Meet the Creative: Meatshield Minis

Welcome back to Meet the Creative, where we get to meet people from all different walks of life who have found art and creativity and made it a big part of their lives. Today we talk to Meatshield Minis who paints miniatures for a living.

To start, can you tell us a bit about your background. Who are you, where do you come from, what are you doing today and how did you get here?

I’m a Northern Irish migrant whom arrived to settle in Sweden around 2012. Currently, I have higher education pursuits with the end goal of becoming a teacher. However, my miniature painting operations took on a life of their own and expanded far beyond what I ever originally intended.

What role have creativity and creative hobbies played in your life as you grew up?

I would say that creativity in terms of art (drawing and such) have always been a present aspect in my life. I studied art is part of my mandatory education, a profound fascination with practical effects in movies, my own father was a gifted artist, I spent my childhood building and painting model kits (Admittedly, not very well at the time), and so on. Conversely, I didn’t pursue any career or further ventures in the area of creativity due to life’s circumstances. It wasn’t until my early thirties where a particular field of creativity would unexpectedly return and hurl me into an unforeseen activity in the form of painting minis for hire. So, I would say that creativity has played an intermittent but indelible role in my life, and seemed to serve as both food for my curiosity and expression.

How did you get into painting minis?

As far back as the age of eleven, mini painting has sustained a deeply rooted fascination in my life. When I first discovered a box of Space Marines located within the back of an odds and ends Heavy Metal shop, I was immediately enraptured. Prior to that, I was only ever exposed to the types of kits sported by the Airfix range, and whilst I do adore history, those model types just felt stale to my imagination.

Granted, my painting talents were non-existent back then, and my interaction with the hobby was limited to a number of factors, yet the passion never waned. It was around early 2017 when I found myself drifting back into the hobby as a result of association with friends, I had left the hobby for some years. To give fair dues, a friend called Robert had provided me with an obvious and straightforward truth at the time when I confessed hesitation to paint my own minis, and such was simply that if I don’t try, then I won’t become better, and that mistakes will be made yet one must see them as the cobblestones that construct the path of your journey to improvement.

Every single spare hour I had available to me was spent absorbing details of how my friends tackled modes, I would gorge myself on tutorial videos from the likes of Duncan Rhodes (Remember; two thin coats) and Sonic Sledgehammer, bandy tips and tricks during tabletop gaming sessions and community posts. All the while sinking my teeth into practicing on secondhand kits just to see if I could pull of this method, or maybe improve in an area where I was quite weak. Suffice to say, it had taken over a large area of hobby time invest, love, and passion. For the very first time in my life, I felt as though I could look at something creative and say to both myself and others that I was truly being artistic…and a wee bit decent at it.

So how did you turn your art into a profession ?

The short answer? I don’t know if I can call myself professional due to my own high standards set upon myself, but what I happen to have now as a point where people hire me to paint on their behalf was partly accidental (or unintentional, if you are of another mind) and partly intervention from friends. Legitimately, I never set out to be a mini painter for hire, nor entertained ambitions beyond just self improvement. You see, after I had found my way back into the hobby and took on a more concerted effort to up my painting game, my regular wargaming friends had taken notice of my model of Belisarius Cawl and found it to be to their liking. One of those friends approached me as I was packing my stuff away post game and asked if I would be inclined to paint several tanks for him. I didn’t really think of it at the time beyond it being a favour for a friend, we hashed out a wee bit of monetary compensation for the effort, and cracked at it.

Upon the job’s completion, and with his satisfaction secured, he asked me to do more on his behalf. This soon escalated into several of my wargaming buds doing the same. What I found rather great about these favour was the fact that I could work on models that were not part of armies I would follow, and so it would give me new challenges and creative tasks. It was during these labours that I also took up documenting, photographing, and circulating my painting projects to others in communities that I was part of. The whole experience at the time was nothing major in scale and that suited me just fine. However, two particular variables changed everything for me, and in doing so, would see all aspects of my hobby/hustle change. Those being my very first full army project, and my now girlfriend.

The full army project, which consisted of around 90+ Deathguard models was a truly monolithic undertaking for which I was quite unprepared for. If anything, taking it on at the time was a major mistake on my part as I only had tackled maybe three to six models at a time prior to that project, and I had not really developed any system in which I could operate efficiently. It was figurative torture in terms of hours and effort where I was close to crashing and cashing out of the hobby all-together, yet I stuck it out. In spite of the toll it took upon me, those months dedicated to it impressed upon me a multitude of lessons in relation to my craft; communication, methods, how best to pace myself, how to overcome difficult model types, greater comprehension of colour theory etc, and how much I could take in terms of scale.

My now girlfriend has been an ardent supporter of my creative endeavors and has legitimately been a source of improvement for the model of operation. She introduced me to her friends who where all creative and business minded, and they saw fit to provide invaluable insight. She helped set up a social media presence, business cards, an icon, revised pricing of work, even an airbrush. To my mind, her attention and expertise truly helped vastly improve upon my operation.

What impact has it had on your life to be able to spend this much of it engaged in your creativity?

A greater feeling of expression through something so unabashedly geeky, a sense of pride in being able to possess and progress a talent, and gnawing feeling of impostor syndrome. I never thought that these seemingly innocuous pieces of plastic would result so exploration of colour, painting methods, and depths of the hobby, yet here we are.

What advice would you give someone who is just starting to explore their creativity?

I’m borrowing from Duncan Rhodes here, but I have always kept an example of his to heart as a source of inspiration. He has kept the very first model he ever painted, and will occasionally look at it to remind himself of how afraid he was when he started and how far he has come in his talent. Yes, when you start out, it might not look the best, but it is still an important detail to hold onto so that you can have an objective point of comparison to understand how you’ve grown rather than allow doubt to fester about all that you can achieve. And in addition, get into creativity for the right reasons; your OWN reasons.

What's next for you, where do you want to go from here?

I would say try to maintain this wee side hustle for life, as I do love it, and maybe one day finish painting my own pile of shame.

So badass. Thank you so much! Where can people find you online?

I can be found on Instagram @Meatshield Minis.