My Creativity Is... A Surfer?

I have (or maybe it was my wife who has) found out that my creative mood rides on waves. I've constantly felt this in a way but never really gave it any deeper thought, until lately.

When I started taking commissions, I noticed that, for time to time, it was really hard for me to keep my thoughts together and focus on the task in front of me. I felt lazy and unproductive. It had nothing to do with the projects that I worked with. I felt that I needed to hit the stones together a bit longer and harder to get the spark.

I've started to understand my mind a bit better while getting older. These seasons – the ones when I just feel like an empty and clean jar – are the tides when I either really need to push myself to do something creative or need to focus on something totally different, like go fishing.

But eventually I do find the spark.

These creativily melancholic tides are followed by the heaps when I just simply can't put my tools down and stop working. It feels great, like everything you do works instantly and looks superb, even after a good night sleep. The downside is that while on this mode, I rarely can think anything else than the projects that I'm involved in, until its finished. These are very difficult times for my family, as all I'd like to do is to get back to my cave and create something, anything.

The cycles do wary in length. Sometimes the mood stays for weeks, even months. Sometimes mere days. A good, long, productive heap season really gives you the boost and is even visible in your everyday life. Even the same coffee that you make every morning tastes better.

How is it with you? Do you have times when it is hard to grab the brush and start painting or are you in constant auto-fire mode, pushing out piece after piece of top grade stuff (like Jeff of Convertorum)?

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I think I'm currently climbing towards the heap, my mind working all the time, creating possibilities and processing ideas – and when one idea pops in my mind, it generates a dozen new ones.

Now, I'm literally neck deep in miniature projects. I have a couple commissions under way, all of them coming along with sure steps. Then there are some random projects that just materialized in front of me while putting pieces together. That is one good sign of the creative mood hitting the upswing.

Here's one of the randoms that is currently waiting for priming. Yep, it's another Inquisitor, this time a Puritan of Ordo Hereticus...

+ Inquisitor Valon, Puritan, Ordo Hereticus +

Inquisitor Valon will be accompanied by another character, an Underhive tracker who I will reveal to you somewhere later this month... Maybe they will play a part in the Punk Moth campaign at some point, who knows.

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I did mention the commissions, didn't I? Well, here's a sneak peak to one of them. This is a female Inquisitor of Ordo Xenos, high born and noble, very interesting project to work with...

Female Inquisitor, Ordo Xenos

All the details were given to me by the client. I started working out the idea of the Inquisitor on paper, thinking of which bits I would be using for her, sketching her out of my head while putting the pieces together.

This is my vision of her. We'll see how this thing will form out...

- Kari

New Nest

So yet another home is left behind, empty from my belongings. I'm a happy tenant of a single-family home with huge garden in a small town known Lapua. Extra space came to use as our previous apartment was getting very small. One of the best things about the new space is that I now have a room of my own dedicated for the hobby, yay!

Panorama view from the new lair of izeColt

Finnish "antique" from the 50's

The study is very cozy and relaxing space. It's a place where my creative horizon can spread like never before, providing great framework to leech energy from.

The desk is a product of Lahden Puukalusto Oy and it represents functionalism pretty well. It consists very, well, functional storing capacities. I say the desk is a product because it is a working class version of Bilnäs' expensive counterpart and nowhere as neat and slim. But it makes its stand pretty well and looks beutifully patinated.

The history of the desk is grim. In 1976 an explosion occured in a warehouse of Lapua ammunition factory (State Cartridge Factory), killing 40 people, mainly female workers. Sixty children lost a parent in this Finland's worst modern time disaster. The desk, as far as I've been told, is a survivor from the accident. It was later sold in an auction to a former worker of the factory.

But now the desk has found a new home in my modest corner. It works as a focal point in my creative process, storing all my tools and paints within it just in a hands reach. The mechanics of the lock has a soul of its own and functions when it feels like doing so. It's pretty simple yet enough complex to keep my stuff safe and beyond the reach of the little gremlin.

I've already done some pretty interesting new creations in my new nest. I will be sharing them in next couple of days along with some amazing plans the rat pack will be doing in near future.

Stay tuned!

Creative Horizon

Creative mind needs to discharge itself for time to time. If it doesn't, it will get anguished and depressed. That's one of the "curses" of being creative.

The way you empty your can of inspiration doesn't really matter, just as long as it's something you really enjoy doing and what motivates you; write, draw, paint, build, discuss, read, improve your skill, live, learn and enjoy.

Discharging your fully loaded creativity can sometimes be really hard in today's pressing society. It's because of the lack of time, or more properly put, lack of courage to make the time - and I'm a bit of a coward in this case, to tell you to truth...

But when you're short of time you start to appreciate it more. I, for instance, have really started focusing on what I want to do with my precious hobbytime. I'd like to have an inspirational working space where I'd enjoy every drop of creativity I have damed in my packed mind, something similar that Migsula is currently working with.

This is something I'd like to call as a creative horizon. When you've reached certain step in your hobby, you start to think how'd it feel like to stay on that spot for a bit longer and widen your point of view a bit more horizontal, look for new ways to take the most out of that stage.

For example, you're enjoying the way you paint and convert your miniatures, but you'd like to get more out of 'em than just paint and finish the work. You start to write background stories about your heroes, tell their tales and give them more than meets the eye. Another way is to create some side projects such as character cards, parchaments for spells and tarot cards that your painted character might use in his/her universe. This can be very fascinating way to add more value for your hobbytime and create more depth for your creative project. Tears of Envy's =][=MVNDA project is kind of something I'm aiming at with this ramble...

For me it's the little things that make my creative horizon more wanderous. I've started widening my perspective and look for new ways to improve the quality time I've in my hands for my hobby. I've thought about starting my own little Inquisitor/Necromunda posse project, building it up from figures that I'd really love to paint, this meaning that I'd have to do some serious conversion and kitbashing work to get to that point. I'd then widen the project by adding some detailed papers, drawings and background stories for 'em, giving life to them in their own universe. That'd be neat.

I'm also currently trying to "decorate" my hobby surroundings with little things that matter to me, images, music, books and such. There's just something when you raise your head from your project for some neck strecthes, your nose catches some pleasant scent from the old booklets full of beautiful images, laid open for some bursts of inspirations while eardrums are bouncing in the beat of the relaxing thrash metal from the late 80's and the early 90's. That makes it for me at the moment, though it's too bad that it's impossible to paint in the light of the candles... *sigh*

My nest of comfy chaos, creative horizon wide and open for wandering.

So, how do you spend your pools of creativity? Do you widen your creative horizon from the point where you're currently staying at and how? The word is free.

- izeColt