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in this interview, I’m trying something different. Instead of me interviewing a guest, I thought it might be fun to get two guests to interview each other.
In this case I asked Marijn van Gils and Barry Biediger to interview each other on the subject of storytelling.
Before we get into that, I want to thank the Model Philospher Patrons: Stuart, Scott, Plastic Scholar, ResurrectedDM, Eddie, Robert, Stephen, Christian, Carlos, Paul, Schaef, Philippe, John, and Eric. If you would to support the Model Philosopher, please go to patreon.com/themodelphilosopher. Alternatively, you can help out by giving the model philosopher a good review on your podcast app of choice, or sharing its content on social media.
Alright lets get into the conversation with Marijn and Barry:
THE DISCUSSION…
Marijn
What would your definition be, of a story in scale modelling?
Barry
Well, I’ll tell you that question is kind of a minefield for me because I don’t think the word story fits well because we’re talking about a moment in time, unless you happen to do something with animation, which is not very common with modelling. But there’s no better word in the language to use, I guess. So, I guess what I would think of it as a story in terms of modelling is, I would guess, any time where you are expressing some idea or an event that goes beyond just the simple, “here’s a tank on a base”, anything where you can express something beyond that. Like maybe we’ve shown it doing something it’s known for or an unusual event, something like that.
But I think, also, what this makes me think of is a lot of times we define organizations, I should say, especially a certain well -known organization here in the US, will have a very definite description of what a story is. And I’m talking about IPMS USA, in case that wasn’t obvious. And their description is that it has to show events happening and have a storyline, which is kind of a weird concept to me in a static model. I think the best thing I could say and express my point of view on what story is in modelling, is it shouldn’t be too strict. It can’t be really defined concretely. Is that too nebulous? I mean, that’s kind what I’m all about is nebulous.
Marijn
No, in fact, personally, I agree completely. I also feel that story and storytelling is something a bit fluid. Every model tells something, even if it is just what the real thing would look like, for example. But indeed, from the moment on, there is some kind of event included, happening now or about to happen or happened in the past that is alluded to in the model somehow. I think you can speak of a story that you put in it, in a very broad sense.
But you can narrow it down to a really narrative story where something is actually clearly happening at this moment and maybe it’s even clear what is going to come out of this as a result. You can narrow it down to that. But I also prefer to keep it very wide and include anything from, for example, a scene or a diorama that just emits a certain atmosphere, nothing concrete is happening at that moment, but you know that the atmosphere that is set comes from a certain past or from a certain condition, there is a certain emotion being transmitted through that. For me that’s also storytelling, not in the very narrow, very narrative sense, but a bit broader.
Barry
That’s very good to hear because I thought maybe you were trying to trap me here because I’m known for not having a lot of story with my dioramas. And I think another thing you’re alluding to, it seems to me, is a lot of it can also be the story that the viewer comes up with for themselves without being given too much information. I think that can be a really powerful thing.
Marijn
Yeah, I agree. But I don’t agree with that you are known for not having much of a story in your scenes. think you really have a lot of story in your scenes, more than most people. I think you’re one of the most interesting storytellers in modelling around. that’s why I was really looking forward to having this discussion tonight with you.
Barry
Well, thanks. That’s really cool to hear. Maybe it would be better if we got an argument though. Like, “no, that’s not a story”. “Yes, it is”. But I don’t know. It’s good to hear you agree with me on that.
Marijn
Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I feel like we’re quite like -minded, two like -minded people. And that may not be the most interesting discussion to have for other people around, but…
Barry
Yeah, I think it is though. I think it’s useful for people to hear, and along those lines I should mention, you have I think, we’re so like -minded that you have really pissed me off before. What I mean by that is, I had this idea for my first box vignette and I think I might have even mentioned this before, but it was a man sitting in a dark room in front of a TV with the light flickering. and I swear, within a couple months of me having that idea, I went to MFCA (It was one of the times you went to MFCA) and you had a box vignette there of that very scene. And I was like, “damn it, I wanted to do that”. But at the same time, it was incredibly inspiring because I felt like maybe I’m onto something.
Marijn
Ha ha ha ha!
Yeah, and after that you were way more productive in this kind of scenes than I have been. And now in turn I’m really inspired to go back to that kind of stuff just by seeing your models.
Barry
Well, excellent. I haven’t done one for a while, but I do have some ideas that I want to talk
Marijn
Great. Okay.
Barry
Which makes me think of something I wanted to ask you about. I absolutely love looking at your ship dioramas. They’re great, but I’ve been feeling like I’m missing something, not seeing more box dioramas or just dioramas in general from you. Have you completely given up on that?
Marijn
No, not at all, not at all. And I agree, the ship models, they’re, let’s say, much more classical as a scene, or as a diorama, or as a way of telling stories. What I’m doing with them is much more classical. But I think in ship modelling, there is more room still for that. than there is in a lot of other genres.
So, I’m liking it and I’m not feeling like I’m not doing anything that I haven’t seen before. For me it’s still fresh. But the ship models, are very time consuming to make and there are indeed limitations when it comes to, let’s say, getting to the human level of things, to the human scale of things. So these are big advantages of working in, let’s say, 1/35th scale or larger. can really get to the facial expressions of people involved and it’s much easier to put a lot of emotion in a scene and it’s easier to tell a story. So there are more options, more possibilities and I would really like to explore that further. after the current project, which will still take me quite some time, after that certainly, well, never say never, but quite certainly I will go back to some figure vignettes or box dioramas.
Several ideas are lined up but no idea what will be the first or whatever happens. Also there are still plenty of technical challenges that I would like to tackle. I did only two boxes, there’s still a lot I would like to try and explore with lighting and other special effects.
Barry
Excellent. That’s good to hear.
Marijn
Of course, I know who to call when I’m getting started on that. You can expect me, for sure. And also just in the figure modelling, I’ve never been the best sculptor. Still a lot of room for improvement there. And painting -wise, well, the hobby has moved on quite a lot the last 10, 15 years. So also a lot of new things to learn and to try and keep up with things and well, just so much inspiration there, that I would like to take part in that again too.
Barry
Excellent. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.
Marijn
I’m glad to hear.
Well, the ship modelers may disagree with you after that. Not too many, just a couple probably, a small group of people anyway.
Barry
No, no, yeah, probably so.
Marijn
Okay and I’m also glad to hear that you’re going to do some more boxes because indeed it has been a while although I don’t know when did you do the last one? The seventh moon?
Barry
That was the last one. I think that was two years ago. So I’m due for another one. Yeah.
Marijn
Okay, that’s not too long yet. I really love that one by the way. And in a way, I think it’s more or less typical for your work. Not because of the setting, because it’s more sci -fi setting or space setting, so that’s certainly different. Some different effects. But the way you put the story without an obvious outcome to it. or also without an obvious origin to it. So indeed, it’s difficult for the viewer to understand what’s going on exactly or what happened before or what’s going to happen next. the feeling I have is that you do this very consciously, that you do this really on purpose. But maybe I’m wrong in this
Barry
I wish I had a good answer for that. I’m not sure how much of that is conscious. I think it more comes out of just how I, what makes me happy, what kind of stuff it makes me happy to create. And I think, I guess in a way it is conscious because one of my favourite things is to take a box diorama to a show and have people give me their interpretation of it. So, I guess I am intentionally leaving a lot open to the viewer because that is, I get a kick out of that. I love it. I can’t believe some of the interpretations I’ve heard of some of those things, things I never would have thought of. So I guess I never really thought about it until recently that maybe that is what I’m doing. Maybe I’m intentionally trying to be nebulous to get that reaction.
Marijn
When telling a story with a scene, do you think it’s important that whoever sees it can really understand what you’re trying to do there? What the story is that you’re telling?
Barry
I think in that sense of what we just talked about, I would say, no, it’s not important that they understand the story that you are trying to say, but it is important that they get something out of it. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I think of people who, if you listen to songwriters, and they will say, I make a song and I put it out there and you make up what you will. They’re obviously trying to come up with something that evokes a feeling or whatever, which I try to do as well. But I don’t necessarily feel like people should see the story the same way I am seeing it as I’m building it. I think that as long as they’re getting something out of it.
Does that make sense?
Marijn
Absolutely, you know, also with movies, Mulholland Drive, David Lynch.
Barry
yeah, David Lynch. My all -time favourite movie director, by the way.
Marijn
Well, I can see that in your models too. I also really love his work. Also, well, Twin Peaks as a series was already, but the later movies, a lot of people criticize them for, “I don’t understand what’s going on”. Well, of course you don’t understand what’s going on. because you’re not really supposed to understand what’s going on. That’s not the purpose of the movie.
Barry
Yeah.
Marijn
That’s indeed quite rare in scale modelling and I think it’s very interesting. It’s a bit of a different way of telling stories. And indeed, well, it’s not for everyone. Just like with the movies, there is a reason why David Lynch’s movies are less popular than Tarantino’s or well, Tarantino’s movies are less popular than let’s say the big blockbuster superhero movies.
because the storytelling is a bit, well, demands a bit more of the viewers. And you need to use, you need to put yourself past the idea that you have to understand everything. No, you don’t have to understand everything. Just let yourself be carried away for the ride and use your own imagination also a little bit.
Barry
Absolutely. Joan, my wife, happens to be on the opposite end of this point of view. It drives her crazy if we watch a movie and they don’t end it with a definite ending and tell you what happened. Very literal about that. And I say, “well, who’s to say that they would come up with a better ending than you can in your head?” you know, what is it? It just drives her crazy. And I know a lot of people like that…
I’ve had people ask me specifically about my dioramas, what’s going on? What’s happening? I don’t understand. Like they get a little bit frustrated even. And that’s a little entertaining in itself too.
Marijn
Indeed. I can understand the question. Well, you know, it’s also with like music, lyrics. It can be fun to have the writer of it explain what’s going on in his life, what he was writing about, stuff like that, which can indeed be very different from what you took from it when you first listened to it. But it can be very interesting to have this with models too, I think. For example, one of your other boxes. I think it’s titled Thursday night.
Barry
Mmm, yeah, Thursday evening, yeah.
Marijn
The guy sitting in a hotel room. Recently I heard you explain that you were not so happy with the box because you intended him to be kind of a blues player, a blues musician. But he came out looking more like a businessman. I agree that he to me looks more like a businessman indeed. But because of that, in my own mind, I was imagining all kinds of scenes like, is this a businessman? Did he have a deal going very badly today? Or has he been involved in some shady business?
Who is expected to come through that door? Does he have a gun lying next to him? All that kind of stuff. I was starting to imagine potential silence before the storm in a crime scene kind of storylines, all that kind of stuff. it was really interesting for me to hear that this was totally not what you intended by it. But it goes to show indeed that it can be really interesting to leave it up to the viewer sometimes. I think I like that box much more than you like it, because I didn’t have any clue what your intention was and what I took out of it. Well, that worked very well, I found.
Barry
Yeah, well, that’s good to hear. I think that is the most disappointing thing about it to me is that he didn’t turn out to be the kind of character I intended. I guess the scene’s okay, the sculpt isn’t all that great, but I’m glad it was received well. I was a little taken aback that there were some people who thought it was a political statement, believe it or not. That’s probably the most unpleasant thing I’ve experienced as far as people interpreting stuff.
Marijn
Well, there are always those kind of people. Well, if you leave the interpretation up to the viewers, interesting thing can be that from their interpretations you can also learn something about the viewers.
Barry
Mm, yeah, yeah. So as far as taking how you come up with a story or present a story, and you talk about this in your book about what a model is. And I mean, to me, a model is similar to a scientific model. You include things that are important to get across an idea. Is it a fully detailed tank that gets the idea? That gives the impression of all the fittings and the exact shapes of a vehicle? Or does it just generally represent a certain tank that furthers your story in a diorama? But do you think that in general, maybe we, since we come from the plastic modelling world where there’s super detailing and whatnot, and we’re obsessed with that, do you think we become too obsessed with the idea of creating a replica instead of a model?
when we don’t necessarily need to include all that detail or realism just to get an idea across.
Marijn
Absolutely. And I’m the worst myself in that. Well, I have ventured outside of it and I would like to try and venture outside of it again. But most of the time I also really love nerding out in the tiny details that nobody will see except myself and that are often not really necessary to get the story across
Barry
There’s nothing wrong with that at all. I think if people feel like that’s the only way that it can be done is where I think it might be a problem.
Marijn
Yeah, then it’s indeed a problem because I do think that often it does have a function.
Marijn
Our medium is, well, let’s think what is specific about our medium. To me, scale modelling is a medium, just like a painting on canvas is a medium, photography is a medium, music is a medium, film is a medium, just something material to get an idea from somebody who produces it to somebody who sees or hears or… from a sender to a receiver, let’s say. So, scale modelling is one. But what sets it apart from other mediums or media? Well, first of all, it’s three dimensional, which means that it’s not always easy to blur things up, like in a two dimensional medium, for example. With painting, it’s easier to go, let’s say, more impressionistic or expressionistic or even abstract, that’s less easy often with the three -dimensional medium, but it can be done. In sculpture for example, it has been done of course. And the second thing is with scale modelling is that it is scale modelling. We work in a scale, we make small versions of something, whatever.
And I think that’s something that makes our medium quite special. Because it is small, it really invites people to come and take a closer look. You see it from a distance, you see it’s small, it’s intricate, that really invites you to come and get closer, study it, look at all the details, see what’s going on. It’s three -dimensional, so it also invites you to turn around it or turn it around to look at it from different angles. it’s often this intricacy and this wealth of details that makes a model so attractive and so intriguing for people to look at and study. And it’s often also the details that keep people looking at it for a bit longer. And in that way, well,
We have a medium that has a big disadvantage in that it is usually very time consuming to produce compared to most others, especially photography, of course. But it’s also something that can invite people to take a close look at it and look a little bit longer at it than a couple of seconds to really study it and look at this and look at that, and “did you see that little detail” and this and that and that’s something quite unique to scale modelling I feel and quite part of the beauty and attraction of our medium. So in that way to have lots of tiny detail and crisp and clean work and things like that, it does often add to the beauty of what we’re doing. And also a lot of the details are often what keep people interested in looking a little bit longer after they got the general idea of the model. They will still look around and discover new things here and there. So, in that way it can be really functional to have lots of stuff around.
Marijn
and about trying to make things as much as the real thing, as realistic as possible, whatever that term means. It can also be very functional in trying to create a little world in which people can get sucked into and make them believe that they’re part of that little world for a moment. it’s part of creating that illusion, it can be very functional and very important even to try and get all the details right and make it look correct, and in scale, and everything like that. in that way I think we often have very good reasons for going as far into all the details as we are doing.
Barry
I think that’s a really good point.
Marijn
Your question was, is it necessary? And then I say, “no, I don’t think so”. You’ve already shown that it is certainly possible to go much more minimalistic often. I’ve also tried it at least once with that “reality TV” box, the couch potato. Also consciously trying to keep everything as empty as possible.
And that was also very functional, I tried to do that, and that was to set the atmosphere, because with that kind of subject, it always will be funny, on a certain level. to have an overweight middle -aged guy in his underpants all alone in a dark room watching the television.
Somehow that’s always going to be comedic to a certain level. But I didn’t just want to make a funny scene, I also wanted it to have certain sadness about it. This atmosphere of sad… Yeah, that needed to be really in there, I felt. And if I would cram the scene full of all kinds of details of his miserable life, that would just add to the funny and take away from the atmosphere.
Barry
Yeah. Well, I think that’s interesting. Maybe it’s because I’m just a very down person, but I didn’t catch any humour out of that scene at all. I thought it was very dark. And I appreciated it for that. I thought it was a very sad scene. And the same with your other scene, I think your other box diorama, with the man in the closet is actually a very dark scene. It’s funny, yeah, but to me, the overriding feeling of that scene is sadness and darkness because it’s a woman having an affair on her husband and it’s pretty dark. But again, I appreciate that. That scene is a good example of what we were talking about with the detail though because I think that’s a perfect example of what you’re talking about. You don’t need all that detail that you have in there, but it sure does draw you in. I mean, all those coats in the closet and then all the furniture, the pieces of furniture, I don’t think I would be able to say, “I would get rid of all that” because it does end up being important. And I sure don’t feel like that’s the answer to everything: to simplify things. My thinking is, I think, people just should be more open -minded to exploring new things.
Marijn
Yeah.
Barry
And one thing I think that is left for us to do, that I don’t think I’ve seen anybody do, is actually have varying levels of detail in a very intentional way. Like, I want you to be drawn to this one detail. And so, this is what’s detailed, and the rest of it is blurred out. You mentioned it’s kind of hard to do that, but it’s a challenge. think we should set ourselves a challenge to try something like that.
Marijn
Yeah, I think you’re right. Anyway, I think we can still learn a lot from, let’s say, modern art from the late 19th century on, let’s say, from the Impressionists on. Some people are doing it in the figure painting world. There are some influences from that starting now. It has been done before, like I think, Fletcher Clement, (actually by Joe Berton, as Marijn corrected later after recording) didn’t he do a portrait of Van Gogh painted in his style? Other people have done busts painted in his style. That’s one of those things that I missed. Like more than 15 years ago I was playing with the idea of doing something with pointillism. So you know, dots in different colours all put together in the same surface area, to then create another colour when you take a slight distance from it for people who are not familiar with it. But I thought, well, the best way to do this would be on a bust, so I would have large surfaces to work with, but I never figured out what bust I would use for it. was thinking, well, George Seurat as an important pointiest could be interesting, but nobody knows what he looks like. So that doesn’t add too much to the story also then in that case. I never figured it out and now other people have been doing similar things. So that’s great. Then I don’t need to do it anymore, but I’m sure we can go further than that.
Some people are doing certain things. I think key to putting this extra step is to not just following what modern art has done 100 years ago, but also try to do something of our own in our own medium with the characteristics of our own medium, with the three dimensionality, with the small scale, somehow with the details. So, like you say, a contrast between detail and lack of detail can be really interesting to play with. But I think, key, would be somehow to invent our own personal visual language. many modellers have found their own style of painting or building or making a scene but very few I feel have really created their own visual language.
Barry
That’s a really important point.
Marijn
Well, up the artistic level in our work, that’s something we could strive for. And if we want to do different things and new things, that’s something we could think of. Somebody who is doing it, I feel, is Jean Bernard André.
I think he did create his own visual language, the way he uses the colour, the way he combines elements in his scenes, the way he sets atmospheres. It’s very personal, it’s very recognizable and not just as a style but really as the type of elements he uses in his scenes. Another one I feel is Kostas Kariotellis in a very different way, but he also created something that is not based on somebody else’s work, or somebody else’s art movements but a very personal visual language. The problem with that is of course is that it’s hard to sit down and tell yourself like okay now I’m going to invent my own personal visual language. It doesn’t happen like that, I think. No, just like it doesn’t work like “now I’m going to invent my own personal style.”
Barry
It doesn’t really work that way, no.
Marijn
10, 15 years ago, I did have the ambition to explore all of that further for myself. But all I’ve done since is go back more classical modelling with the ship models, meanwhile, which I’m really enjoying. So I’m not making any excuses for that. But well, there’s still lots of stuff to do in the future. Not for me, but for anybody, I think, in that regard. And do we have to do that? No, not at all. But if people are feeling like, we have reached the summit, there is nothing more or nothing new that can be done, I think that’s completely untrue. There’s still a lot that can be done.
Barry
Definitely.
Barry
So, what you say reminds me of a discussion that some of us had at the last MMSI last October. And it was kind of a ‘late in the hospitality suite’ kind of thing, with people having a few drinks and that. And I happen to say that we’re making a lot of advancements in miniature art. It’s advancing more and more all the time. And this other gentleman who’s a good friend of mine, really great guy, said, “no, we’re not”. And I was taken aback a bit. And he says, we don’t advance anything. We have not advanced art. We haven’t done anything that hasn’t already been done in the fine art world, the canvas painters and sculptors that are already out there. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think that we’re just copying them? And do we have room to come up with our own?
Marijn
Well, that’s a great question in fact, because I can see both points. If you look at the contemporary art world of nowadays, which I’m not a big expert in at all, but if you would say like, does scale modelling as we see it at the shows that we go to, do we see it having a place there or advancing that contemporary art world at this moment? I would also say “no, not at all”. But then the question is maybe “what is the definition of art?” and is it as narrow as the contemporary art world, professional art world of nowadays, or can we see it broader than that?
And to be honest, I don’t know, it’s a matter of opinion to a certain extent. Certainly there are plenty of people, let’s say artists, also outside of modelling in, for example, canvas painting, that would be called artists, not in the contemporary art world, but in what they do. For example, let’s say somebody like Don Troiani. He is not at the forefront of contemporary art, and there are so many painters like him. The same with photography, the same with music, for example. Most pop rock musicians, are they advancing the forefront of art? I don’t know.
Does that mean that they are not artists or what they are doing is not art? We could argue about that. I wouldn’t say so. Is it just because our medium is a visual art that we have to take part in the professional contemporary art world? I don’t think so. But by the way, also, why would we want to?
I often get the feeling that people like the idea of becoming part of that little world simply because, well, if we become part of that then society will finally recognize us and have respect for our hobby. Which, well, maybe what they are doing is something different from what we are doing.
And we deserve respect anyway and well, we’re just unlucky that we don’t get it and they do get it, but does it mean that we desperately have to cling to them and try to be part of what they are doing? Maybe we should just do our own thing and explore what we are doing in our own way and we can get inspiration from them or from other mediums from anything else around us but
Chris has said it before, like, can’t modelling just be modelling? And I do agree with that somehow, because often the discussion, whether modelling is art or not, often revolves around the argument that, well, people try to see art as a qualifier. If it is good, then it is art, and it must be good to be art. No, in the contemporary art world there is a lot of shitty art being made. In the past a lot of shitty art has been made that we don’t see anymore because time has erased it from the common memory. it’s not because it’s art that it’s better and this discussion has come up also on the podcasts in discussion between craft and art.
So, and I’m on board with both of you in that regard. I already told you that, in my mind, modelling is simply a medium, more, nothing less. There is always some level of craft involved and you can make art with it, if you like. You can make art with it, which also involves a certain level of craft when you do. But the discussion “when is it art”, “when does it begin to be art or not”, I don’t know where the line is and it’s not too important I think in that way I I’d rather talk about let’s say the artistic aspects of the hobby like storytelling like composition that kind of stuff like colour use compared to the more technical sides, the more craft sides, let’s say. But craft is also more than just technique. There is also design involved in that. and almost any kind of modelling has some artistic aspects to it and some technical aspects to it and I think it’s more valuable to think and talk in those terms because it’s less black and white, and it’s less involving that qualifier of is it art or is it not art.
Barry
No, I agree. It is to me as well. It’s a gray area, having exact definitions, it’s probably going to be difficult to do. But I think as I’ve talked to Chris a little bit about this before, but one thing an artist generally doesn’t do a lot is say, “I’m creating art”. They’re doing what they’re doing. Is it art or not?
I don’t know, but you don’t set out to do art because you want to be respected. The fact that modelling isn’t accepted by the wider art world, I kind of like that. Because I guess I’ve just grown up being somebody who thinks, well, I’d rather be on the outside of things. I don’t want to be accepted.
Marijn
And a lot of the great artists have been the same. A lot of them also don’t enjoy walking around at fancy parties and stuff like that. They just want to be in their shed and do their thing and create their art.
Barry
Yeah, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong about this, but I don’t know if the impressionist sat around thinking, “we are going to do art”. They were sitting around talking about how they could look at things in a different way. That was where they were coming from. At least it seems that way to me. I might be wrong. It wasn’t, “let’s make art”.
And I think that it is a mistake for us to worry that much, know, like, “damn it, this should be recognized as art. This is so cool looking”. I don’t buy that.
Chris
I think it’s almost an insecurity about people that they need someone else to say it’s legitimate. So by saying it’s art, you say it’s legitimate. But there was something else in Barry’s question, which I’m not sure you answered, Marijn, which is very interesting, which was, sorry, Barry, if I’m incorrectly paraphrasing, but it seemed to me you were saying that your friend was saying that modelling doesn’t create these things. It borrows them from art, like styles, or techniques, and is there an originality problem there in techniques in modelling, that it takes them because recently I spoke to Tue Kaae on the show as well, and he said that in figure painting they’re rapidly going through the movements of painting through impressionism, expressionism, so on and it’s almost like a sort of consuming of things rather than a creation of things if you see what I mean
I think your question was, you think there’s room for modelling to create its own things rather than co -opting them from art? Is for modelling to have its own original kind of visual language?
Barry
No, and just to kind of put a period on what I was saying about that hospitality suite conversation, as soon as my friend said that, his name is Bud Bowie, by the way, he doesn’t listen to podcasts, so we’ll never hear this, but he, as soon as he said that, within microseconds, I thought, my God, he’s right. He’s absolutely right. We are not, we are just borrowing what other people have already done. And can we make somethingthat is just our thing?
Marijn
Well, I think you could say the same about most of the contemporary art that is being made. They’re also borrowing from everybody that came before them and also the improvements or the advancements that they make, they’re also minute. It is with tiny steps that and over in the course of a lot of different artists that styles evolve, and new movements start.
But really big breaks done by individuals are also extremely rare, just like they are in science, for example. So, honestly, I don’t see a problem there. It’s also not an issue you can force, I think, somehow. The only thing we can be aware of is, well, when it comes to inspiration, it can never hurt to look as wide as possible, not just look at, let’s say, modern art from 100 years ago, but also more recent stuff, but also not just modern visual art, but also movies, music, general everyday life. Anything around us in this world can be a source of inspiration. The wider you look, the more chance we have of hitting something that will look a bit new and fresh in mobile form.
Barry
Yeah, the art world goes through the same things that like you’re saying about what was that maybe 15 years ago. I don’t know if you guys remember this, but there was this a certain artist and I don’t even know who first did it. They came out with these googly eyed doll face paintings. Do you remember these? And all of sudden there were hundreds of artists that did this. It was just everywhere. And so there are trends like that. You can name all kinds of them. But I think the person who came up with that way of portraying a face or the person who first, let’s say Van Gough, sorry, I’m gonna pronounce him in the American way because I feel very pretentious pronouncing his name correctly, sorry. I know that sounds weird. But I don’t think he was sitting there thinking, well, how am I going to come up with a new thing? People don’t think that way. I mean, you don’t; like you were saying with personal style, you don’t just sit down and say, how am I going to come up with my personal style? You either break new ground or you don’t, doing what you’re doing. That’s my thought on it anyway.
Marijn
I couldn’t agree more. I think in our hobby if there is one thing that’s important is to just do what we like to do. Just focus on the core business and just do what we want to do. Just go for that, nothing else. If that takes us to, let’s say, more classical dioramas with ships, great. If it takes us to more groundbreaking box dioramas with completely new ideas, also great. If it is a tank on a plank, also great. Doesn’t really matter. But if we do what we love to do, then the result will be always the best, and there will be advancement in that over the course of time.
So, Barry, what do you think makes a good story? And in that, I would like to clarify also, when you look at storytelling, you can look at two aspects. You can look at what is being told, the content of the story in a way. I don’t mean the subject, but what is being told or you can also look at how it is being told, how it is told through the composition and everything. But I mean to ask about the what. What components of a story make it a good story, you think?
Barry
Okay, I guess the most basic way I could answer that is to say a good story is something that makes the viewer think beyond what they’re actually given, as I kind of mentioned before. I think, I mean, all of it’s storytelling, I guess, in our definition, if it’s just a cute diorama of something happening, wow that’s cute, and you move on to the next one, fine. But if you can actually get the viewer to start talking to other people about, well why did you see this? What do you think? And more stories come out of it and also more conversations kind of come out of it, but also I think if people get angry you know you’re on to a good story.
And that might sound kind of dangerous, but I think that’s legitimate because it’s another way of starting conversations. More technically, and you make really good points about the detail that I hadn’t necessarily even thought of much, but absolutely, it’s required that you draw somebody in.
You have no story if you haven’t drawn somebody in and made them interested in what you’re doing, right? So you really do have to look at things like composition and technical ability. If something does not look like it’s done well, it’s going to be hard to draw somebody in. I know that sounds harsh maybe, but I feel that’s true.
Marijn
Well, I agree, technique has a good reason for being there. Not as an end to itself, but just as a means to get the result we want to get, to create the image we want to create that we have in our head. We need a certain level of technique. And it really depends on the subject or on the story or whatever, how much technique, how much finesse, how much depth or whatever is necessary to reach that results.
But a certain level is required to get the message across and to draw people in indeed. But besides the technique when we think more of composition, how do you think, well, what are the important aspects for drawing people in, for making sure that people come and look at our model and get intrigued by it?
Barry
I think a lot of it comes down to, I’m worried I’m going to sound really boring with this, but a lot of it comes down to these age old compositional rules. And I use rules kind of loosely, but these ideas of contrast, different forms of contrast. mean, that is important to look at those technical aspects of colour contrast, value contrast, detail contrast, like we were talking about.
You have to have something visually interesting. Even if it’s technically perfect, if it’s not visually interesting, people are not going to look at it. And also just the compositional rules of balance and a lot of the stuff you talk about in your book. You guys don’t write about that stuff just to fill pages up. I mean, these are important things. And they’re important for a reason. That is how you draw somebody in to look at something. Another thing that to me is important is that it will draw people in more, if you make something that is not often seen. If you have, I mean, no offense to people who make German tanks, but if you have another Tiger tank, you’re probably a little bit lower on the scale of drawing a lot of people in, because they’ve seen it a thousand times. If you have a 1930s French vehicle painted in bizarre colours, you’re gonna draw people’s attention. I know that might sound a little dumb, but I think that is something that we probably could look at a little more. Unusual subjects.
Marijn
I was indeed thinking more about these technical aspects of composition too, because, well, I don’t know if you also got the same opinion sometimes told to you that composition is something that either you have it or you don’t.
Many people see it a little bit as a black art and it’s all about feel, and there are no rules to it at all, so you just do whatever. And if you have a good feel for it, then it will end up being a good composition. But myself, I don’t believe that’s true at all. Otherwise, a lot of art schools could close right now, because they teach more than only technique. And I do think there is a certain technique or theory, at least theory behind composition and certain technique about it. And indeed, like you say, kind of rules. And of course, all rules can be bent or broken, like the cliché says, but first you have to learn how to use them properly.
Barry
Yeah, and you have to have a reason to break the rules too. You have to intentionally break them, in my opinion, for a specific purpose.
Marijn
Absolutely. Otherwise, if there is no purpose to it, usually it will end up just not looking good at all or not getting anything across.
Barry
Yeah, I mean, like just a simple idea. I can’t believe how many people, and I feel like I don’t want to make this sound like “you have to do this, or you’ve just made a crappy model”, I don’t mean it that way, but I can’t believe how many people will completely disregard the so -called rule of never putting something parallel to the edge of your base. And it’s one of the most obvious things that will, to me, it just jumps out at you, that it could have been improved so much by just angling something. Because you’ve taken all the feeling of candidness or the idea that you are an observer outside of the scene looking at this. It just completely ruins the idea. And I don’t understand why people don’t see that right off. Do you see that issue a lot?
Just like, what is it about that rule that people don’t buy?
Marijn
I see it absolutely. I don’t know, I’m not sure what it is, why people are not doing it, but maybe we as humans have a tendency to go for symmetry somehow.
So in a way, when we start drawing a plan, for example, of a house, we would make everything perpendicular to the sides of the page. And feels like many people have the same tendency when designing a diorama layout to start putting things perpendicular to the edge. But indeed, you’re right. I think the rule itself never put anything parallel to the sides of the base goes back basically to two bigger rules: One is try to make everything look natural, and that means try and symmetry because symmetry doesn’t look natural. You don’t have the feeling that this is a slice of earth randomly taking out that you’re looking at, or that the world will extend beyond the borders of the base. But it comes down to, it needs to look natural to get this illusion of a little world, otherwise you won’t get sucked into it as a viewer.
And second thing is: you want it to look dynamic, just to make it visually pleasing also, a scene needs to look dynamic. And that doesn’t mean it should have sweeping lines in it from here to there and all kinds of dramatic stuff going on. Just something a little bit tilted instead of straight or a little bit inclined instead of parallel to the edge of the bass. That’s enough already to add a little bit of dynamics to the composition. While if it’s completely parallel, it’s not dynamic at all.
So, there are very good reasons for that seemingly random rule of never put anything parallel. But indeed, somehow many people don’t get this. But if you tell them, they will quickly learn. So it’s also a matter of learning.
So this is also what I mean in that there is certain technique. There is theory behind it, like with every technique there is theory. You cannot paint without knowing something about the paints you’re using on a technical level and colours you’re using on a technical level, or on a theoretical level, it’s the same as composition. You also need to have a theoretical basis about it.
What we just talked about is one aspect indeed. “Don’t do this because it will look unnatural, and it will look not dynamic”. So, if you explain this to people, they learn and they got some theoretical base on this level and they learn how to improve. So in that way, I do think that you can learn composition.
Barry
I think a lot of people do learn. A lot of people just haven’t, it hasn’t been presented to them or they didn’t quite get what you were saying. But I’ve seen people very strongly resist it, basically. Like, “you can’t tell me what’s right and what’s wrong”. And to those people, I say “that’s absolutely true”. And “by all means, break these rules and show me what can be done by breaking these rules because I really want to see it”. And I don’t mean that as like “you can’t do anything new”, but you’ve got to have a, like we said, you have to have a reason for doing this stuff. You’ve got to be able to justify it in some way.
Marijn
Barry, I think you have been breaking this rule in some of your boxes.
Barry
I have a couple times. I have.
Marijn
You have one of a man in a hallway, looks like an apartment hallway, or maybe more a hotel hallway, where basically it’s not completely symmetric because maybe there is a door at one side and the hallway continues at the end on another side, but it’s very subtle, but for the rest, it’s very parallel, it’s very symmetric.
Barry
Yep, mm -hmm, that’s what I was thinking of.
Marijn
but it’s also very functional because this sets a certain atmosphere of this very, yeah let’s say slightly creepy, very empty, very lonely place and in the composition, you counterbalance this by placing the man a bit off to one side so you don’t place him in the middle so the scene is not completely symmetric around him but you put him a little bit to one side and if I’m correct he is holding a kind of suitcase or briefcase in the hand that is where there is most space so the briefcase is almost in the middle of the scene it’s also of a brighter colour I believe
Marijn
So you see here you break the rule simply to get a certain result, and you also counterbalance the disadvantages that it can have. For example, you could say like “well it’s symmetric so it will lack dynamism”. because you place the figure off centre, you solve that problem that comes along with it for example. I think this is a perfect example of breaking some of the rules of composition, in a very functional, and a very deliberate way.
Barry
I hope that worked well because I did do it deliberately, I did another scene where it’s looking down kind of an alleyway that’s like that. And the main reason I did that was to make the perspective work. And it made me nervous because I thought “This is a rule I’m breaking. This is too square”. And I don’t know if it, I’m never sure if this succeeds or not, but that was the purpose of that.
Because I felt like if I had actually done it by the rules, quote, I wouldn’t have been able to get the perspective right. So whether or not it worked, I don’t know.
Marijn
Well, I haven’t seen it in real life, so that’s of course the real test. But to me on photographs, it really works with that one too, with that alleyway there are a man and a woman each on one side of the beginning of the alley, if I’m correct. And they have this very awkward interaction between them. Like, they’re interacting but not really. There is something going on with the relationship between them and what it is we can guess for. But because the alley is so symmetric between them, it really creates this huge visual gap between them. This empty dark space, which for me really creates or really emphasizes that atmosphere of awkwardness in their interaction.
Barry
Well, I’m glad that worked. I’m kind of shocked to hear when this stuff works because I don’t expect it to work. it doesn’t necessarily… When I finish these things, I’m like, I don’t think that’s coming across well. I’m sure you’ve experienced this before. You can’t judge how well you’ve done something when you’ve finished a project. At least I can’t. I mean, do you find that? It’s like, I don’t know. Maybe it’s okay. Maybe it’s not.
Marijn
Yeah, that’s a difficult one indeed. To a certain extent, we have to judge whether what we’re doing is working or not. But during the project, because then we can still adjust things. of course, we just talked about how there is technique to composition. That there are rules that you can follow. But of course, doing these things is never something quantifiable or something scientific like you do this and that, and that, exactly that way, and then it will always end up good. No, you have to put everything in perspective with regard to all the other elements in your scene. You have to combine everything.
There are a lot of different aspects to why something is placed in the right way, or not the right way, or if something is the right colour or not. And we can’t really quantify when it is right or when it’s not. We only have one tool that we can use and that’s our eyes. Our eyes are basically the measuring tool that we have, whether something looks good or it doesn’t look good. And like with any visual medium, we have to train our eye, I think. Just like with music, we have to train our ears. And if we are a chef, we want to cook, we have to train our palate. So with modelling, we also have to train our eyes as the tool to judge whether something is working or not, because during the process we have to see like, “does it work, does it not work? Okay, okay, if we’re happy, we continue” and so on and so on. But still models and certainly dioramas are complex things. And yeah, of course, we get stuck in our own tunnel vision sometimes, and it’s sometimes hard to get out of that and to still see whether it is actually working or not.
But I think there is one great way to get out of that and that’s to simply show our work to other people and preferably before it’s finished.
Barry
Yes, although that can be a double-edged sword. But you’re right. I mean, it helps to have people to bounce these ideas off of. But sometimes the thing you have to be careful of, at least I feel like I have to be careful of, is people will give you feedback that makes you question what you’re doing too much. I don’t know if you’ve had that experience before
Marijn
Yeah, indeed.
Barry
I mean, I’ve completely doubted projects based on feedback I’m getting, which is decent feedback. But sometimes it’s hard to separate a personal opinion and personal artistic taste from actual good feedback that would make your project better. Do know what I mean? Have you experienced that?
Marijn
Myself I don’t have too much problem with that, but I’ve seen it with a lot of other people. The great thing about our club, besides the fact that it’s just a bunch of great guys like most clubs, but with the club that I’m a member of, the KMK, the thing is that we come together every Friday night. Myself, cannot every Friday night, but every Friday night there is a club evening. We get together and we look at each other’s work. You’re not obliged to bring anything, but whoever likes, put your model on the table. Whoever likes looking at it, looks at it. You talk together about it, start asking questions. “what are you trying to do with this?”, “What is your intention?”, “Are you thinking still of doing that?”, or “maybe you could add still this, or maybe you could tone that a bit down, or…” and you have conversations about how to improve the model. And that also goes to dioramas. People bring their dioramas in progress, mock -ups of their dioramas. One of the most fun things is actually playing together, or making a mock-up together with several guys, starting with something somebody cobbled together at home. But then indeed you sometimes see mistakes like they used, for example, a picture frame from IKEA and are trying to cram their diorama on top of that. then first thing we say is like, “Let’s take that frame away, let’s take the styrofoam away that you’re using and just put it on the tabletop”. And now we’re going to play around with the different elements and see what we come up with and what size and shape and that kind of stuff goes on basically every Friday at the club. And it goes down to the level of what details you could still add to the scene or to your tank model or aircraft or whatever. And it’s absolutely great.
It really helps to improve everybody. I do it too. I also bring my projects of course and I also get help in the composition of my stuff. It works in every direction. It’s not like one is the teacher and the rest are the students. But there is the effect that there are ten times more ideas thrown around than you can realistically actually put into use. And a lot of the ideas are even conflicting with one another. So indeed, as a modeller, when it’s about your project, you do have to think for yourself like, okay, I got all of these ideas, all of that input, what do I think is useful for me and what am I going to use?
Barry
Yeah, exactly.
Marijn
After all this time I know myself as a modeller. I know what I want. So let’s say I have a fair level of confidence, so I don’t really have a problem with sifting out like, “OK, I’m going to use that, but I’m not going to use that and that and that and that”. But I see that a lot of other people are struggling with it. And it’s a matter of confidence, And it’s a matter of experience. The more experience you get, the more confidence you get and so on. So it’s a process to go through. But indeed, it can be difficult for people. I think it’s just important to also talk about that aspect. So I also often say to people that are new to the club, like, tonight you’re going to get 50 ideas. If you don’t want to use any of those, that’s OK. If you want to use two or three of them, that’s also OK.
You’re going to get so much more and it’s not possible to use all of them so don’t worry about that.
Barry
Yeah. No, exactly. You should always be open -minded to whatever people are saying when you show it to begin, as you’re working on it. And that’s exactly what I was saying. You need to be able to filter it and be honest, honestly filter it. Don’t say, “I don’t believe that” because they’re saying something that would be more difficult or whatever.
But for me, where it starts getting to be stuff I don’t want to use and I want to filter out is where they’re changing the meaning of what I’m trying to do. this is not the story I want to do. I often get people saying, “well, wouldn’t it be better if you showed this part?” And maybe they’re right, maybe they’re not. But that is too much of a change for me. And like you said, you need the experience to know what is usable and what’s not. I think for an absolute beginner, I think you absolutely need to accept feedback, take it to heart. I think people giving that feedback need to also be a little careful not to send people the wrong way, give them too much feedback based on their level.
Marijn
No, no, indeed, indeed. Even in our club, the idea has already been thrown around that with new people to the club, it can sometimes also be better not to have everybody giving input to them, restricted a little bit and having one or two people sitting down with them more and let them give most of the inputs.
Barry
Mmm. Yeah, good idea.
Marijn
So things become less confusing because also on a technical level, one person will say like, “yeah, you can do this that way. That always works great for me”. And another person will say something completely different. And the new guy is completely confused too. “What do I do now?”
Barry
Yes, “don’t listen to these jokers. I place everything parallel to the bass” Right. So yeah
Marijn
Yeah, indeed. I think that’s mostly a matter of ego, of course, and it’s natural. We all have our egos and some people get more defensive than others. And I also get defensive when I get comments, sometimes rightly so, but often also not rightly so. Because what you say about you have to also be really open and open -minded to the input that you’re getting. That is sometimes that I catch myself that I find it sometimes more difficult to do. Maybe also because I got more confident over the years. Sometimes maybe I’m a bit overconfident in what I’m trying to do and that I’m doing the right thing.
Often, I do get defensive at first like, “yeah, okay, yeah, you have a good point, but I’m trying to do like this or like that”. And it’s only a couple of days later after thinking about that and, “yeah, indeed, he was right. I should change it in that way”.
Barry
It’s totally natural for, and I think a lot of people don’t realize this, but it’s natural to be a little bit defensive. It doesn’t mean that you’re not taking critique well. mean, people have told me things and my first reaction is, “well, no, that’s not that that’s the way I’m, you know, that’s just the way it came out” or, you know, whatever. Just my immediate reaction is to defend it, I guess is what I’m trying to say. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Now, if I said, “You’re completely wrong. I don’t want to hear anything from you”. That’s different. But it is part of the listening process. You are going to be a little bit defensive. The key is don’t let it make you angry.
Marijn
That’s a very good point. That’s a very good point. Yeah, indeed. And I think you’re right that it’s part of the listening process and part of the process of weighing the pros and the cons of doing something with the critique that you have been given.
But on the other hand, you did have a very good point also, I think, about not following inputs or critique that would change what you’re trying to do, that is changing the meaning of what you’re trying to do.
Marijn
And I think that’s one of the big advantages of telling stories with your models.
You often hear, for example on the podcasts, when people are talking about, have you been working on? You often hear people saying like, yeah, I set that model aside because I’m not really sure which way to go. Should I do it more like this or more like that?
When you’re telling a story with your model, you have to have a clear concept of what you’re aiming for. You have to have a vision of what you’re going for. And it has also been talked about on podcasts that if you don’t want to get your model on the shelf of doom, having a clear vision for your model, whatever model it is, is often the key to success. It’s the way to not get stuck somewhere halfway.
So when you’re telling a story with your model, you’re already forced to have a vision. It doesn’t need to be 100 % clear, but you have to have a certain vision of what you’re doing from the beginning. And the good thing is, of course, that this vision helps you in making every decision along the way. And often the choice is simple. Does this thing help the story?
Okay, then I do something with it. Does it not help or even hurt the story? Then I leave it out. So it really helps with making decisions and for me that really helps in getting projects actually finished.
Barry
Definitely. I feel like the story or the message you’re trying to do, and this kind of gets back to art talk, but the message or the story you’re trying to get across is so personal that it’s sacred to me. Maybe it fails, but you still need to do it sometimes. You still need to carry through that vision, in my opinion.
Marijn
I think you’re right. I don’t know what the exact definition of art is, what is art, what is not, what we are doing is art or is not, but I do know that art always needs to be a personal expression in some way.
Well, if we want to do something that is really satisfying for ourselves and is really something from ourselves, we need to stick to that, to what we really want to do with it.
Barry
Yep, I agree.
Marijn
Barry, I think your box dioramas always have a very strong atmosphere to them. Maybe often a rather specific atmosphere, but not always. There is certainly a lot of variation to it. The recruitment of the young guards has a very different atmosphere to the punk rockers Box, that has a very different atmosphere to the Thursday evening box, and so on, but always a very strong atmosphere.
How do you create that kind of atmosphere? What aspects or elements do you pay attention to when you’re creating an atmosphere like that?
Barry
Hmm. I think, man, it comes down to actually some technical things that might sound a little bit sterile. But one of the big advantages of box diorama is that you have complete control over the lighting. And you can do so much with lighting to create an atmosphere. I mean, that’s just the purpose of a box diorama, one of the main purposes, right? Something as simple as the temperature of the light, which a lot of times you think of warm colours as being happier and cool colours being more somber, but in lighting that yellow incandescent light, and I don’t know if it’s just me from my personal background, but that always signifies something kind of melancholy. These golden hues, the golden street lamps, the golden old incandescent lamps. Colour is a huge part of it.
Lighting colour, but also the colour you paint things. And not only with the harmony, but just what the colours actually bring out, cool purples and browns and grays will do an amazing amount of bringing down the mood of something. I don’t know if that’s too simplistic, but that is kind of the only thing that I can think of that I intentionally do to make a more somber mood, because that’s kind of what I’ve gone to as more melancholy.
And I don’t even necessarily intentionally do that. I think it’s just the ideas in my head. Maybe that means I’m a really depressing kind of guy. But I had one Italian modeler say to me, your scenes are so sad. Why are you always so sad? Like, I don’t know. That’s just what I want to do. But there might be something that I’m doing that’s not, that I can’t explain that makes them that way. I don’t know.
Is there something that you get from those that make you think I’m doing something specifically?
Marijn
Well, I think it needs the colouration of the scene in general, whether it is by lighting or by painting or both, like in a box usually both, but outside of a box with other models you can also play with the colouration of everything, how light, how dark, how saturated, how desaturated, how warm colours, cold colours, all these kind of contrasts, how much contrast you put in it, or how harmonious you make everything. It all contributes to atmosphere in one way or another, think. And besides that, I think it’s also a matter of what you actually put in the scene. What activities are going on also determines a lot, of the atmosphere of what’s going on. For example, the girl under the lamppost, what she is doing just waiting there, also contributes of course to the atmosphere, but also the emotions that she is showing, her body language, her facial expression that also is very important of course to the atmosphere of the scene.
Barry
That’s true. That’s true. Yeah.
Marijn
And then of course the use of space, I think is also important. How crowded you make a scene or how open or empty you make a scene. If you’re looking for melancholy or sadness, you’re better off with not too much stuff in your scene with more open space, larger surfaces.
Marijn
If you want to have something funny or something full of action and excitement, well then… you can make it much more crowded and full of detail. And with the colours you would use higher contrasts, more saturation, things like that. So I think all these things work together to create the atmosphere. I think in the end basically everything in your scene from whatever you put in it or leave out of it to the paint work you do to the lighting you do everything can contribute to the atmosphere in a certain way and I think you do.
Barry
Well, thank you. I mean, that really does mean a lot to me. I can’t believe I didn’t think of the body language. I feel a little uncomfortable talking about my stuff so much because I feel like I’m being very pretentious. And I don’t want to do that too much. I can’t believe I didn’t think about the body language because really, that’s probably central.
Marijn
We’re on a very pretentious podcast anyway, so don’t worry about that.
Barry
Yeah right!
Chris
If you guys could just make it 10% more pretentious, that’d be great. Thanks.
Marijn
good, I was holding back so far.
Chris
Longer words, longer words, all right.
Marijn
Ha ha!
Barry
I’ll get my thesaurus out.
But I can’t believe that I didn’t think about the posing because yeah, that has been central to every box I’ve done, probably every single one I’ve done. It’s the central part. I think that is the most important part now that you bring it up.
Marijn
I think mostly, usually the body language is a secondary thing. The primary thing is to get a certain emotion in your figures, to get them to look like they are feeling a certain specific emotion.
Barry
Yeah.
Marijn
whether or not you keep it open to interpretation like you often do, Barry, or whether it has to be very recognizable to the viewer, doesn’t matter, you’re aiming for something, an emotion. And there are always two elements that are important to get that emotion in a figure, like Mike Blank has written about and plenty of other people. It’s the facial expression and the body language. And that’s not in order of importance, they’re both equally important.
So I think indeed often we’re aiming for a certain expression, a certain emotion in our figures and well, we’re posing accordingly, but not necessarily always on a very, very conscious level. It depends a bit, I think.
Barry
Yeah, it’s very true.
Well, I mean, a good example in your work of that is the guy breaking in, breaking it, throwing open the door and catching his wife having an affair. That figure is central to the entire story. If you didn’t have his body language, his facial expression down, it wouldn’t work. That’s how you’re seeing what’s happening. If he was just nonchalantly walking in the door, it would be a little bit different story, right? So yeah, that is critical.
Marijn
Yeah, indeed. Thank you. Because indeed that one I struggled with. I sculpted him twice, which I rarely do. Usually, I just fiddle around until I get things to my liking. I rarely go back to square one with anything. But with that one I did because first I imagined him walking in, slightly suspecting something but not really being sure. But he was looking like he was just casually walking in because he had a certain facial expression but that was not very clear and his body language was not clear at all, was just looking casual indeed. So it was not coming across.
So I read it’s him storming in as if he really knew already what was going on. Maybe he had seen the red sports car of the lover boy parked in front of the house already.
Maybe he had made a telephone call to his wife and had overheard something over the phone, whatever the reason is, but it’s clear that he knows what’s going on and he’s going to look through the room and question his wife.
Barry
Maybe he heard that slap that made the red mark on her butt. So, I’m trying to picture what it would be like if he had that look on his face. And I think one thing that might’ve happened is you might have people thinking that you didn’t know how to make the emotion, his, his, his emotion or whatever. And that you just, made like a parking lot, I call it a parking lot diorama. Well, this is the figure I could find and it’s a guy standing there opening the door, right? So you need to show, you need to make it intentional no matter what you did.
Marijn
Yeah, indeed. well, another aspect with that diorama, and one of the reasons why he is so important to tell the story is because I’m a little bit less happy with the bust in the foreground. So the lover boy that’s hiding in the closet, because it was my first bust on a technical level, I was happy with it, but the facial expression of a certain fear of being discovered could have been much stronger, I think. It was okay, but not as good as I would have wanted it to be. And if he would have looked more fearful, still the entire scene would have been stronger still. I’m happy with how it turned out, but… that’s one of these things, you know, everybody always has stuff at the end that they say like, “I wish this would have been a bit more like this”, or I “had that more in mind to be a bit more like that”, or “that could have been better”. That’s one with that scene for me. Absolutely, absolutely. But like I say, it was my first bust, first phase in that scale. We live and learn and hopefully improve with the next one.
Only by looking critically at our own work, we can learn.
Barry
You’re always going to do that, and you always should, question what you’ve done and not always be 100% satisfied with it. But I never got that feeling from that figure. I think he’s a very important figure, but his importance is he’s the one that first draws you into the scene. And I’ve never felt like he didn’t portray that feeling, fear of getting caught, he definitely puts that across. But I understand where you’re coming from. Yeah.
Marijn
Thank you. But I would like to turn back to something you said that was quite important, I think. The idea of using a figure that doesn’t really suit the scene, but yeah, it’s the best you could find. That’s something I see with a lot of dioramas.
Barry
Yes.
Marijn
Figure painting is often, and especially modifying figures or sculpting figures is something that scares a lot of modellers. So, you see it a lot. And sometimes it’s even made worse by not even “this is the best I could find”, but “this was the best I had in my stash”.
Barry
Yeah, yeah, true.
Marijn
Which is of course even worse because if you’re going to invest all the time in making a diorama, which is usually quite a lot of work, well, often it’s better to… The figures are often the main characters and they’re often very important because they’re the best tool we have to transmit emotion. They’re very direct in that. So they can be very important elements in a diorama.
Barry
Absolutely.
Marijn
I think if we want to tell stories with our dioramas, I think one of the most important tips I would give anybody is try to embrace figure modelling as soon as you can. Yeah, indeed, Modifications, sorry, modifications can be a good step stone to get used to working with figures and to get used to the anatomy and stuff like that. It’s a good way to start, I think, but in the end sculpting them yourself gets better results and is often easier, I find, to get good results in the end. So I agree completely. Yeah, indeed, indeed.
Barry
Yes, it’s always easier than converting.
Marijn
I find also that usually when people start sculpting for the first time, also converting, but just the sculpt, the technical sculpting process, most modellers are usually surprised that it is easier than they thought it would be. And also that it is a faster process than they thought it would be.
Barry
Yeah. It’s almost always when I mention that somebody who’s never tried sculpting before that they should try it, they’re really genuinely afraid to try it. And they’ll say, “I can’t do that”. “Well, how many times have you tried?”, “I’ve never tried it”. “Well, how could you possibly know? It doesn’t take much to just try”. Definitely try it. I think most people can put together an armature and make a figure that looks reasonably decent. Good enough to where they can pose it in a way that serves their diorama.
Marijn
I agree and I’ve seen it happen plenty of times in our club too. When people start doing it usually it goes much better than they expected. But yeah, too often people are afraid of it and they get the feeling that “sculpting, that’s something for artists “I’m not an artist. That’s something you have to have a certain talent for that you’re born with otherwise you cannot do it”. But like with anything I don’t think that’s true at all.
Sculpting is just a series of techniques that you have to learn and practice and spend some time on and anybody can learn it to a certain level and you don’t have to reach absolute top level to do something worthwhile with it and to use it to get the story across in a diorama.
Barry
No, absolutely. I think that’s a really important point. I don’t think people should feel like they need to be sculpting like Michael Kontraros to make it worth their while to sculpt the figure.
Marijn
Absolutely.
Barry
So why do you think miniatures and especially dioramas I would say seem to fascinate people? Given this common fascination with miniatures does it give us a unique opportunity to draw people in to deliver a message or a story?
Marijn
I think the first part I have already answered in a certain way.
I think it comes down to the fact that we have this three -dimensional image that is small and intricate, that invites the viewer not to just look at it, but to come closer, get absorbed in the little worlds that we create, and take a little bit time to study, rather than just glance at it and pass on, like all the photographs we see on Facebook or online, wherever.
in this day and age of all kinds of media, moving images, sounds, flashing by hundreds, thousands every day. I think our medium is quite unique that it can pull people in, invite them to really get closer, get sucked into it, and take a little bit more time to look at it and explore it. And I think that’s a beautiful thing.
Certainly it worked for me when I was a kid. For example, with my parents, we would go to a restaurant and there would be a more or less decorative ship bottle on the windowsill. As a kid, I would always run towards that and look, look at this, look at that. And I think it doesn’t work only on kids, but equally on adults.
I think Ivan Cocker has made also a great talk about that here on the podcast. (https://modelphilosopher.com/modelling-history-with-ivan-cocker/) And he was talking about how you can use it also to educate people in the context of a museum, for example. But you can equally transmit other ideas or other kinds of stories to people with it.
But I feel models are best viewed in the flesh for this. In photograph, I feel you kind of get the same effect as with photographs in that you glance at them for half a second and then move to the next photograph.
Barry
Well, there’s no actual miniaturization when you’re looking at a photograph. You’re looking at, I the scale means nothing in a photograph.
Marijn
No, that’s also a problem. Absolutely, that’s also a problem with photographs. The only advantage you have with scale models when photographed is that you can take multiple photographs from them from different angles, zoomed in, zoomed out. So you have more photographs to glance at for half a second before you move on to the next photograph. But for scale models to really work, I think they’re best viewed in the flesh then they really speak and really come to their own.
Barry
Another thing that people are always fascinated by, I can’t believe how many people are fascinated by maps. I swear, I don’t know that I’ve met anybody that isn’t fascinated by maps. There’s something about miniaturizing and simplifying the world that just fascinates people. And miniatures, not to the same extent, but most people, if you show them a miniature,
They’re fascinated by the fact that you’ve just shrunk down a person to that scale. I don’t understand the psychology of that. It’d be interesting to see if somebody has actually looked into that.
Marijn
Yeah, that’s a great question. I would also like to see something about that. I also don’t know. But I also see the same effect with also very different types of models, like architectural models. If you’re walking around in an area or in a building where they’re showing the architectural model of that building, it draws people in.
Barry
Yes.
Even the super simplified ones to call back what you’re talking about before. They’re just made of foam core and that. I met somebody who their business was making architectural models of people’s houses that were already built. a lot of people love to see that. And it’s just a fascinating part of psychology. I think Chris ought to get maybe find a psychologist to come on and talk.
Marijn
But to come full circle, those architectural models, the very stylistic simplified one with foam core, everything painted in white or just left in white, they’re a perfect example of how indeed a model doesn’t need to be as exact as a shrunken down representation of the real thing in order to get the message across.
An architectural model wants to show the structures, the volumes, the shapes of a building, the essence of what that building is or is going to be. It doesn’t need all the details of the bricks or the colours or this or that to get that message across. And the details of the landscaping around the building are often included because it also draws people in. But it’s even more simplified because it’s even less essential to what the developer wants to show to potential customers, for example.
Barry
I think it goes back to what I was saying about the scientific models. I mean, a scientific model, you simplify some phenomenon down to the things that are only what you’re interested in looking at, that impact whatever process you’re looking at. And I think there is a relationship to the way we do modelling.
I think we can look at it that way. I think we can represent only those things that are important to what we want to portray about that certain thing.
Marijn
And often we do in a certain way by just choosing, for example, with the figure vignette, by simply choosing what we include in the vignette and what we don’t. Most people are not, sometimes some are, but then they can be important to show the natural environment that the figure is in.
Barry
Sure. You’re not including insects.
Barry
Right. Yeah.
Marijn
But for example, you don’t need most of the building that the figure is into, suggest by just a tiny piece of groundwork that he is inside a certain building, like for example, a palace. So already there, we’re choosing very carefully what we are including to get the message across while leaving out everything else that’s not essential to it.
But it would be interesting to also see how we can explore this further with the things that are actually in the scene and how there we can focus more. I believe Tue has been doing this actually with some of his models, also detailing things that are the focal points.
Barry
Very true.
Marijn
of his scenes, detailing them further while leaving some of the other parts really less detailed and also less refined technically as a painting level. And indeed when you look at these models in the flesh you don’t notice this because you’re looking at the focal points and only then you look cases further but by then you’re not looking for deficiencies or differences anymore.
But when he points it out to you on his models, then you see like, yeah, indeed, this is very nicely detailed, but the one on the other side that you cannot see very well, well, it’s just a very crude shape.
Barry
That shows how effective it is that he’s done that.
Marijn
Barry, I have the feeling that I get what you’re trying to do with your models, simply because we have a similar taste in all kinds of things like, for example, movies like David Lynch and stuff like that, while a lot of other people may not really get what you’re trying to do.
But when you’re thinking up your ideas or designing your box dioramas, do you have a certain audience in mind? you have the feeling like you’re just doing it for yourself and not thinking about anybody that will ever see it? Or do you have a feeling that a certain amount or group of people, you want them to get something out of what you’re doing?
Barry
Hmm. I guess, you know, that’s a really difficult one because I want to say, wow, I don’t, I’m not modelling for any audience, but you know, I finished them for shows and I take them and I’ve put them in for a medal consideration. Right. So I guess in that way, I’m modelling for an audience, but for the most part, I’m just trying to take an idea or a feeling in my head and see if I can recreate it in miniature. And I don’t know that I’ll be able to give you a satisfying answer to that, but that’s, I’m not necessarily saying, well, I want people who understand Edward Hopper’s art to get this, or I’m doing this so that modelers think it’s great.
Because in a lot of ways it’s not typical of what modelers like. So, I think in general it’s just the audience is kind of me and maybe that’s why I’m not so satisfied with the outcome. I hope that’s not too pretentious of an answer there, but that’s I think that’s the best I can come up with
Marijn
I wouldn’t be able to come up with a better answer indeed. I also feel like the best thing you can do is just do your thing. And if you would say that in a pretentious way, it would be to express yourself and your true self. But it’s basically the same as just do the thing that you want to do, what you like to do.
Barry
Yeah, trying to say something about the human condition. That’s what I should have said. So what about you though?
Marijn
Yeah, indeed, Well, which also sounds pretentious, but which is true of any good art, let’s say. It always touches down to the human condition somehow, and for good reason also. You can say that this sounds pretentious, but in fact, I don’t think it is at all because if you want anybody to get involved in your model when viewing it, you have to have something that they can relate to. And what can everybody relate to? The human condition. Because it’s just a fancy term for our lives and whatever goes on in them from beginning to end. Getting born.
Barry
That’s true.
Marijn
In a place, in a time where we have no control over, going through all kinds of good and bad shit and dying in the end. The human condition is just a fancy way of putting that in two words. But that’s something we can all relate to, all the emotions that go along with it. So if we can somehow touch upon that in our models, then we can make sure that people can get something out of it.
Barry
Yeah.
Marijn
And not only other modellers who happen to know that it is a Sherman A4, blah blah blah, on that theatre at that moment in time, but anybody. Our grandmothers, our children, our wives, they can all get something out of it and get a certain feeling of what’s going on. If we can somehow include human emotions, something about the human condition in our models.
So I always think that it’s important with storytelling to not limit our story to only the story of this vehicle or airplane or the people in or around it at that moment in time and what they were doing exactly, but also tell the story about what they were going through, what they were feeling.
What it was like, things like that, touch upon that human element of it. then people who have no idea about which event is being portrayed, they will still understand what’s going on, on a basic level. And if you want to have an audience as wide as possible, I think that’s the basic trick to it. And it’s not really a trick because I think it’s the most fun thing to do also in models, try and touch on that. And I think we often do it unconsciously in a way because we’re trying to portray that event and then that site is just a part of it and an important part of it.
Barry
Yeah, that’s very true. A good example of what you’re talking about with the human element and what people are going through, your model of the Lexington would be a spectacular ship without the figures, but those little 1 -700 scale figures make the scene because they’re the ones that tell the story and they’re most of the impact of that diorama. So yeah.
Marijn
Thank you. Thank you.
Barry
What about you though, as far as audience? Do you build for a certain audience?
Marijn
Of course I want everybody to love me, The more people like my models the better.
Barry
Hehehehehe
Marijn
But I think we have no control over that at all anyway. And if we try to control it, we will just make worse models. We will start copying other things that we think are successful or we think people would expect from us and it will just be derivative and if we have success once we will just start repeating it because, hey it works, let me do some more of the same. So again, I think it’s really important to just do whatever we really feel like doing and then the result will be the best, the story will be the strongest, the emotions will be the strongest and more people will actually get it and like it.
Barry
Well, I think that’s a really good point. And actually, that brings up the main reason why I’ve become pretty disillusioned with the whole medals and awards and everything. I feel like we put way too much emphasis on that. I’m happy to help with that and make it better if we want to do that. But I really feel like we need to de -emphasize that and maybe use them a little bit better.
Because it causes people to do that, to just like, what do people want to see? What do the judges want to see? That’s not what you should be doing, in my opinion.
Marijn
No, indeed. And in my opinion, and I think I can even say, and that’s pretentious in my experience, it even doesn’t work that way. Maybe on a lower level, maybe. But if you really want to get the big awards, you better do what you really want to do. Because that’s the way.
Barry
That’s 100% what I’ve found.
Marijn
Me too, me too. The bigger awards I’ve won have always been with projects that I really loved and I’ve switched gears several times going into other genres and it hasn’t worked against me. On the contrary, I think it helped me keep it fresh and keep the motivation going and keep the passion going and get the best results I can get for myself as a model and that translates in the competitions too. But like you say, that’s something that we should take afterwards, after the process of designing, building the model, having the pleasure from that. Afterwards we can think of putting it in a competition and getting some fun out of that, not during or before the process of making the model, I think. Indeed.
Barry
I’m happy to, you know, help with shows that do judging and it’s, I like a lot of it. A lot of it leaves me a little bit cold, but I just would like to promote it in a way that helps people use it for what it is. And like I always say, it is a data point. It is a critique in a way and take it for what it’s worth. may be worth a lot.
It may be not worth so much. It’s an opinion.
Marijn
Yeah, I think you’re right. Maybe to quickly go back, on another level, I do think a lot about the audience of the models that I built, but on a more technical level, when working on the composition. Then I do think about what will people see?
When they look at my model, what will they see first? Which focal points shall I put, which is the most important focal point? How do I attract people to that focal point? So they will see that one first, which are my secondary focal points, which are a bit less important. And people might look at next after they have seen the first one. About this kind of more technical aspects, I do think about how an audience would see the model. But that’s more on a technical composition level of course and that’s just in the function of trying to get the story across.
And then I’m not thinking about a certain group of people, then I’m just thinking about anybody who would look at it.
Barry
Yeah, because those composition principles are things that will affect pretty much everybody the same way. You don’t have to be an art expert to recognize that you have balance in your diorama. I mean, that’s just you’re talking about basic human psychology that you’re working.
Marijn
Indeed, Maybe the only difference is between people who really have knowledge about the items that you put in your model, for example, the history buffs who do know that it is the Sherman M4A4 in this theatre and all the other people who don’t know about it. Then there can be a difference between what the specialists are first attracted to, compared to the other people.
But still, if your composition is strong enough, that also doesn’t matter. That will also level out, I believe.
Barry
Yeah, I agree.
Chris
All right, we’re gonna have to wrap it up there. I want to thank you both for joining me on the Pretentious Modeller podcast.
Marijn
I’m glad we could help to up the level of pretentiousness a little bit today.
Barry
I’m glad I could be part of that.
Chris
In all seriousness though, this is exactly the kind of conversation that I started this podcast for and exactly the kind of sort of thinking about the hobby that I wanted to bring out and encourage. And I really want to thank you both for such an interesting conversation.
Barry
Excellent. Thank you, Chris.
Marijn
Thank you Chris, it was a pleasure.
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I hope you enjoyed that. I think Barry and Marijn touched on some really great concepts and topics there from not over explaining the story and leaving it open to interpretation, to considering the tone and intensity of the light to the importance of knowing the rules of composition, especially if you want to intentionally break them. A lot for me to think about for sure.
I hope too, that you enjoyed this change to the format. I wanted to try removing myself from the conversation this time. This show is about bringing you a wide range of opinions and points of view and I thought this might be a way to make it a little different this time around. Of course, we could have had a chaired group discussion, but I always feel that format is less natural, having a moderator pose the questions and choose who answers when. I think the most interesting ideas and discussion comes from a more natural conversation. I won’t be doing this very often, but now and again I will return to this type of interview.
Let me know what you think about this, I would love to hear your feedback on the interview, the style, and the ideas Barry and Marijn present. Just drop me a line at info@insidethearmour.com.
Next time, I will be interviewing Harry Aarling, better known as ‘Kosmotroniks’ about making fine art from models, taking it into Galleries, and finding whimsy and joy in what we make.
Take care, and thank you for Reading the Model Philosopher.
Very interesting conversation, thank you both and of course Chris also.
I have some strong objections on THE rule (never putting something parallel to the edge of your base), which is IMHO the most flawed rule although it works (as flawed as the thirds rule for two dimensional works, which also works). Of course I’ ve been observing this rule in my dioramas and dioramists are trained to view parallel compositions as wrong even when they are not. To make it short and avoiding writing a complete article on my own, I would redraw THE rule upside down: non parallel arrangement is an easy way for faux dynamism that’s why I view it as flawed, if a parallel arrangement doesn’t work on a particular composition, then the problem is with all the other elements of the composition (detail, colour, contrast, relation of elements) and not with the arrangement, you should use non parallel arrangement only when you can justify its use and when all other means to give dynamism to the composition have failed. The only reason that non parallel arrangement works is because we tend to put the base parallel to the table and the viewer. That’s just my two cent (or half cent). Thank you for your time.