yeah.

Liam: Yeah. And just repetition too. She just do it over and over and over again. Right. Nobody got good from nobody got good at drawing, but not drawing. Right? Yeah. Even when they were single pose miniatures back in the single post plastic miniatures,  they would still have this, uh, each individual model would have like a range of shields. So even when it’s the one Spearman, the goblin Spearman pointing his spear exactly the same as every other plastic goblin, Spearman, they would have some variety in their shields. And even if you wanted to paint them all 100% identical, you’d never be able to because you can’t replicate it completely.

Right. you can definitely make it similar.  But it’ll never be exactly the same. And you don’t want it to be exactly the same. You do want to try to improve. That was what I was getting. Like, you do want to try it with. Every time, even if it is just like improving your shorthand or the speed at which you do things or how much attention you have to give to it. Right. So maybe you paint it or construct your project at exactly the same speed and it winds up to be exactly the same quality, but you could do it while you’re watching TV.

Whereas originally you had to literally give it your full attention. Right. That’s an improvement.

Desiree: Where you can like work on one thing. Like, I want to paint these, you know, different shields really good this time, or I’m going to try painting eyes or, you know, something different every time.

Liam: So I thought those were mostly the things I wanted to talk about that I put some images up in the link dump about the magazine really did inspire me a lot because I had a subscription to it for three years.

I still have basically every single one of them in a box. And they’re all just worn out for how much I read them.  I was definitely a game first kind of guy. I definitely liked all the battle reports and stuff like that, but the lore and the diorama’s, which were just that those were the sort of thing that as a young man, that was the sort of thing I would never be able to do, but it was definitely where I wanted to be able to do, like, to create a  entire battlefield of miniatures that was just depicting an event.

Right. And while I don’t construct diorama’s to that scale, and I have enough miniatures now, I guess I could theoretically do so, but, I do a lot of that with the D and D stuff especially with like the recaps that I made and things like that, I like to make images with my miniatures and terrain that tell stories and telling the story through D and D and through the collaborative storytelling of the pen and paper RPG has been a real benefit. I think to my hobby, I’ve painted more miniatures in the last like, year and a half that I’ve been DM-ing this D and D campaign that I have for the last, like two armies that I’ve made, which were not two years across

Desiree: I’m really glad that you’re enjoying it too. And you’re writing so much and you’re having such a good time. And in, in DM-ing all this stuff and actually being social and getting your friends
and do it. And it sounds like they’re really into it too.

Liam: Yeah, I think so. It’s hard for me to tell. What people’s interests are. That’s why a lot of, the things I do and like, well, I will enjoy this. So hopefully they enjoy it as well, but I’m going to have fun.

Desiree: You’re the DM you made it so.

Liam: Yeah. I know. like I said, they, they must enjoy it cause they keep coming back.

Desiree: That’s right. And it’s not just the snakes.

Liam: Not anymore. Anyway.

Desiree: So I guess we should probably pull this together.

The items that we talked about, that we were making my chain mail earrings and Liam’s trees and that white dwarf image they’re under the, the link dump at creative questions under Liam solo quest. And I just had to say that when, the chainmail earrings are done, they’re going to be on my Tik TOK underneath New Nerd Novelties or Desiree Silver as well, as on Instagram, under New Nerd Novelies or facebook under the same. And then hopefully my website’s going to be done. What when  it is. We’ll definitely update you guys, but we’ll definitely havethose links for my social media and Liam’s website up because I’m only one with social media.

Liam: Is that what you’re planning to do? Is that what you’re planning to work on next week because the earrings you’re waiting for shipping.

Desiree: Yeah, the earrings should be done this week and I should be able to do the Tik Tok. Hopefully fingers crossed long. It’ll burn the house down. I’ve got Dori as my fire Marshall. We’re good. And then, yeah, we’ll see how it goes. I’m not quite sure, but I had fun writing up my Poshmark, like descriptions. So maybe I’m get warmed up to do my own for my website.

Got a warmup besides a hundred words instead of 300. I just got to keep telling myself that.

Liam: Well, and it’s just like, anything else you’ll get used to it. The more you do it. Right and

people sometimes don’t believe me. I hated painting when I started, I really did.

Desiree: I I’m pretty sure. Yeah, you really did.

Liam: I did not like it. Yeah. I, and I say it all the time. I did not, not to, not only did I not enjoy painting, I straight up did not like it, but I wanted the finished product and I’m a competitive person by nature. So when I brought my stuff to the store and other people were painted better than me, I couldn’t stand that. So I just kept working at it. And then some people would show up without being painted at all. And that would just further motivate me to paint mine to an even better standard, because I also believe in leading by example.

Right. So I wanted my stuff to not just be painted adequately. I wanted it to be painted so well, it would shame them for putting shit on the table. Right. That, that was what motivated me as a kid. Right. It was just like, yeah. I’m I was just that competitive and  it was just like, I want my stuff to literally make you feel embarrassed to put that on the table. That’s what I wanted to do.

Desiree: And if you beat me, you beat me with shitty stuff and mine looks better than yours at least.

Liam: Well, preferably I would beat them with a beautiful looking army and they’re like, okay. So not only does my stuff look bad, I also got my ass beat. That would be the preferred method.

Desiree: Yeah.

Liam: It doesn’t always work that way. Mostly I didn’t work that way, but,  I, I, learned to not just like tolerate, but enjoy painting because I did it so much.

It became very much a, it’s a Zen, like almost meditative thing for me to do nowadays is when I paint or make terrain or stuff like that, I just sort of get in the zone and I either listen to music or a podcast or something like that. And I just focus in, and it’s a very calming thing for me to do, but I really begrudged the time that I spent painting it as a kid, until I had to paint, like after a few thousand miniatures, you either get used to it or stop doing.

Desiree: And you loved it too much to stop doing it. So it just made sense.

Liam: Yeah.

Desiree: You’re a very stubborn person.

Liam: I’ve been told.

Desiree: Ah it’s it’s a family trait.

Liam: So as for the next week, as for myself, that’s what I’ll be doing. I’ll be painting more miniatures.  I’ve got to get them finished in a week.

Desiree: I look forward to seeing them. And I hope you guys have a good game with all of this as well soon. And I definitely want to say a like, and subscribe for our YouTube channel as well for the Creative Questions.

Liam: Oh shit. Yeah. I’ve got D and D coming this Sunday and I was like, I’ll get those painted by next Wednesday. I have a lot less time than I thought. Fuck.

Desiree: You’re gonna have to do that now. I’ll better. Let you go. And I will definitely update you with whatever creative crap I come up with this week, too.

Liam: Okay. Yeah.

Desiree: So, this has been a Desiree and Liam, the brother, sister pair from Creative Questions.

Look forward to seeing you next week.

Liam: And have a good night.

Desiree: Thanks everybody for listening. Have a great day.