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Adventures

086: Producing & Painting Miniatures with JD Wiker

 

Introduction

In a recent enlightening conversation, Courtney sat down with RPG producer JD Wiker to explore his captivating journey in the tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) space. Not only did they discuss his professional trajectory, but they also delved into the nuances of miniature painting—a vital aspect of JD’s creative expression.

 

From TTRPG Beginnings to Professional Heights

JD Wiker’s path into the world of TTRPGs began humbly with traditional board games like checkers and Monopoly. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that he stumbled upon a hobby store filled with miniatures, which led to his discovery of Dungeons & Dragons. This turning point sparked a lifelong journey through various RPGs, including Ars Magica, which he affectionately remembers for its Latin-laden charm. Professionally, JD transitioned from working at a comic shop to a customer service role at Wizards of the Coast. This position allowed him to get involved with Ars Magica and, eventually, lead to significant contributions to the Star Wars RPGs—both the original and revised core rulebooks. JD’s role at Wizards transformed him into a recognized figure in the RPG world.

The Art of Miniature Painting

Miniature painting is another passion JD has pursued since his teens. He humorously recalls his initial attempts using unsuitable Testors enamel paints and brushes designed for model cars. Over the years, through ample experimentation and learning, JD honed his craft. He now regularly shares his creations on social media platforms like Instagram and Cara, encouraging new painters to persevere through the challenging beginnings of the hobby. JD emphasizes the importance of the right tools—from sable brushes to thinning paints for optimal results. His advice to beginners is pragmatic: start with affordable materials to ensure enjoyment before investing in higher-quality supplies.

Painting Commissions

JD has painted miniatures on commission from the start of his painting journey. While most clients are thrilled with his work, he notes that occasionally clients have vague or evolving requests, which can be challenging. Despite this, JD finds great joy in commissions where clients give him creative freedom, allowing him to experiment and refine new techniques.

In Conclusion

JD Wiker’s conversation with Courtney was not only rich with professional insights and personal anecdotes but also fueled by a shared enthusiasm for RPGs and miniatures. His story exemplifies the blend of passion and perseverance necessary for carving out a meaningful path in the creative and gaming industries. To hear more from JD, including answers to quirky questions like what his favorite sauce is, be sure to check out the bonus content on Patreon. This engaging interview promises to inspire and entertain TTRPG fans and miniature enthusiasts alike.

This episode was edited by Sam Atkinson.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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Time Stamps

  • 0:00 Introduction
  • 3:36 JD Wiker Introduction
  • 9:35 How JD got started working professionally in the ttrpg industry
  • 18:29 JD’s journey with painting miniatures
  • 23:02 Common mistakes new painters make
  • 26:49 Painting Commissions
  • 35:26 JD’s recommendations on painting supplies
  • 46:19 Challenges in a commission-based business
  • 52:19 Upcoming projects
  • 53:16 Where can people find you?
  • 54:56 Wrap-up

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Transcript

Courtney: [00:00:00] Hello friends! I am joined by RPG producer, JD Wiker. How’s it going, JD?

JD: Going well, Courtney, how are you?

Courtney: I’m good. We were just talking about this, but fun fact for our listeners is that I have been hearing about JD for a little over two years now. This is my first time actually getting to talk to you and it’s very exciting.

JD: I’m happy to be on the show. It’s it’s good to finally meet you as well, despite the fact that I’ve been working with your husband for, you know, two years.

Courtney: I know. And I don’t think you live that far from us either.

JD: Yeah, no, it’s they’re, we’re all pretty close together here in in the Seattle area.

Courtney: You know, I’ve met a couple, like two specifically. But you know, one day I’ll meet the rest of you and it’ll be great. But to start things off you have had quite the journey in the [00:01:00] TTRPG space, and I would love to know, like, even back before you started working, like, what was the very first game that you remember playing?

JD: Oh, wow. Well, that’s, that’s, that’s kind of a boring question or a boring answer anyway, to a good question probably checkers. I mean, my family was really big on like traditional board games. We had like that space at the top of the closet where normal people would put like gloves and socks and, you know, stuff like that.

We had board games up there. And yeah, so, I can remember on Friday nights basically every week we had just sort of family game night and we would play checkers, chess, Monopoly, you know, whatever, life we had a lot of games like that that we played over and over again. I can remember playing chess with my sister when my mother and father got kind of bored of playing games every night, every Friday night, and Yeah, I remember playing chess with my sister right up until the point that the syndicated Star Trek came on. And [00:02:00] that was Star Trek the Original Series, which gives you an idea of how old I am.

Courtney: When did that transition into games like D& D?

JD: Okay, yeah I wanna say that that was probably 1977 or so? Maybe 78? I had gotten I had gotten interested in more complicated games and I, after playing a few things that I, I, I just thought were, like, really clever and, you know, nice twists on, you know, traditional board games I decided to create my own game my own board game, and I, I was trying to make my own playing pieces, I was literally carving pieces out of lengths of chalk Yeah, that’s as tedious as it sounds.

And so my family, you know, went to a mall around Christmas time to do some shopping. And I was just like, Oh, okay. You know, I was probably 14 at the time, maybe [00:03:00] 15. And I wandered into a hobby store and I said, Oh my God, they have like little toy soldiers. This is awesome. This is perfect. And I was looking at them.

I’m like, they have toy soldiers of stuff from Lord of the Rings. This is even better. And I grabbed a bunch of those, I took them up to the counter and the guy behind the counter said, Oh, do you play Dungeons Dragons? And I said, I have no idea what that is, what is that? And that was right around the time that there was that whole thing about the guy who supposedly got lost in the sewers playing Dungeons Dragons. So he explained that to me, which did not deter me at all, because I was like, Oh, I’ve been in servers before, it’s no big deal. I can handle it. Anyway. So yeah, I, the very next week, my parents were like, Hey, we’re going to the mall again, you wanna go? And I’m like, Yes! Please, take me to the mall again.

Now that I have money, I wanna buy that game that guy was telling me about. And it was the original D& D game. Basic game, the boxed, the blue box as they call it now. Yeah. So that was probably, I want to say [00:04:00] 1978 that that happened like early in 78 and like over the course of my next school year, I found people at school who actually played, including a guy in my neighborhood.

And yeah, I just kind of got sucked in. I got my friends involved started running games for them. They started running games for me. And yeah, I played D& D for a couple of years. Easily a decade or so after that, and, you know, they started switching to different RPGs.

Courtney: What do you play in these days?

JD: Pathfinder Pathfinder 1st Edition, strangely enough. I’m, I’m one of those grognards that just can’t let go of you know, the ruleset that I understand and remember. I was actually telling Brenton one day that I kind of find reading rules boring anymore. You know, there’s only so many iterations of, you know, here’s how you roll dice, here’s what it means, here’s how to read the dice, you know. After a while, you’re just like, yeah, I get it. Just tell me whether it’s good high or good low. You know, do doubles make a difference? You know, come on. So, but yeah, I play that. I’m, I run [00:05:00] one game. I’m in one game, both Pathfinder First Edition. And our boss, actually, Britton’s boss, my boss has just started a kind of, Team building exercise where we’re going to run a, he’s going to run a game for us of D& D. And that’s the new 2024 edition.

Courtney: When was the last time you played D& D?

JD: Actually, it wasn’t that long ago. I played a fifth edition game that ended, actually I want to say it ended on New Year’s Eve. Yeah, we my, my wife’s cousin’s husband, and we’re getting into that weird relationship thing that, you know, makes you sound like you’re from the deep south, but yeah, my wife’s cousin’s husband is a huge D& D fan, huge lore, lore hound and he wanted to run the the Curse of Strahd game, so we played in that.

Courtney: Nice! I slash am eventually going to get back into DMing. Strahd, so it’s a fun one.

JD: Yep. Yep. We had a lot of fun.

Courtney: Okay, so [00:06:00] walk me through how you went from discovering D& D at the age of 14, 15 and playing it for a while and then getting into this space professionally.

JD: Okay. Yeah. All right. So this is a little convoluted I played a lot of different RPGs over the years and I want to say in the late 80s Along came a game called Ars Magica Which if you see it in a store anywhere, it’ll look like it just says Ars Magica But yeah, you know a lot of it is just You know, hey, these guys speak Latin, so you kind of like, learn to say it the formal way. Anyway, I got into that. And at the time, I was like, working at a comic shop. They also sold games. Magic the Gathering came along while I was in there. And One of the people that I played with [00:07:00] in a Vampire the Masquerade LARP had applied to Wizards of the Coast for a job in customer service. And for whatever reason, I just thought, you know what? I could use a change of pace. I’m going to apply. What the heck? Let’s see what happens. And they didn’t hire me, but they hired him. And he was pretty convinced that you know, he could get me in there. So I said, all right, you know, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to take a risk.

I’m going to move out to Seattle with you. And We both came out here. He worked at Wizards of the Coast and Customer Service for about two or three months before I finally got an interview. I literally was down to my last nickel and contemplating, like, trying to figure out how to get back home. But yeah, they interviewed me, they hired me, I started working for them and I did that because at the time, they had the rights to the Ars Magica RPG. And so I just wanted to be kind of close to that, right? It all ties together, trust me. I may tell it in a really weird, convoluted way, but it does tie together. So, I started working for them I actually wrote a an introductory adventure for them for the Ars Magica [00:08:00] game. And then they decided to divest themselves of RPGs, including that. But I was in customer service and I was doing the the RPG stuff as a freelance gig on the side, so I didn’t, you know, I didn’t get laid off be as a result of that. So, I worked there for another few years, and then they, you know, they announced, hey, we’re gonna try to acquire Dungeons and Dragons, and I hadn’t played in a long time. I actually, you know, at that point, I kind of had a negative opinion of D& D, you know, I just kind of grown out of it. I was like, oh, well, that’s great, I guess, you know, but I continued to work on Ars Machica in my free time, and my free time at the time Sometimes consisted of staying late after work and using my work computer to write the stuff because my home computer was a piece of garbage.

And one night I was in there just lights off, working away. And at the time, a lot of the RPG staff, so when we had acquired, Wizards had acquired TSR, they came over, they [00:09:00] started working and they were like doing the same thing they had always done, but they were doing it in our conference rooms, which was, After hours, they would run their D& D games or whatever they were playing. And one of the people from the RPG side came walking by, Julia Martin. She was on her way to the restroom and she was like, what are you still doing here? It’s like 7 30 at night. And I said, oh yeah, I’m just, I’m, I’m doing some freelance stuff. And she’s like, oh, okay. She went to the restroom and on her way back, she stopped and she said, what kind of freelance stuff are you doing?

And I said, oh yeah, I’m writing this adventure for for Ars Magica. And she said, You know, there are positions open on the RPG team, you know, if you’ve got that experience, you might want to consider applying, and I talked to her about it a little bit, and I was like, sure, why not, and I didn’t actually get hired that first time they had a very specific role in mind, they had a very specific person in mind, I think but, like, two months later, they did it again, they actually hired several people, and three of the people they hired Were me and my co workers from customer service. So, I found myself working [00:10:00] on D& D and Alternity. Ended up being the Ars Magica, not Ars Magica, darn it. The Dark Matter campaign guide kind of person. I was just, like, writing a lot of Dark Matter stuff for the, for that line. And then eventually we got the license to do Star Wars. So I worked on both the the original core rule book for Star Wars and then the revised core rule book for Star Wars. And for a long time I was the Star Wars guy. Not so much anymore.

Courtney: Yeah, I remember a couple months ago we were in a just used book Store in a really random small town, and yeah, you know where I’m going with this. and

JD: I actually can quote what I said to Brenton.

Courtney: yeah, like, we’re just looking through the RPG section and found a Star Wars book and he’s like, Look, look, it’s JD!

JD: Yep, yep. You must [00:11:00] learn the ways of the force if you’re going to accompany me to Ellensburg.

Courtney: Yeah and I feel like we’re only partly through the timeline.

JD: You are only partly through the timeline, yes. I mean, if you want to know, like, how I ended up at WizKids, there’s, you know, I can, like, do the truncated version of that, which is I bounced around in the computer game industry for a while. I was doing freelance for Wizards after I got laid off from Wizards in the early part of 2002, and know, it just wasn’t paying the bills and I ended up I met my wife at Gen Con in 2005, and at the same time, there were a bunch of people there from Upper Deck, and they said, hey, we need somebody to do some writing and editing, and I said, cool, I can do that, and so I found myself moving down there, and coincidentally, that’s where my wife lived. So, yeah and then, you know, Upper Deck, It had its ups and downs and I ended up losing that job and went back to freelancing, which wasn’t paying many bills. [00:12:00] And then I found a gig working in the computer industry, and I have bounced across the country twice now chasing computer game jobs.

And I did two or three while I was, you know, back here in Seattle again. But, yeah, I was I was working, COVID hit. They decided to downsize their American office. I ended up unemployed for a while, and then found out from a friend of mine, Matt Smith, that WizKids was looking for somebody to be a producer for RPGs, and that everybody said, Oh, that’s right up your alley, JD, you work on miniatures, and, you know, RPGs at WizKids means working on miniatures. And they’re like, Yeah, you know, you paint miniatures, you’ve been painting them for years, that’s perfect for you, and I was like, yeah, but I don’t know anything about being a producer, and they were like, yeah, we’ll teach you. And I was like, okay. And it turns out that it’s a lot of spreadsheets.

Courtney: Who’d a thunk? ha

JD: Yeah, spreadsheets and schedules. So yeah, there’s your, there’s your RPG about the modern life. Spreadsheets and schedules. So yeah, that’s how I ended up at [00:13:00] WizKids and that’s how I ended up, you know, Being the man of a thousand minis.

Courtney: Yeah, that’s insane, like, I mean, we’ve moved a fair amount since we met, like, considering that it started in 2012, but. It’s always just been like, we wanted to just check out a new area for the most part, until Breton got the job at WizKids, and then it was, oh, we’re actually moving for a job. But just, yeah, the idea of like, oh, I have to move all the way across country, and I’m assuming a very limited amount of time.

JD: Yeah, that’s times like that when you realize just how little you need certain things that you thought were really vital to your life.

Courtney: Yeah, we, we used to move every year, just from apartment to apartment, and, you know, Got really good at purging. And then we’re in one place down in Salem for two and a half years. And it was like, Oh my gosh, how did I have so much stuff?[00:14:00]

JD: Yeah, yeah. I got rid of so many winter coats when I first moved down to San Diego. I got rid of so many shorts and t shirts when I moved to Virginia. Yeah,

Courtney: can also relate to that. Like moving from hot to really cold to hot again. It was like, crap, like I should have kept at least one of these things.

JD: we’ve been back for like 14 years, and when I finally decided I needed to buy a snow shovel, I was just like, Oh, golly, I forgot what this was like.

Courtney: I have not lived here long enough to need a snow shovel yet. I

JD: Just wait.

Courtney: yeah. It’s just been like a light dusting and some ice. Yeah.

JD: Yeah, yeah.

Anyway,

Courtney: you bought a bunch of minis when you were 14. Is that when, like, did you start [00:15:00] painting them at that point, too? Or is it

JD: oh yeah, oh yeah,

that’s, that’s exactly when I started and I had no idea what I was doing. And that, I mean, you know, when I was 14, the internet was just a gleam in Al Gore’s eye. You know, we, we didn’t even have, like, regular magazines that you could go to the store and, you know, buy and go, Oh, that’s how you paint! So I bought all these miniatures which were at the time made of lead, you know, that tells you how old that is. And, I had no idea what kind of paint brushes to use, what kind of paint to use. And I kept one of them that I painted back in the day. And I painted it with if anybody in your listeners is familiar with this, Testors. Enamel paint, which is designed for like, models, cars, planes, that kind of thing. It is not designed for lead miniatures. Neither, as it turns out, are there paintbrushes, which are these disposable little pieces of junk. But yeah, that was what I used to first start painting, and then I was really proud of, you know, how many I painted and how good they looked.

And I was like, [00:16:00] Oh, I got like 30 miniatures done. They’re all completely painted. I’m doing great. And I went to play D& D with some friends and they went, Oh, you paint miniatures too? I’m like, Oh yeah, you guys paint? They went, yeah, hang on a second. And they came down and they had like this really nice ball rug miniature that they had painted with oil paints. And I was just like, I’m just gonna put my stuff back in this box. They were like, you’ve painted a lot. And I’m like, yeah, I’m really good. Aren’t I? And they’re like, yeah, well, here’s what a miniature is supposed to look like. I didn’t have any frame of reference. Right. You know, so as time went by, you know, I discovered, oh yeah, there are people out there writing tutorials on this. And yeah, I finally went to a hobby shop at some point. My, my parents and I were driving Somewhere in the Midwest and we saw a sign for a hobby shop and they said, do you want to stop there? Yeah, please. You know, and so we stop in there and I shop around. And at the time the big miniature companies were Grenadier and Rallpartha. And I think Rallpartha had this boxed set, which was like 20 [00:17:00] miniatures and it had a, like a really rough framework for like a little board game in it. But it also had the thing that I really needed and didn’t know about that even existed which was a guide for how to paint. And it recommended like, Hey, you should use this kind of paint.

You should use these kinds of brushes. And I went, Oh, Oh, I just leveled up. This is awesome. So yeah, I, I still, you know, I, I painted a bunch and I got so much better and I still sucked. And you know, as time went by, I gradually learned there are a lot of resources out there and now that, you know, we have the internet. There are so many resources out there for people who are just trying to learn how to paint. And. Yeah, I’ve learned, I’ve leveled up so many times. I’ve learned so much about how to paint and you know, even on my worst slapped together miniatures, I do so much better than my original one. And if anybody wants to check out my Instagram page, somewhere on there is a picture of these two little, really [00:18:00] old orcs. They’re, they’re like an orc carrying an axe and I’ve got them side by side, and one is the original one that I painted with testers and the testers paintbrush, and how awful that looks, and then there’s one that I painted like two or three years ago when, you know, I said, Hey, I have the same miniature, let me try to paint that knowing what I know now. And you can see a vast difference. And I show that old miniature to people when they, you know, when they say, Oh, I could never learn how to paint. And I’m like, dude, you’ve, you’ve got to give yourself some credit. I did this. This is awful. Look at this. This is garbage. And you’re complimenting me on everything else over here.

You know what the difference is? I stuck with it. I just didn’t give up when I realized, Hey, I’m not very good at this.

Courtney: Yeah,

JD: Anyway,

Courtney: I mean, it is definitely humbling with getting started. Like, I, you know, all of this got, I got introduced to from Britain when we started dating a while ago. [00:19:00] And I got, like, we were painting our Malifaux armies. It’s a miniatures war game that We used to play all the time and finally started to get the hang of it.

I was like, okay, this is fun. And then for whatever reason, stopped and didn’t pick up a paintbrush until a couple of weeks ago. I was like, oh dear God, I have forgotten everything, but

JD: it’s not like riding a bike!

Courtney: Right? But no, I mean, it’s been really fun to start getting back into that. So yeah, I mean, what are some of the mistakes that you see new painters make over and over again?

JD: I thought we only had an hour for this. All right, here we go. No, seriously the, the biggest mistake I see is, is kind of what we both just mentioned, which is that some people think that they’re, if they’re not good at it from the get go, there’s no reason to keep going. Which is just not true of any new hobby. Right? You know, if you’re painting a [00:20:00] miniature and you’re not good at it, okay. If you’re trying to learn how to play piano and you’re not good at it on your first try, look, you’re not going to be a prodigy. There’s a reason why prodigies are so valued is because they’re rare. It helps to have, you know, a little background and, and, and know the concepts.

And if you can apply like, Hey, I used to play piano. I should be able to pick up violin. That’s fair. So that’s the thing that I always tell people when they first start painting, you know, I said, I always tell them, look, you’re going to suck, get used to it, get over it, right. Learn to improve, look at it again later, and then realize what you could have done differently.

And don’t forget, It’s paint. You can paint over paint. It’s not

like those coloring books we used as a kid where if you tried to color over it, it ended up a really weird hybrid color. You can do this. But like getting into specifics, like, you know, use the right brush. Like I said, I used to testers paintbrush.

That’s garbage, right? You know, and there are a lot of really nice synthetic brushes out there designed for painting miniatures. They don’t hold their [00:21:00] tip very well over time. So if somebody gets really serious and they’re like, Hey, I need to buy new paintbrushes. The first thing I say is you should consider getting some sable brushes. They will hold their tip better. You still have to clean them, you know, and they cost a lot more, but they’re totally worth it. You will see a difference. I tell people you have to remember to thin your paints. Everybody that manufactures paint. has a slightly different formula and you get a slightly different viscosity. And so yeah, sometimes it comes out like water and sometimes it comes out like sludge. And you just have to get it to that consistency where it’s sort of like skim milk. I recommend people buy like a painting handle, something to hold onto it so you’re not actually touching the miniature with your bare hand. That used to be a big deal with with metal miniatures a lot more than it is with plastic because Primer for whatever reason on metal miniatures. It doesn’t really like hold as well So if you’re touching the miniature, you’re literally just like rubbing the paint off. Not so much with plastic miniatures I don’t know why I don’t know [00:22:00] what the difference is, but good lighting I mean, I’ve got this thing up here this thing I don’t know if you can see it very clearly, but this is like a big halo thing that I built out of like thin metal strips with LEDs going through adhered to it. And I get to control that from over here, you know, with all my, my fun stuff not conducive to painting. I think the flashing lights don’t really help with painting, but you know,

it’s fun to

just, you know, to explain. But yeah. And you know, then the other thing is if you see like a miniature that somebody has painted and You think, wow, that’s really good, I want to learn to paint like that, that’s cool. But don’t forget that. You’re gonna have your own style.

Courtney: company because

JD: Just like, you know, the painting of you know, Maxfield Parish is different from the painting of Salvador Dali. They’re both considered masters, you know, but they’re very different. You just have to get used to that. The [00:23:00] end.

Courtney: See? You did it in less than an hour.

JD: I skipped a bunch.

Courtney: I’m sure.

JD: You got the good parts version, like the princess bride.

Courtney: So, I know from Brighton that you do commissions.

JD: I do.

Courtney: How long have you been doing that?

JD: Basically, since I started painting miniatures

Courtney: Alright.

JD: yeah, that was one of those things where You know, because I was literally the only person in my peer group that painted miniatures, I was also the best person for painting miniatures. And so, you know, initially people would just say, Hey, can you paint a miniature for me?

And I’m, yeah, sure, no problem. And then as I got slightly better, I realized I should charge for this. But I wasn’t charging much. I was like really undervaluing my skill and, you know, I would be like, 10 bucks, whatever. And then as time went by, it went up to like 25 bucks. And eventually my wife said, you need to value your [00:24:00] skill more, charge more. And so

now I have like a, like the sliding scale and like, you know, Hey, if you, if you want to, you know, a miniature this big, and if you want detail, if you want it to look really good on the tabletop, or if you want it to look like something that you could take pictures of and, you know, frame it and put it on your wall, different prices For everything.

But yeah, I have been doing commissions in one form or another, basically since I started painting.

Courtney: On average, how long are you spending?

JD: If it’s a, if it’s what you call tabletop quality, so, you know, it looks good from a distance of about two or three feet that’s usually somewhere between four and six hours, depending on like how detailed the figure is or, you know, how much detail the person wants on it. But if we are talking something that’s like, Hey, you could take this to a competition.

I’m probably going to spend somewhere between eight and 12 hours on it.

Courtney: That makes sense. [00:25:00] And like, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect on time. And I was like, wow, that actually doesn’t seem like a lot of time. And like, you’ve been doing this since you were 14.

JD: I’ve been doing this for a long time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s funny. You know, It’s a, it’s a truism of, of anything that you pursue, any hobby you pursue. But yeah, you know, slow is steady, and steady is fast. My friend Matt Smith says that all the time about a lot of things. And yeah, it’s just so applicable, right?

And so, I think a lot of professional painters out there, especially ones that do commission work, have learned that you just do what you know and you’ll get through it really quickly. It just, it’s, I’m going to get off into the metaphysics here, but I think everybody has some kind of like meditation thing that they do. And they just kind of zone out and they think about something else completely and then they’re like, oh, okay, I’m done. You know, or wow, it’s been six hours. I didn’t realize I was doing it this long for me. [00:26:00] It’s painting. It really, really is. I can spend hours just sitting at my painting desk, just painting away.

And I’ll be like, you know, miles away in my head, you know, thinking about my D& D game, thinking about like conversation I had two days ago, whatever. But while that’s going on, I’m like, you know, carefully applying paint and thinking about my next steps and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, you know, it it actually makes it go faster for me because I don’t. Stress over every single step. The longest. Part, the longest phase of any miniature painting project for me is deciding what color to use. I will literally just stare at a miniature from all different angles for, you know, hours, and just go, I feel like blue? Man, I feel like red would also look really good. Yeah.

Courtney: And also, what shades of blue or red?

JD: Yeah, yeah, I’ve got a couple of each.[00:27:00]

Courtney: Only a couple?

JD: Only a couple? No, no, so, so many. Yeah, I, yeah, I, I’ve got like, you know, 60 paints from the line that I worked on for WizKids, and then there’s another 140 from various other companies. Maybe 200? I don’t know. Something new comes along, you gotta try it, right?

Courtney: Mm hmm. Okay, so because you mentioned like, four WizKids, I hear that you have actually painted miniatures specifically for WizKids.

JD: I have, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m not entirely sure what happened to those. It’s not like they notify me and say, Hey, JD, your miniature’s up on our website, you know? They just go like, OK, thanks, great, you know, can you send me some more pictures? Yeah, sure, here it is. I do know that some of the stuff that I’ve worked on I can’t talk about because it’s not been announced [00:28:00] yet. But yeah, if it’s, if it’s on my Instagram page, then Yeah, I can probably talk about it but yeah, a lot of what I paint, I think, goes to conventions, so they can show it off and say, hey, you know, this is the new thing that’s coming but yeah, I, I have painted, I don’t know, I want to say maybe 10 or 12 miniatures, officially, for WizKids, ha

Courtney: How did that come up?

JD: ha ha probably just because in some meeting or another I just happened to show somebody a picture of what I was working on and, you know, word gradually gets through the system and somebody finally says, You know, JD paints miniatures. If you need that painted, maybe we can get him to do it. And there were a couple times I think I just volunteered because, you know, like I said, I work on the miniature lines for WizKids. So, There have been a couple times when they, when they say, Hey, you know, if you want to paint that, go for it. You know, you’re going to get an early sample of it. Yeah. Great. I paint it and I send pictures and say, Hey, this is what it looks like when it’s painted. You know, I think this is going to sell [00:29:00] really well.

And they say, that’s cool. You painted that? Yeah. Yeah. Can we use that? Yeah.

Courtney: That’s awesome. So how often are you doing commissions?

JD: It varies. I have, I have literally thousands of miniatures. I counted them in 2014 just out of curiosity. And I had something like 5, 000 unpainted miniatures, unpainted things that I needed to get around to painting. But I had collected over, you know, the last 35, 40 years of buying miniatures 10 years ago. And then I started working for WizKids, and I found myself having boxes of miniatures show up at my door on a pretty regular basis, so I’ve got even more now. And then, you know, miniature based board games became kind of a big deal, and [00:30:00] I buy a lot of those, and play those, and So I have a lot of those sitting on my desk.

So yeah, I’ve got thousands and thousands of miniatures and I, I’ve been trying to work through my what we call the shelf of shame. You know, stuff that you started working and, and, and never actually finished and it’s, it’s pretty big. You can’t see it on the camera there, but yeah, it’s huge. And of course your listeners are not going to see it at all. They’re just going to have to guess. But yeah point being that as long as I don’t have some like really pressing personal project, I’m technically kind of always working on commissions. You know, I’ll just have people reach out to me, they’ve seen me on Instagram or Cara or whatever, and they’ll say, hey, do you do commissions?

Yup! What do you want painted? Yeah. And sometimes they’re local, which is really handy. You know, it’s nice to be able to just like drive and meet somebody and go, Hey, here’s your miniature. Give me my money.

Courtney: Okay. So it sounds like it’s casual and that like, you’ve got your profile. I know you [00:31:00] do. Streams sometimes, like I’ve seen some of your posts about that but just people reach out to you and ask for help.

JD: Yeah, more or less. I mean, the streams that I do are always like other people saying, Hey, we do this regular painting stream. Do you want to be on it?

You know? Yeah, sure. You know, why not? And you know, they’re generally pretty fun to just, you know, Chat painting with people kind of like we’re doing now. But yeah, you know that sometimes they ask me, you know How would you do this? Okay, let me think about that Well, if I did have that miniature in front of me, I would probably be able to answer that question better But have you tried doing this? So, yeah, I don’t know if that answers your question or not, but it is

the reality

Courtney: No, it’s cool. Okay, so let’s say that you were going to, whatever reason, you agreed to go to like a hobby shop or art store with a new painter and you’re like [00:32:00] pointing out like what are the paints? What are the brushes? What supplies do they need? When they’re first getting started. Okay.

JD: Because it’s, it’s a really good answer that goes with that question, which is whenever somebody is just starting off painting miniatures, I strongly advise them to not spend a lot of money. You know, despite the thing that I was saying earlier about, look, you’ve got to stick with it to find out if you’re actually any good or not. Sometimes people just find it stressful. And so if they don’t want to stick with it because it’s actually causing them stress, then you don’t want to spend a lot of money on that, right? So I will literally take people to like craft stores instead of hobby stores and I’ll say, look, take these, these crappy brushes. They’re cheap. Get some of this Apple Barrel paint Because it’s basically the same stuff. It’s just acrylic paint That’s all you really need and just play with that for a little bit and I will show [00:33:00] you like if I’m gonna teach you I will show you like this is how you thin this stuff down So it actually works and you know all that kind of thing and then if they’re like, hey, that was a lot of fun.

I want to do more of that. I say cool first thing you’re gonna do gather together like all those paintbrushes and all that Apple Barrel stuff and Chuck it in a drawer or better yet the trash We’re gonna go to a we’re gonna go to a hobby store and we’re gonna get you some actual paint and some actual brushes

Courtney: So what would those be?

JD: I I have used a lot of different brushes over the years. I buy, I buy brushes from a lot of different sources but I strongly recommend if somebody is serious about painting you pick up some Sable brushes like Red Sable Kolinsky brushes, I’ve got one I’m staring at right here Red Sable Kolinsky. Get them in different sizes, but you’ll be surprised that, you know, you don’t really need like a wide variety of sizes. People, [00:34:00] people hear, you know, people hear that they’re going to have to paint the eyes on a miniature and it causes this weird panic to go through them. And I’m like, look, if you keep a nice point on your brush, if you take care of your brushes and keep the bristles coming to a nice point, You can use a number two brush, which is pretty big. You can use that to paint the eyes on your miniature. I’ve done it before. It’s not that hard. You just have to make sure you can see. And I, you know, I actually, you know, my, as my vision started to go over the years, I had to buy like, you know, magnifying glasses that I can wear while I’m, while I’m painting. But yeah, I can still do that, though, with a, with a number two brush and I don’t have a problem. So I usually recommend people get a good number two brush, one that’s gonna hold its point well. Get maybe, like, a number one brush for, like, just some fine line work. And if you really wanna have, like, something really, really tiny for painting eyes, like, get a zero zero or a, or a triple zero, maybe. But when it comes to paint, there are so many good paints out there. It depends on what your personal style [00:35:00] is. And I hate to say it, but there is no one line of paint that does every color perfectly. You will find people who are like, yeah, I really love Vallejo paint. And I will just buy everything from Vallejo paint, but I can’t stand their, their hot orange paint. It’s too thick. It always comes out too thick, you know? Or, you know, oh, I get titanium white and I buy that, you know, from like. You know, golden paint you know, which is just a, a, a craft paint. Basically it’s a professional professional paint.

Courtney: See,

JD: whatever one suits your, your personal needs.

And I know people like swear by Games Workshop paint. the Citadel brands. A lot of people really like the contrast paint that Citadel puts out but they don’t like the bottles that those come in because they’ve got those weird caps that stick up and they’re really easy to knock over it’s kind of a rite of passage to knock over a bottle of Citadel Nuln Oil.

Courtney: [00:36:00] Very

JD: their bottle caps and some have like little nozzles and those are great. And some have like these really complicated you know, kind of like, I don’t know exactly what to call it, but it’s like the nozzle you get on a a bottle of like Elmer’s glue, you know, where you just kind of twist it and it creates the opening and then you can, you know, dispense it from that. And those are great, right? Those are easy to clean up. And that’s kind of my big deal. I probably spend, you know, three to 5 percent of all my painting time at this desk cleaning the inside of paint bottle caps.

Courtney: Just sitting here like, huh, it’s never actually occurred to me to clean the inside of the cap. Like, that makes so much sense, what the heck?

JD: I keep Q tips and toothpicks and I have an old leather working awl that I got from my dad many, many years ago. And those are all really handy in cleaning the inside [00:37:00] of those caps.

Courtney: Yeah, babe. We’ve primarily been using the WizKids paints because, hey, we got them for free. And, yeah, but like, some of them I’ve just really separated a little too much and, or, yeah, are just like really gloopy. So gloopy.

JD: Yeah, I don’t know if we can, if we can like, you know, get a moment of silence here and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll activate this device that I keep over here and we’ll see if you can hear this on the microphone, but here we go. Here we go.

Courtney: Oh my gosh.

JD: That is a that is a professional paint shaker. It’s, it’s based on a a test tube shaker that you see in chemistry labs and yeah, they make them for paint bottles and basically you just like, you know, put the end of the paint bottle on the top and push down a little bit and it activates it and the motor starts going. And it shakes all the pigments loose so it doesn’t [00:38:00] separate anymore, and boy has that been handy!

Courtney: Okay, yeah, that sounds awesome.

JD: It’s so awesome that they decided to charge a lot of money for it. Yeah,

Courtney: yeah, I bet.

JD: yeah, but it works, and it doesn’t have the problem that, you know, like there’s this other kind that is kind of like a like an immersion blender thing, but you have to take the cap off for

that and put that down in there and then run it, and if you lose your grip you get paint everywhere.

This, you just, you don’t even have to take the cap off.

Courtney: I mean, that definitely sounds much better in an immersion blender. I can’t, I mean, those bottles are so small, too!

JD: Well, yeah, the that’s the funny thing, right? You know, Hey, I get to tell you a little bit about the logic that went into the WizKids Prismatic Paint. We had an opportunity, right? Where we looked at the paint bottles and we said, you know, we want to really make this thing something that is kind of an impulse buy or something that’s for people who are just starting out, right?

And the ones who are like, yeah, I want to do this hobby, [00:39:00] but man, paint bottles are expensive and there’s so much paint and when you see, you know, the standard size paint bottle, you think. I’m probably going to need more of that in like, you know, two, three months, right? Stuff lasts forever. I’ve got bottles of paint here.

18 milliliter bottles of paint that I’ve had for 15 years takes a long time. Right. And so we made a conscious decision. And a lot of that was me saying, guys, eight milliliters is plenty. We made a conscious decision to use the smaller size bottles. And yeah, I mean, you guys, you and Brenton are using those now for your painting miniatures. Have you gone through one yet?

Courtney: No.

JD: And you’ve had those for over a year?

Courtney: To be fair, we just started a couple weeks ago, but yeah.

JD: All right.

But

Courtney: impressive if we had gone through one.

JD: there are colors that you will go through. There’s like six colors that, you know, like the, the no brainer stuff, you know, black, blue, red, yellow. You’ll go through those really fast because you use them so much. But. [00:40:00] All those other colors, it’s going to take you a while.

Courtney: so I’m about to ask, like, a super, like, I don’t know. Personalized question for my own benefit. Which is one of the characters that I’m playing is a Heron Gone. And my whole time playing her, I’ve been like, okay, she’s a white rabbit with tan spots. And I have been trying. But it’s that whole like, oh, okay, at least the logic as Breton has been explaining it is like, you’ve got your like, medium base color and then you want to do a darker wash and then like, go lighter.

And I’m like, but she’s white and I know she needs depth, but like, how do I get white fur?

JD: So the trick with white is, is similar to the trick with black, right? You know, how do you shade black? How

do you lighten white? So the trick is you don’t start with pure white. And that’s why, I mean, in that bottle or sorry, in the the, the [00:41:00] paint cases for prismatic paint, there are, let’s see, one, two, three.

Like three different shades of whitish or light blue. Hang on. I’m going to grab those cause I keep them right handy. All right. So what I would do if I were you, and I know you have these paints because you have those, those cases.

So you start with Banshee white.

Courtney: yeah.

JD: it looks white in the bottle.But when you put it next to a bottle of dead white, Which is also in that case, you’ll see that the dead white is much lighter.

JD: white for your base coat. For your shadows, you use something like winter wolf. And then when you go to do your highlighting, which should be very light, I mean, you’re applying it very lightly with your brush, dead white.

JD: percent white and use that. And I’ve had professional painters, like, You know, people that actually do streams on a regular [00:42:00] basis tell me They never actually use white or black. They use something that’s close because the human eye isn’t going to look at it and say, Oh, that’s not 100 percent white.

Courtney: Interesting. Okay, well, I’m really glad that this is recorded, and Also, Brenton, I told you so! Anyways.

JD: If you get nothing else out of that interview today, that’s, that’s it right there, Brenton, I told you so. And it’s on record.

Courtney: Amazing. Okay, I know we’ve been, like, jumping all over the place, and that’s just because I’ve been really excited. But Going back to when you are doing commissions

JD: Huh.

Courtney: you know, just,

JD: you’re, I feel like you’re getting at something here, but go ahead, ask your question. Let’s, let’s see what you [00:43:00] have to say.

Courtney: I mean, I’m supposed to be talking about, like, businessy tips, so I should, like, probably throw a question in about that.

JD: Sure.

Courtney: yeah, so when you’re working on your commissions I’ve, what are some of, like, the things that are a struggle? Whether that’s, like, working with the client themselves, if they don’t know what they want, or, yeah, just tell me, like, what’s some hard stuff about working on commissions?

JD: Like every, if you’ve ever worked retail, think about every retail customer that ever came, you know, to the cash register and all the weird complaints that they have, you know, that’s a lot of what it’s like to do commission painting. There have been customers that I’ve had and it’s the vast majority I will say who are just like Delighted that somebody painted a miniature for them and they are just like please for the love of God take my money and give me a painted miniature And those those people are great.

Those are [00:44:00] fantastic There are a lot of people out there who don’t quite know what they want. And they’re willing to let you just kind of like have fun with it. And that’s cool too. But you know, then you always run the risk of they’re not going to like this. I think, you know, and you show it to them and they’re like, Oh yeah, I was thinking more like purple hair. Oh, well, you remember at the beginning when I asked you all those questions about like what color hair and you said, just do whatever you want. Sounds like the answer should have been purple. That doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen from time to time. And you know, sometimes you get people who just kinda lose track of you, you know?

I have a miniature that I started painting, I wanna say in 2003 that is now finished, has been finished since 2004, and the person I painted it for never came back.

Courtney: Hm. 

JD: Okay, I can do that.

JD: yeah, that happens from time to time. You run across people who just kind of forget that you were painting something for them. Yeah, I had a guy a few years ago that asked me to paint, like, a really big 3D printed dragon. And I painted it, and I said, So, hey, I’m finished, you know, What do you think?

And he said, that looks fantastic. I cannot wait. You know, let’s, let’s arrange to pick this up. I’m going to be busy for a month, but after that I can meet you and you know, we can do this, didn’t hear from him again for eight months. And I finally, you know, I was like, dude.

Courtney: Mm

JD: I’m like, okay, that’s fine. You know, you know, everybody has like stuff going on in their life, you know? So you just have to learn, learn to work around that.

I find that there are customers out there who [00:46:00] also, you know, they want you to paint something for them and you find it kind of ethically, you know, Questionable. I had somebody a while back approached me about painting a like an, I want to say an anime figure but it was one of those like kind of cheesecakey anime figures, which always leaves me kind of going You know paint it, but you know but then I found that also it was a it was a pirated kit

Courtney: Mm hmm.

JD: and I was like, yeah, okay I should probably draw the line at cheesecakey You But I definitely draw the line at pirated.

So yeah, I’m not going to paint that for you, buddy. Sorry. So yeah, such is life.

Courtney: Yeah, that’s an interesting one, that I wouldn’t have really thought would have, I mean it makes sense that it would be an issue, but.

JD: it’s, it’s a huge issue. There’s a lot of people out there [00:47:00] that are doing what they call recasts where they will buy a miniature clean it up. And then either, like, scan it to make a 3D copy of it or they will, you know, simply go through the molding process with it again, using that as the base, and then they just make them to their heart’s content.

Courtney: mm hmm.

JD: And it’s, yeah, it’s a, it’s an awful, awful practice, and yeah. If that guy had not contacted me After I had heard about that, I might have been tempted to go ahead with it, but when I found out how pervasive it is, I said, Yeah, no, I’m not gonna do that.

Courtney: Yeah, how did you find out that it was pirated? 

JD: A little bit of research. So, you know, it’s He told me what the kit was, he told me what the figure was, and I looked it up online because I was trying to see references. You know, what color is this piece of cloth, and you know, blah blah blah. And I said, Hang on, this guy paid, he said he paid like 80 bucks for this? I know that sounds like a lot, but these things go for like 400. How did he get such a good deal? And then I [00:48:00] realized this is probably pirated. And so I kind of like, you know, looked around and, and, and found, you know, the site that he said he bought it from. And then I said, Oh yeah, all of these are cheap. So it’s either warehouse, you know, clearance stuff or it’s pirated. So yeah, no thanks.

Courtney: Well, to flip it around, what is your favorite part about working on commissions?

JD: I love it when somebody says, I don’t know what I want to do with this, just have fun with it. And they can give me like a vague description you know, like, Hey, I, you know, this is, this is my Goliath character from my Dark Sun campaign. And I go, Oh, cool. Goliath, Dark Sun. I can work with that. And I just get to like try out new techniques.

And I think a lot of commission painters actually do commissions so that they can do that kind of thing. They can just try something out, see how it goes and then say, Hey, I’ve just added a tool to my [00:49:00] toolbox. And that’s, you know, learning new things about your hobby is always fun. You know, Hey, what’s this pedal down here on the piano for?

Oh, wow.

Courtney: We are getting close to time but I did want to ask if you’ve got any fun projects coming up or minis that you’re working on right now. That you’re allowed to talk about.

JD: I don’t have any commission work currently but I’ve sort of got a pseudo commission in that My wife and I got into the game Marvel Crisis Protocol, and we’ve gotten to the point where she actually, you know, wanted to start building, you know, her own little group to, you know, to play. And she chose Guardians of the Galaxy, and I am one figure away from finishing her Guardians of the Galaxy team, and that is Nebula, sitting over here. Which, you know, Nebula’s [00:50:00] gonna be a challenge. You know, she’s got a complicated color scheme going on. That’s where it is going on.

Courtney: That’s cool. I love Guardians and Nebula is one of my favorite characters. So I definitely want to see a picture of that when you’ve got it done.

JD: Sure, yeah. Once again, I’ll probably post it on Instagram or Cara, you know.

Courtney: Perfect. Well, yeah. So if people want to find you and check out your work, where should they go?

JD: Like I said, Instagram I am JediWiker J E D I W I K E R. Not to be confused with J. D. Wiker, who apparently also lives in Seattle, and I have no idea who that person is. Ha ha ha, yeah if he weren’t so prolific in posting photos of his life, I would say that it’s like, you know, some kind of like, again, you know, somebody pulling a scam, but, oh. He doesn’t seem to have anything to do with miniatures. Anyway so there’s that. I’m also on Kara which is a kind of a new ish art app out there social [00:51:00] art app and that’s mostly, you know, professional artists showing off their stuff or, you know, even just amateurs or people who would be professionals. But there’s a pretty small, but still pretty strong community of people they’re posting. They’re painted miniatures and I am one of those people. So Cara, C A R A.

Courtney: Awesome. Yeah, I’ll have links to both of those in the show notes.

JD: Awesome.

Courtney: All right. Well, at this point, we are going to go ahead and wrap up the interview portion of this chat. But listeners, if you want to hear J. D. answer some other silly questions, like what’s your favorite sauce, then you’ll have to go and check out Patreon Patreon.

com. And I will be asking him other questions that you’ll just have to go over there to check out and hear the answers to. But thank you so much, JD, for coming on today. It’s been really good to actually get to chat with you.[00:52:00]

JD: You too. This was fun.

.

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