Colour, with Jean André

In this blog, I interview Jean André, the French model artist and dioramist.

Jean makes superb dioramas with often haunting and dreamlike scenes of solitary figures, usually women, in almost surreal environments, an element amplified by his mastery of colour.

Chris

Welcome to the Model Philosopher podcast, Jean Andre. Thank you for joining us.

Jean André

Thank you very much, Chris. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Chris

Now people might know you work on Instagram and Facebook as JBA diorama or Jean Bernard Andre or many of your other non the plume or some of them might even remember you from the old Armorama days as, I think, Nicholas Cabaret. We go back a bit there. Now for anyone that’s been living under a rock and isn’t looking at the kind of work they should be looking at, can you tell us what kind of work you make? I don’t wanna say models because I think it’s a bit different from that, but why don’t you describe it?

Jean

What I make is small vignettes or dioramas. I used to be doing some regular military dioramas, but I twisted them in many different ways. And since I’ve been moving house about seven years ago now, I don’t have any place anymore to put some big dioramas. So I’ve been setting up to do something more like shadow boxes, except that I don’t use any lights or anything. It’s just dioramas, flat dioramas that I can put under 3D frames. This is mostly what I’m doing. So the range of what I’m doing is quite wide because it can go from still military dioramas to completely out there stuff with some women usually. And that’s it really. It’s quite colourful, innovative in terms of using of colours and also some really weird balance. I try every time not to do the same thing as I’ve been doing before, even if I fail like everyone who tries to do that. But I’m doing my best about that.

Chris

It’s funny you said they’re flat dioramas because to me they’re like 3D paintings if you see what I mean. They’re kind of like fine art painting made into three dimensions.

Jean

Yes. I try indeed to do that and I also begin to cheat a bit with perspective and proportions. Just like if I was to model a room, which would be perhaps in a 1/35 scale, that would be about 10 cm long. When my frame just allows me to use only 4 cm, I will tend to compress. So for instance, if you’ve got a chair and It would be two centimeters by two centimeters or one inch by one inch. Now it’s one inch by five millimetres, you see. So I tend to increase a little bit things in order to gain a lot of space this way. But really the reason why I’m doing that is the challenge first, but it’s also a basic problem of lack of space;  stupid, but it’s the case.

Chris

It’s interesting because it’s almost like it’s put a set regular constraint on you that it has to fit this frame because you have a regular size of frame, right? It’s nearly always the same size.

Jean

Yes, except that now it’s new because I begin to work on my own frames. For instance, I’m working on a big diorama which will be about 45 centimeters long for 30 centimeters high. It will be also a sort of box, you know, but I will have to do my own box. So, no, because indeed, I was, you know, it was always the same size, it was 10 by 9 centimeters, or, 13 centimeters by 9, or 15 cm by 12. So it was always the same proportion. After a few years, it became a bit boring to be limited only because I’m a bad woodworker and I don’t like doing my own training.

But now I’ve been, you know, passing that stage and I’m now trying to do some things, you know. I want the frame to be adapted to my ideas and other ideas adapted to the frame. That’s quite new what I’m doing. I also have my step sister, who is actually a professional artist who gave me a few advices here and there and said, “the first thing you’ve got to do is to vary the size of your dioramas.” Because the eye, if one day you exhibit them here or there, People will not focus on one except or another one. So she said I must really, really vary a lot.

I believe she’s right.

Chris

I was thinking when you place a constraint on something, it forces you to be more creative in other ways sometimes. Because the ability to change the size is taken away. So you have to be more and more inventive, I would have thought, in using the space you’ve got.

Jean

I think you’re completely right. Indeed, you’re completely right. So now when I’ve got, you know, and begin to do a big diorama, and after three weeks I get bored; I take one of my frames and do the diorama. The last one was that, that was a girl in Roman ruins, and it was exactly that, you know, I got the frame and say, okay, I’m doing something on one week time. I did that one in one week time because I got the frame, the vague idea. So I put, you know, I put a A bit of paper, 9 cm by 13, I began to draw and my diorama was there. I agree with you, indeed. But it’s also laziness, in a way.

Chris

Working on a big one after working on the little ones must be like trying to build the Sagrada Familia. This sort of huge never -ending task you have to put together.

Jean

Yes indeed. And you know, it is also the problem with the people that are building some really very big dioramas. Last time I went at WME, so two years ago, I’ve been seeing a few big dioramas that just didn’t make any sense. Just for instance, a column of people just going in front of a locomotive which was, you know, visibly working, you know, things that just didn’t make any sense. And this is… So it’s a little bit off topic, but the difficulty with big dioramas is to stay focused on what you want to show and still be able to make a world work. So I will try to do more and more big dioramas in boxes because of that, because that’s a really big challenge, you know, when it comes to core management or just the idea, it’s more complicated, definitely.

Chris

I think quite often dioramas work best when you have a simple idea and you really focus on it. You eliminate anything that isn’t serving the idea that isn’t essential to putting the story across. So yeah, I can imagine that the bigger the diorama, the more risk you have of irrelevant elements, things you don’t really need. So I guess you have to make them work. You have to find a way for them to be part of it. And I guess that’s more difficult in a way.

Jean

Yes, but for years I’ve been saying that, indeed, that everything which is not strictly meaningful or useful for the drama, you’ve got to wipe out. But I’ve got a good friend who lives in Kyiv and she’s only into very, very tiny miniatures. I’m speaking to her a lot, but you know, lots of bad things are happening there, so it’s always nice to speak with one which is deep, deep inside it. And she also kind of influenced me when it comes to her idea. And she’s really good with doing some very, very tiny things with lots of details and so on. And actually, you know, it’s funny that we should mention colour later, because actually you can put a lot of things in a diorama that are only accessories. You can do that.

But when it comes to the colours, you just don’t have to make them shine the same way. You would, for instance, have 200 empty bottles on the diorama, but only 10 or 15 just at the middle of the diorama will shine and will show. And then, once the focus is just created, the people will be directed on the focus thanks to the light. Then the eye can stay and stay a lot longer on your scene because there are some details.

You know, it’s like the Belgian painter, Magritte. You know, when you look at his paintings, there’s no details. He’s not a real painter, you know. You just grab the idea, and then after you’ve got nothing else to see. You know, I’ve been to change my mind a little bit about that. So now, we tend to use on some things I’m doing, not all. More details, but using colour, you know. Then after, the eye can wonder and can look at it.

Chris

You’re someone that uses colour incredibly effectively in your work and you use a lot of strong colours as well. Is colour something you’ve always been conscious of in modelling?

Jean

That’s a good one. You know, what can I say about that? I think that my liking in colours came from the fact that I’ve been working with Games Workshop miniatures for a few years. And I really like that, you know, Games Workshop, they’ve got their blue space marines, their red, you know, their things that they sell. And at one point I didn’t want anymore, to…actually, it was quite a leftist idea, but I didn’t want to model something that was branded. I thought that my imagination was just mine and just too wide to get it centred on something that has got a big trademark on it. There was something that wasn’t me about that.

So I let that down and I came back to my first language, which was indeed military modelling, but I didn’t want to let down the colours, you know, so after that, whenever I had the chance to use colours, I was using them. But to be honest, it took me about 20 years to be more or less satisfied with the way I’m using colours in my job. It was quite a gradual move, you know. At first, I guess that I was using colours just like I would say, all the good diorama makers like, I won’t cite any name, but you know, all the good military diorama makers, no colour because they are good modellers.

But to try to put things in another way, it took me a lot of time. When you look at my first job on Armorama, for instance, my military job at the time, there’s a bit of work on the colours, but it’s still, you know, It was painful, you know, it’s not very, very good. For instance, I was already as low when the light comes from behind a person. That means that you may have a very, very light background and the person will be dark because I don’t have the word in English right now. But you know, doing some strong lighting effects. It took me, yeah, I’m 54 today. I guess I began to succeed that when I was about 45. It’s been 20 years trying to work on that. It’s quite a long process.

Chris

I think colour is something we don’t tend to think about. I can think of a lot of modelers who use it very well that I’ve never really heard talk about colour specifically. They just kind of do it. It’s like they have a natural understanding of it. But I think for a lot of us, it’s a language you have to learn. For me, it certainly is. And I feel quite at sea sometimes, you know, and unable to kind of get to grips with it. It’s a very tricky thing to learn.

Jean

Yes, indeed. And then it’s just not their priority, I guess, that lots of models want to reproduce, you know, historical reality. No, there was a history in scale in a way, you know, to tell their own historical stories, you know, because they also like telling stories, you know, it’s always, it’s often always the same, but they like to tell their own stories, but colours doesn’t come in the way, you know. If there are good modelers, scholars come. But it seldom happens.

Chris

Colour is something I think modelists usually even think about it in two ways. They either try not to think about it at all and just follow the instructions and use the colour call outs because they’re not really too interested in it. They’re more interested in the physical building of it and you know, in the form of it, which is fine. And then there are people who are very, very, I’m trying to think of a polite word …

Jean

Ha ha!

Chris

…trying to think of a good word, they’re extremely interested in colour accuracy. And so they don’t like to deviate from what they perceive to be the correct colour, which, you know, is in itself a bizarre idea because, you know, colour depends so much on the light, what time of day it is, what time of year it is and everything else.

But anyway, they just want the colour accuracy. So they don’t want to deviate. And I think quite often it’s that deviation used in an intelligent way, which makes colour interesting. If you see what I mean, used in a purposeful way rather than just sort of, you know, playing with itI think it’s more common in figure painting.it is a lot more common actually, it definitely is in figure painting than it is in scale modelling. to play with colour.

Jean

Yes, of course. Of course it’s true. But it’s always the same thing, you know. Also in figure modelling, you’ve got lots of, it’s another sport, you know, you’ve got some friends in figure modelling, but, you know, they tend to do the things that will work at shows, you know, because there’s lots of money in figure painting, you know, there’s lots of money going on, you’ve got lots of professional painters, and you’ve got, you know, so they tend to point at some sort of ideal. And in the same way, I think that lots of more creativity indeed when it comes to paint, but could be better, you know, it’s always the same tricks that they use, always the same colour scheme. It’s less square truth than it is with armor modelling, for instance, but there’s still something like that. But there’s some work on colours and creativity a lot.

I think a lot more actually if you’re painting. But you know, I would advise to every armour modeler, instead of just when they’re doing dioramas, of course, if it’s just to do a plane or a tank that we put on the shelf, no problem. You follow the instruction, you got the right RAL number and you apply the colour. It’s no problem. But when you’re doing dioramas,

Why shouldn’t they watch one of their favourite movies like Fury, Band of Brothers? They just make a screenshot of the tanks when they come through and they’re just using the little eye dropper and look at the colours on the tanks and try to do the same, for instance. They would see that the colours that they can see in Bonnet Brothers of their tanks are not the ones that they apply on their own tanks when they are doing dramas, for instance.

Chris

The interesting thing is actually both things you mentioned, Band of Brothers and I think Fury as well, use filters on the camera to desaturate the colour, to give it a more sort of documentary feel, particularly Band of Brothers, it’s quite a brown filter on the camera and there’s very few vibrant colours on it. So, you know, even the films they’re watching, they’re deliberately tweaking the colour for an effect. And yet no one would look at that and say, all the colours “are all wrong on that tanker.”

Jean

Yeah, you know, the Brothers indeed use some filters on something. But when you look at one of my preferred movies, you know, the Thin Red Line from Terrence Malick, and the use of the colour on the movie is really fantastic, you know, and there’s no filters. It just very well filmed. It just that some ambience and I do have to use this kind of tricks. But you know, the kind of things that Band of Brothers are using, you can have that in almost every series, you know, you can even from just a screenshot of the series to tell exactly the story, you know, when it’s about very dark blue or something, it’s going to be a police story, a little bit macabre or something. Well.

Chris

The Thin Red Line for me actually, is a really good example of how people could bring more vibrancy into their military modelling. Some of the colours in that really pop. That green grass on the hill when they’re assaulting the Japanese position at the top. It’s so green. It’s like emerald green.

Jean

Yes, you know, that’s a scene, you know, at one moment when you can see just a cargo ship in a lagoon, just this scene with just a big black smoke and the gray of the ship and the gray of the sea. Just, it just sticks in the end, you know, and you don’t have to use it. Actually, perhaps it’s this kind of image that I want to use to create, you know, some really strong images and using colours for that. And they don’t have to be purple or red or something, but just the world scheme, it has to work. It’s a way why you will remember one moment in the movie, it’s also because of the colour and the combination of different colours.

Chris

That’s a good example as well of why colour is important in your modeling, but it doesn’t have to be the thing that people notice because if it’s done well, it should, as you say with the diorama, it should support it without being obvious what it’s doing. It’s not the main focus, but it supports the focus of it.

Jean

Absolutely, exactly. We couldn’t say better.

Chris

How do you choose colour?

Jean

that’s quite simple, you know, I’m doing my own mixes of colours, you know, I don’t need to have a lot of paints and yet I just have them just right in front of me. I’ve been counting them just before I was waiting for you. I’ve got 140 little acrylic pots, mostly AK, but I’ve got also some, Scale 75. I don’t need those, but it’s actually such a pleasure, you know, I usually just empty completely my desk, look at my paints and say, what will I use? I usually just take about 10 and I stick to those 10. And at the end, perhaps I will change my mind, I just take another one. But it’s just a matter of looking at my paints and what could fit. I really like that. And after I’m doing my own mixes, but it helps me, to give the starting point.

Chris

Bit like you’re the dropper but with your eye instead, you’re looking at the bottles thinking yeah a bit of that there.

Jean

Absolutely. Because it’s important because, if you like, I’m just having a look at my blues, but you can see that, for instance, I’ve got some turquoise blues that won’t go well with some kind of reds or brown or something. I’ve got some more, you know, sky blue or something, which wouldn’t be so great with turquoise, which wouldn’t be so great with some sort of red and something. So it’s the kind of thing that I try to do: set up a starting base, you know, perhaps after adding other paints, better using perhaps seven or eight basic paints and after that working on that. But I need to have those 140 paint pots in front of me in order to help me at first. This is the way I’m working really.

Chris

It’s funny, I mix most of my colours too and I find the paints I’ve bought, that I go back to, are the really bright ones. They’re the ones not to mix really, but just, “I need to find a way to use that”. Or the ones I use from the bottle are the really bright ones because they’re very hard to mix like your turquoise, really good turquoise and stuff like that. It’s not impossible, but sometimes it’s easier just to pick a nice one and use it.

Jean

I totally agree with you. It’s really helpful. I mean, a lot of paints, it helps. It’s just, even if, of course, you always empty the same pot. I’ve got a few. I’ve got some, like everyone, I’ve got my preferred kind of paints, preferred shades. For instance, there’s one AK which is called, there is Tire Black, Tire like a Tire, on the printed back. It really replaces black for me most of the time. I never use black and never use white. I always use, you know, Tyre black or something, you know, those kind of base colours.

Chris

Mine’s on my desk. Rubber black.

Actually, they have a colour called tenebrous gray and I use that instead of black and that’s really nice. That’s got a sort of a reddish brownish grayish tone to it that’s much better instead of black.

Jean

But you know, why I shouldn’t advise anyone to use black? Because you know, there’s nothing blacker than black. Which means that when you work on the diorama, and at one point you will need something which will be darker. And you have been using your tenebrous gray or your tyre black. You can still in last resort, resort to black.

Chris

Yeah. when you need a bit of shadow on your other black. You need something darker.

Jean

And when black is not enough, you’ve got some black as black paint. You perhaps know that. I use some paint which is called the “Musou Black”, you know, which is something I found on Amazon, which is a kind of Chinese or Japanese, I think, paint. I’ve got it somewhere, you know, but it is some kind of black that just, doesn’t reflect anything. And it’s also so nice, it’s really good. It’s really so much blacker than everything that you can find for models. So I’m using that, you know, and it kind of helps me, especially, you know, when I’m doing my, my little frames.

Jean

you may notice that the frames themselves are really black compared to the scene that are inside because I’m using this kind of black on the outside because it helps all the false blacks to shine through in the scene. You see? But I would say when it comes to white or black, use them only on last resort. You’ve got some cream kind of paints for white, you know, some pale, you know, grimy geys from AK, it’s really good to use that, this kind of off white. Use off white, never white, because you might need it at one point. And just the same with antibiotics, you know, you don’t have to use antibiotics when you just have a cold, you wait for you to be really sick to take antibiotics. It’s exactly the same thing.

Chris

I always think of the scene in Spinal Tap where he’s talking about the amps going up to 11. And he says, you’re at 10, you’re at 10, you’re at 10, where do you go? And it’s like that with black and white, you know, you’re at 10, you know, and you don’t have a colour that goes to 11. So you have to, you have to turn it down to eight and then save 10 for when you really need something to pop.

Jean

Exactly, this is why you should always do it the most possible time you’re on mixers, you know. Never use them with the sky blue, use… Just tone them down, tone them down, because at one point you will need them. That’s a repeat for success.

Chris

I’ve spoken about this before on the Sprue Cutters Union, but another problem I see a lot with people, with colour is that they don’t think of colour in terms of a spectrum from the darkest through to the light. So when they paint something, it’s quite often missing either enough bottom end on the shadow or enough top end on the light. And it’s all in the kind of mid range and everything just sort of sinks and disappears and there’s no definition to anything.

Do you think that’s a common problem with military modelers particularly?

Jean

Yes, perhaps. I don’t know, but I’ve got the idea of when I was at WME, I believe that your job, as I prefer to understand, I was judging by the way, was the ones of Roger Hurkmans. Not always a fan of the subjects, but he’s really good, I believe, with dark colours. I believe he’s good with that, you know. He really managed to make something. We were talking about Band of Brothers or something, but he uses the shadows in an effective manner, way, I believe, yes.

Chris

He’s got quite a dark, desaturated kind of mood to everything he does. But he uses the highlights as well to make sure it doesn’t just sort of too grey. His darks are dark, aren’t they? And his lights are light.

Jean

Yeah, it works. But it works because it’s good. I thought he was really good. He was the only one really… I thought there was something there, you know. It was good.

Chris

It’s funny, he reminds me of Dutch Renaissance when they used to prime the canvas brown and you get that sort of dark effect. That kind of it comes through in his work as well. I don’t know whether there’s any influence there or whether it’s coincidence or what. But it always makes me think of that, he might have never looked at a Renaissance painting. Even at school.

Jean

because he was in Holland you know, and that made me feel something in Holland that was good.

This is the Dutch Effect.

Chris

I am in danger there of straying into the “Dutch school” and the “Norwegian school” of paint and all that modelling crap. I think Marijn van Gils as well uses light, shade and all the tones between really well and I do think that the best modelers I can think of, and the best diorama modelers are people who really understand that.

Jean

Yes, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. Indeed, I forgot about Marijn Van Gils, but he’s here. Yeah, he’s so good at talking. Yes.he shows really a great way of choosing colour. It’s not that obvious because you also have to deal with about 1000 people, you know, miniature people. But, you know, the way is great is that when I use colour, it really feels that I’m really working on it and I’m working on the colour. But with him,

It looks both accidental, completely natural and completely excellent, you know. Know what I mean? It just manages to create some kind of reality, not warped reality, just reality. It works and uses plenty of colours. There’s something so natural about the way you use colours. I like that.

Chris

He doesn’t use it in a showy way, in a really obvious kind of “look at me, look at my colour” kind of way. It’s very subtle, but very effective.

Jean

Exactly, exactly. Yes, I totally agree with that. I was thinking about another modeler which one like, it is a Lebanese modeler, Imad Bouantoun. I think that first it is excellent, he’s very entertaining with this scene and something, but every time he tries to really use something that will pop when it comes to the colours. Maybe it will be some blue house. Maybe it will be some golden dome or something. But he really tried at one point to focus the attention on something else than just a nice military scene. And I really like him because he’s played something fresh, you know. He’s not murky or dark or something. He’s got something, a more brighter way of using colours than most military models that I know.

Chris

Now you use colour very effectively to focus the eye on what you want people to look at.

That’s something that’s been particularly true on the frames you’ve done. Is that something that’s developed over time? I mean, , the first time I can remember you really doing it was with the, I think it was Khalkhin Gol diorama, with the tank and with the cranes.

Jean

okay. Yeah. This one is the first successful diorama I did using colours. I still remember, I went to the shop, and I asked for the Russian green, but they gave me some terrible green, like olive drab. And they said, no, I use lime green. They said, no, I will take lime green.

Yes, I believe this is my first really successful work when it comes to lighting, but everything connected to lighting. Yes.

Chris

But that’s something you’ve continued to develop, isn’t it? I mean, you did one for the Models for Ukraine book as well with the bell from, was it Frankfurt church? I can’t remember. But that’s a very interesting one because the ground is almost black or at least it’s, you know, it’s ashes, dark ashes colour. But then there’s this huge pop in the middle. So you’re not afraid of a bit of contrast as well.

Jean

No, of course not. But the same thing, you know, I must have emptied my first pot of a tire black with that one, you know, because there’s no black at all in it. There’s only some very murky colours. But it was our thing, you know, there are plenty of stones everywhere. And just in the middle, you’ve got the tractor and the girl on it. And indeed, it was, this is what I was telling you, you know, you’re doing a rather big, it’s not big, but then you focus on the girl, and then on the tractor, and then on the rest, you know, it just makes some sort of pyramid, of how can I say it? You know, I don’t use the big words, but the right words, but you see what I mean. You focus on one thing and then on another thing, et cetera. Yes, I thought it was my best regular 3D diorama. It was that one. I’m very happy to have given you to your very successful book.

Chris

The fall of masonry as well, it goes back to what you were saying earlier about having some interest because although colour -wise, it’s almost like it’s been sunk completely almost out of sight because it’s so dark. Once you take your eye away from the brighter elements and you look at it, there is lots of things there to see. It’s not like you thought, well, that’s not really relevant. I’ll just kind of, you know, half ass it. I’ll just put a bit of gravel on and say that’s rubble or something you’ve put as much effort into every single part of that diorama as you did into the main focus, but it’s there for you to discover after you’ve discovered the main part.

Jean

Yes, of course, you know, I spot every centimeter square, every millimeter square of my dioramas to just make it sure it is perfect. There’s never something that I will, you know, that I will pass, you know, every time I try to spend the same amount of time on some hidden, they are never hidden. I never model anything hidden because this is really useless.

But something that can be noticeable by the person, I will model it the same precise way as the main focus. There’s no question about that. Because really, really, about creating those kinds of focuses, it’s almost at the two last hours of the work that the focus will really pop. Because before, it’s a good example that you’re around with the bell. Once you’ve got the scene completed, I noticed for instance that some of the stones were not dark enough. So you take your airbrush with a little bit of smoke kind of paint and you just put it back. And it’s just really the last time that you can really get the focus. Only the three last hours of building there you can see it created just at the last moment.

I will be doing a big diorama soon with some locomotives. I’ve got the eight of nine bits of locomotives ready in front of me. And the focus will be for the moment only because one of them is red and five of them are green and you’ve got two blues or something. So the focus will be on the red.

But right now I can tell you that there’s no focus on that one because it doesn’t shine enough. It will be when everything will be assembled, then I will take some Mr. Paint kind of, you know, lacquers that I will begin to just wash, make some bright washes on everything and there it will pop up. But it will take me another three weeks to work because it’s a big one. And it’s only in my mind that I know that I will be able to do, and it’s not visible right now on the scene. Because, yeah, it’s really complicated to do and you have to take risk at some point, you know.

Chris

It sounds like these elements are like colours themselves in that how they act and how effective they are is really only visible when they’re in amongst their colleagues, if you see what I mean, the other parts of it. So, you know, one colour might look one way on your palette, but put it next to another colour and it looks different. And with you, the trains, you put the red one next to another one, and then you’ll know how much brighter it needs to be or what you need to do to it.

Jean

Exactly. I totally agree with you. It’s not easy. It’s not easy, but it’s really, it’s a part of the fun, you know. When you begin to work with colours, it’s something that you’ve got to build parallel with the scene, you know. You’ve got to build your balance. So sometimes, you create your balance on a piece of paper, but when you begin to build the scene, you realize that your piece of paper is worth nothing. You can throw it into the bin. It doesn’t work. So you’ve got to improvise another kind of balance.

You’ve got to increase the size of the diorama and something, and then you begin to use colour. And then you might notice, for instance, that some detail which has to be, for instance, bright red will be in the left corner. It’s wrong. It will show everyone will have a look at that place. So it’s no good. You’ve got to tone down and then to clear up and then to tone down again and something. It’s endless.

And this is really part of the fun, you know, working on colour is just like working on contrast. And, it’s another sport in itself. And I will just add also two different things for diorama making that people don’t think I believe enough of. It’s the use of the metallic colours, which can make a difference, you know. That’s another dimension. Metallic, non -metallic. Of course, lots of painters now use, the figure painters use some non -metallic paints, well, way of painting. But I prefer still using metallics because that gives another dimension to the diorama. And as a fourth dimension of the diorama, it’s whether things will be glossy, matte, or semi -matte, or semi -gloss, or something. It’s something which is absolutely, absolutely essential.

Chris

Yeah, I mean, texture is something I don’t think people think about enough, but you can really add so much interest with just a difference, like you say, between gloss, semi -gloss and matte, even on the same model or the same figure or, you know.

Jean

Yes. Indeed. For instance, right now I’m working locomotives. So locomotives are painted usually in glossy colours, of course. But when they end up being broken, so you get lots of rust that is coming in. So actually, I’m looking at what are my locomotives right now. Honestly, the paint is glossy, except where the places where the rust just ran down, where the paint just went off, where I use some pigments that I sticked with a small brush, it is dead matte. And it really works because you’ve got this contrast between the gloss and the matte. It looks, yeah, I’m looking at it right now, it looks kind of realistic. I’m happy about the effect. Reasonably.

Chris

Yeah, there’s elements to what we do in pursuing realism, which aren’t obvious to the viewer, but the more than you add, the more effective it is. And I think it’s the same with the colour that, as I said earlier, it shouldn’t be massively obvious what you’re doing. But I mean, I think a lot of dioramas, colour is used very strongly to direct the gaze to one place or another or to create a mood, but I’m not sure people looking, other than saying, “that’s colourful”, they don’t really think too much about how you’ve done that with the colour, if you see what I mean. It’s not too obvious how you’ve done it, to the point where it’s a distraction.

Jean

Yes, yes, yes. Indeed, you’re right on that. Colour must never be a distraction because it can produce distraction, of course. If you put a red hand or a rooster or something in the middle of a diorama, people will look at it. It’s always the same thing. So no, it’s just a construction. You’ve got to think about the way you construct.

colour in the same way as you build it and you pile up elements over elements. It’s the same way. It’s just another way of thinking the same thing. I believe.

Chris

Are you procedural in the way you work that you plan things as you go and as you go? You think, right, well, that’s going to be that colour. And then the next thing is that colour and then tweak it a bit at the end. Or are you someone who paint something, weather it, and then thinks, well, I need a bit more colour, I’ll go back and add some paint, or, you know, I’ll add a bit. Is it something you constantly in flux or something that you plan out?

Jean

Well, at first, usually when I start a diorama, I’ve got the colour, I’ve got the plan, I’ve got everything ready in my head. The problem is that the image in my head is usually blurry, you know, it’s not very precise. So I know that I will need a bit of red, you know, something. And then of course, when I actually it happens like an evidence when I begin to work on it and I know that this I must use this colour and this element after that, that colour.

And at the end, you know, I think that that was my goal for years, and now I’m happy because I actually managed to do that. Is that the thing I have in my head will happen in the diorama, exactly the same colours, everything, you know, and you can use some app on your phone just to draw a scene that you’ve got in your head, you know, make a basic plan, but you can’t do the same with the colour. The colour, it stays in your head.

And it has to stay in your head till the end, you know? So that’s it.

Chris

But colours in your head a bit like trying to grab smoke, aren’t they? It’s really hard to kind of until you put it on, until you start playing around with it, it’s hard to fully grasp it.

Jean

Yeah, but it’s funny, but sometimes it’s just only the colours and the scene comes after. I’ve been doing a spirit diorama, which is located in Thailand, you know, with some Buddha head in the water. This wasn’t just colours at the beginning. I just wanted to create, you know, same kind of lighting effect that you may have in Apocalypse Now, for instance, you know, there’s, you know, the sun down on the rice fields or something, this colour. I must do something with those colours. So of course, the rest came after that. But yeah, more and more, just colour scheme. I want to work on some kind of colours. When it’s been a long time that I did not work with blue, I want to work with blue. And blue is not, it’s just colour, I believe, to work. I prefer working on greens. Greens work well with some.

Chris

Yeah, I like, I like greens. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of room in green to, you know, to change it. It’s, it’s much harder with red or blue. Well, I suppose it’s better with secondary colours, but particularly with green, you can add a little red or you can make it more blue, more yellow. And there’s so many different ways you can play with green. It makes me laugh when people say that they don’t like doing allied World War II tanks because they’re all green. So green is the best colour to play.

Jean

It’s really funny because with green, you know, you can put some shadows in green and do highs in yellow, pure yellow, and people will think it’s green. While when you want to do some kind of sunny, late evening effect on some blue, it’s really more complicated because if you just spray some yellow, it will look a little bit green or something. It’s complicated, you know. I’m currently working on an effect like that.

Blue is complicated to work with, if you want to create some interesting lighting effects. Red you can work quite well with, but blue is complicated. I always thought so.

Chris

The biggest problem with red is making it lighter. You can’t really, you maybe add a bit of yellow, but you know, you can’t ever put white in red. So I always find it difficult with red to go lighter without just using another pure red.

Jean

No, very tough. When it comes to get lighter with red, I use orange and yellow quite clearly. And when I’ve got, you know, I’ve got really my strong point here, I’ve got some extra paints. I’ve got my luminous red from Mr. Paint, which is some kind of fluorescent red, which is very good to make some very high highlights. I’ve got those kind of, you know, just like black and white.

The fluorescent paints are the death star of modelling.

Chris

The nuclear option. The big red button that you sometimes have to push.

Jean

Exactly. So yes, actually with red, I’m using lots of oranges and yellows, and especially some inks, you know, the transparent inks, Alclad does them, Mr. Paint does them, and they’re really good. You thin them, you know, you’ve got to really thin them because you can lead to catastrophes. And you just, you know, wash a bit over with your with the airbrush and it really shines, you know, it will work really.

Chris

Do you think people are afraid of a bit of colour in modeling?

Jean

I just think it’s not their priority. Afraid? No. Why should it be? I don’t know. Of course, it’s really, you know, if you are doing, I don’t know, some really complicated camo, you know, like, I don’t know, late war, World War II, German. Using some lighting effects on something like that is really more difficult than to create some lighting effects on a Sherman. The more you’ve got some details, like sandbags on the tank or something, the more it’s difficult. Of course, it’s another challenge. It’s lots of dimensions to take into consideration. So I perfectly understand why they just don’t want to get really too much bored with that. It’s a lot more work and you risk ruining your scene. But you know, I’m using lots of resin with my dioramas [clear resin in water dioramas]. So I’ve been ruining more than one diorama in my entire life, which means that now I take all the risk because I know what it is to ruin months of work. Why perhaps regular diorama makers wouldn’t take the risk. But I’m taking it because the whole idea of my dioramas is to take risks using chemicals. So that’s it.

Chris

It’s quite funny, I hear it quite a lot all the time. People get to a stage on their model and they’re afraid to go further because they’re worried about ruining it. And I never really understood it because you could just build another one.

Jean

Yeah, you build another one. And at the end, I prefer one very good diorama, that nine which are not good, which take too much place in my home.

Chris

Do you think… something that’s occurred to me and I’m probably going to get in trouble with a lot of listeners for this. So I’m going to encourage you to get in trouble with them as well. Sometimes I feel sometimes I feel with figure painters. The sort of the shock of the effect or the dramatism of the effect is more important to them than the purpose of the effect. I see colour and light used really well by figure painters, but without a definite purpose. It’s about the technique, not the result, if you see what I mean.

Jean

Yes, really, figure painters sometimes make me think of those guitarists, you know, who just play endless solos. No, it’s stupid. You know, the drummers, you know, one half an hour during break and they show their abilities. But, you know, I strongly believe because I begin to know a bit more of that, the figure painters, there’s just too much money for the sake of the hobby. The famous painters, they sell their painted figures. They need to win shows. So of course, they will display. But also, I will also say that the professional painters I know, because I know at least one, is working on two kinds because he’s really passionate. So, he’s got the stuff that he will just put on at shows to win medals and just to be able after that to sell his own stuff. And he’s got also his own scenes, the things that he’s doing for himself, for his enjoyment. But there’s also all the part of the job he does, you know, to say, “I’m the best”.  It’s a real game, which one is the biggest one, you know?

Chris

It just sometimes feels that they’re technically brilliant, but there’s no real emotion to it.

Jean

No, it’s not their priority. Their priority is to win shows.

Chris

Like you say, as well, perhaps for customers: to demonstrate their technique and their ability.

Jean

Yeah, completely. I was about to say that there’s not much more art in figure painting than there is in genre painting as a world. I’m not sure. Because, you know, last time when I went at WME two years ago, I was really astonished by some of the stuff which I found which was very, very creative.

I honestly saw very, very little military genres that were anything like creative. But in the figure department, I saw perhaps a dozen of pieces that are still sticking in my head. I thought there was invention, there was creation. There was really something about them. Something which was the purpose was to do something which was beautiful, something a little bit magic. And I like that, you know. Perhaps this is also in my mind. When I’m doing dioramas, I want to do something a little bit magic. And they managed to do so.

Chris

I hate to say it, but I think, although a lot of people listening will say, well, so what? It’s not supposed to have any, but I think a lot of the dioramas, the military modelling, is lacking that magic. It’s lacking that surprise element as well. It’s, you know, I mean, it’s very, very well done, but it’s just that extra thing. It’s not there.

Jean

This is why the really best, I could rate the Per Olav for instance, or Marijn Van Gils that we’re telling about. Those ones areI think that this is latest or second to last. He’s been doing something with a whale and a boat or something. And he put this thing.

Chris
Per Olav Lund

Jean

He put the fishes inside the sea, you know, he did it. I thought it was, well, not very realistic, but I thought that it really brought something as a world to do. You know, it was, at first, it was not so obvious that he should have done that. But on second thought, I thought it was quite brilliant because it managed to make something that you would proudly put in a cabinet of curiosities, you know.

Curious Taste Cabinet. Something like a 19th century piece of art that you would be putting on the… I thought it was kind of brilliant in this way.

Chris

Although it wasn’t realistic, for me it was almost literary. It’s almost like the image you would get in your head reading a page of Moby Dick or something. That it’s not, you know, like a photograph. It’s more like, well, or even a copper plate in a book, you know, an etching in a book of that scene. Like you say, it did look, there was something very 19th century about the style of it, but at the same time it’s fantastic. Really well done.

Jean

Yes, I thought it was one of his best, actually. I believe it’s my preferred work. I hope to see it next at SMC, next October.

Chris

It’s strange, but it’s the same with yours. I find the further people move away from military things, the more interesting they become. But I don’t mean like doing cars and things or tractors, but, you know, in sort of. Well, like all my favourite ones of yours, I mean, obviously, you know, very well that I like the womb and I like the ships you did, but the women you do in these scenes with the one reaching out for the animal in the museum or the sort of animal analogue, should I say?

And the one with she’s holding the planet and stuff like that, these are the ones that really grabbed me. They’re the ones I find really original and really interesting.

Jean

thank you. I also think so. I’ve been developing an interest for locomotives for about two years. I’m doing locomotives too, because they are funny and I can use colours with them because they are red, blue, green and so on. You know, I started to do the reason why I’m doing that, you know, is that when I was about 20, I was doing some military dioramas, but I was living a life that didn’t go well with that. For instance, I was working as a rock journalist for a very left -wing magazine. Can you imagine? Yes, I’m working for a left -wing magazine. I’m building little panzers. Cool. It wouldn’t go with it.

You know, there was a contradiction into my own head about that. And then there was also a flash when I heard that Coppola didn’t make Apocalypse Now for the Vietnam War. He didn’t care about it. He did it because he got some problems with his wife or something. I thought it was absolutely brilliant because, you know, most genre makers, they are put, they are [making] their own bit of history. No, me, I put my own history in history. And this is the reason why, you know, I’ve been using some kind of, you know, some decor that everyone could relate to. For instance, I like Edwardian era. It’s my preferred era when it comes to architecture or everything. I’m a bit a fan of that era. But I will put the own thing that I got in my mind in those kind of decor, you know. It’s the same thing, you know, you’ve got some scene, could be logical but for me which has a meaning, and this is because at one point I wanted to have some meaning which was on my own, my own meanings in my diorama. This is why I moved but I could also yes also doing military dioramas in this way all depends in the way you organize the things.

Chris

It must be creatively though incredibly liberating to give up on kits and things like that. Just to start from a blank slate.

Jean

Yes. yes. Thanks to printing. It liberated me really. No, seriously. I’ve got plenty of kits behind me that I will probably never build.

Chris

Same.

Jean

Yeah, I’ve got a big number. Yes, it is liberating. You know, I want to build locomotives. I can build locomotives on my own, especially with boats. Especially with boats. With boats, you know, for instance, my earlier boat, it took me about three or four months just to build everything.

Now… First, I can even do it at my job if I’m pretty bored. And I can model a boat or something in less than one month. So I’ve been, you know, sparing time a lot by doing that. It’s really liberating, yes. And it’s also, you know, I don’t have any life enough to turn the barrels of the guns, for instance. Now with 3D printing, you just get that and there’s no problem with that. And I really like that. Yes, it’s liberating.

I can do whatever I want. No problem. I can model virtually anything.

Chris

I do find quite often when I look at this big wall of kits behind me, I mean, I like the subjects, but I go to, on the rare occasion I’ve actually got in a place to start something new, which is very rare because usually I overlap them so much, I’ve never got a clean slate, but I just look at them and think, “I can’t really think of anything interesting to do with that”, but I’ve got lots of ideas in my head which don’t involve a kit, which I am really keen to do.

Jean

Actually, I also thought, you know, I stopped building kits a long time ago, but every now and then I like taking a kit. For instance, I’ve been doing my Zero diorama of just a Zero ditched in the sea. It was really a pleasure to take a Tamiya kit, which was excellent. You know, I got the PE kit, I got everything. I’ve been doing models, you know, it’s just like a no brainer. It fits. Contrary to the stuff that you model yourself, it fits. And it was quite interesting. But now even when I use, for instance, I will have another diorama with a plane on it. I’ve been using a Soviet P02. And the engine is apparent on this plane. So, I’ve been remodeling it in 3D. And also I’m very happy to have been able to model that. You know the wings, when they are pierced by bullets, they’re just shattered with the cloth.

just going here and there and I’ve been able to model that. So I’m very happy to both mix my own work with the ICM kit.

Chris

Impressive, doing canvas.

Why do you think we make models? What is it about making these little things which appeals to us?

Jean

I don’t know if I’m right, but I think that for a lot of boys, you know, it’s when we are playing with our little plastic soldiers when we were kids, and we keep on doing that. In a way, it’s that. I believe that for a lot of men doing dioramas, it’s this way. And this is also because they really like history, and they want to create history with their hands on something that will be relevant to them. They want, you know, to have something, just like a screenshot of Band of Brothers, permanently in front of them, you know. I believe it’s that, it’s just a mix between their kids’ games and the fact that they like history so much that they want to have a trace of it in front of them. I believe it’s that. I don’t believe I’m better or different in this way. It’s just I’ve been working, but that’s it.

Chris

Yeah, that’s something I really want to get across a lot with this show, because I’ve been accused of being pretentious during the blog and this podcast. But I’m not saying that the way we talk about it or the things we talk about are better than someone who opens an Airfix kit, builds it, puts it on the shelf, does the next one. It’s just different. And I just wanted somewhere for people to talk about these things.

Jean

Yeah, but you know, it’s a bit like in the Bible, you know, it is saying to those that was given few, few will be asked for them. But if they ask for a lot, we’d be asking even more for them. That means that for me, the diorama, there are small work involved into doing the diorama that if you just build a tank or a plane and put on the shelf, it’s more work. And then you’ve got to just get beyond that.

I think this is a bit the way, you know, I’ve been, I believe, choosing the most difficult way of doing things because I, not only I’ve been models, but I also, you know, combine them with other things, other techniques in order to create scenes, which is, I believe, the most complicated thing you can do with models. But I want to do more than that, you know. It’s a bit that’s my way of thinking. But, you know, people that are building tanks to put on their shelves, it is stupid to ask them to reconsider their view on painting and accuracies. No, just a different sport completely.

Chris

Yeah, that’s not their hobby.

Jean

The hobby is to have a collection of miniature historical mechanical items and that’s a free defined hobby.

Chris

Are you trying to say something with the things you model or is it just, you get these images in your head and you want to make them.

Jean

I try to say things to myself. I’ve got the luck that some people like my dioramas, but if there wasn’t my website or social media, I would do the same things. No, I don’t try to say anything. There’s no politics in my dioramas, for instance. I don’t think there are. No, I don’t think there are. I should think about it more, as there are, but it’s not really conscious. My dioramas are a complete expression of myself. So since I’m rather politicized, even though I’m less mouthy than some about that,

I suppose that it can be sometimes seen through, but not really, I think.

Chris

All right, well thank you very much Jean

But thank you very much to you, Chris. It’s been a pleasure.

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Thats it for this blog. Next time, I will be talking to Tue Kaae to get the colour perspective of a figure painter.

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