Heyho,
most of you will know Jürgen aka Crackpot and his amazing dioramas. I had the chance to do a nice interview with him and I hope you´ll all enjoy it as much as I have :-)
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| Jürgen "Crackpot" Wagner |
MV: Hey Jürgen, nice to have
you here. As some of our readers will know, you are a long-time
hobbist and well known painter. With your nickname “Crackpot”
you´re showing a lot of beautiful painted miniatures to the community. Please tell
us a bit about yourself.
Jürgen: Thanks for having
me. It’s really an honour to introduce myself to the many
MassiveVoodo Blog readers. Well my name is Jürgen (37), I was born
in Austria but grew up in Germany and currently live in a small town
near Cologne. I am married, soon to be dad, have two cats and work as
a software developer, so I guess I couldn’t be more average. :D
Painting and
building dioramas is really my main hobby so far. I think it’s safe
to say that I am more of an introvert, don’t get me wrong I love to
go to big miniature events and meet up with all the other enthusiasts
but aside from this I prefer the solitude of my working room at
night. I think this is one part why I love this hobby so much, it
really recharges my inner battery.
It’s quite difficult to say when I really started painting. When you mean “smudge some thick colours on a bunch of poor plastic miniatures” I would assume it must have been in 1999 when I bought my first Games-Workshop “Warhammer 40K Starter Box”. When you mean “paint a single miniature with a rudimental knowledge of how to apply a base colour” it would be around 2006.
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| Jürgen´s latest diorama: Dead or Alive |
MV: It´s always
intersting to hear the legends of how somebody got into the hobby. So
please tell us your tale of the brush
Jürgen: Well as stated above
I think it all started with Games-Workshop as my gateway drug. As a
child I was hooked on “HeroQuest” und “StarQuest”, I loved
the games and especially the tiny plastic miniatures. It was like
“Barbie” for boys. :)
When I was older I
found out that there are miniature games similar to these games of my
childhood, nostalgia kicked in and I bought the starter box of
Warhammer 40K and shortly after that the starter box of Warhammer
Fantasy. And since then I went deeper and deeper down the rabbit
hole…
I think it were Rackham and Freebooter Miniatures that brought me to concentrate more on single miniatures. I discovered them on a gaming trade fair and was amazed how much more details a miniature can have compared to a simple plastic Space Marine. It was also the time when I got in contact with the first pro-painters like “Pinselknecht” and “Brushguy” and I learned a lot from them!
MV: You are well-known for
your smooth-blended miniatures. Especially your dioramas always have
a deep impact on the community. What´s your philosophy of painting? Where
do you get your inspiration from?
Jürgen: Wow, difficult
question. I don’t know if I have a philosophy regarding painting.
Maybe you could say I am a bit of a perfectionist and sometimes I
really trail away on a tiny detail like a small purse or a belt
buckle. You could say this isn’t very efficient, because nobody
will see a big difference on a small purse that is painted in 10
minutes or 2 hours, but efficiency is not my point. It must feel
RIGHT for me and if I need one hour more to paint this small purse,
just so it feels right for me, then I will do it. Maybe that’s the
point when others say my miniatures always look very clean, or like
you said “smooth-blended” it’s just I like to pay attention to
details.
As for the
inspiration I think inspiration can be everything and everywhere. I
don’t have one source of inspiration. It can be painters, movies,
video games, books or just a photo. As for my last project “Dead or
Alive” I browsed through photos from my last holiday in Scotland
with my wife and I was so fascinated by some pictures we took of an
old forest that I suddenly wanted to make a forest diorama. Sometimes
inspiration hits you when you least expect it.
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| Pi-Well |
MV: You have your own website,
brushhour.de. And some months ago you relaunched the website with a
new design. What´s the idea behind brushhour.de?
Jürgen: You know I am just a
hobby painter and for a hobby painter time can be a bit tricky to
manage, I think everyone will agree on this. You have your family,
your job, the daily rush-hour traffic, some sport or other hobbies
and then your day is already over. I have the same problem but I
really try to integrate our hobby at least for half an hour to an
hour every day. Most of the time it works, sometimes it doesn’t and
sometimes I have multiple hours for the hobby. So the idea behind the
title of my page was: At least spend an “hour with your brush”.
As for the page,
it’s nothing fancy. I just wanted an independent platform for my
pictures, tutorials and contact informations. At first the idea was
to create a blog like many other painters, but I think a blog is only
interesting as long as you update it on a regular basis like here at
Massive Voodoo. I knew I wouldn’t manage to keep a blog alive long
enough so I decided to just publish a small simple website with my
latest projects and otherwise publish some current WIPs or events on
facebook or message boards.
MV: What was you greatest
success in you hobby-life and why?
Jürgen: I think my biggest
personal success was when I finished my “Hammam/Turkish Bath”
diorama in 2011. I tried many new
things in this project like the printed tiles, the multiple rounded
and curved wall segments, the marble effect or the clear water
effect. Many of these techniques required me to test them first and
so this project took way longer than I expected. But I struggled
through and was very satisfied with the result. At this point I knew
if I got through such a project I could build virtually anything. It
really boosted my self-confidence at a rather difficult time because
I thought I had reached kind of a plateau.
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| Hammam |
MV: At the moment there are a
lot of miniature-companies. Which is your favourite one?
Jürgen: I have to admit I am
not very up to date with the current market situation. Damn, I still
have a big box of Rackham miniatures I still want to paint. :D At
the moment I really like the Red-Box-Games miniature range. They are
very detailed and rather tiny compared to other companys. But I am
also looking forward to buy some new Infinity miniatures when I have
time, I just love their stile of sci-fi.
MV: Legends and storys tell us
about your fear of using metallic colors. Allegedly you totally clean
your table after using them. What has happened that you are so
careful?
Jürgen: Who told you this? I
will find the traitor! I don’t know why
exactly but I think I have some kind of metallic-phobia. Maybe
because I am still not very good with metallics. But I think mainly
because when I started painting I was very sloppy with my paints and
so I often painted right out of the pot and didn’t clean my brushes
properly. So when you took a closer look at my fist
“Smurf-Space-Marines” they often had some metallic pigments in
the blue armor.
By now I would hate
to get just one metallic pigment on one of my miniatures so when I
paint with metallics I change everything after that: The two water
glasses, the palett, the brushes. I even have separate brushes for
normal colors and for metallic colors. Ok, sounds a bit radical I
admit that. ;)
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| Duell |
MV: Beside brushes, minis and
colors, what is the most important thing on your table?
Jürgen: I think it’s my
glasses and my colour-wheel. I usually need no glasses but I bought a
pair of reading glasses so my old eyes don’t overlook some details
and they help me very much. I know I look ridiculous with them but as
long only my wife has a good laugh it’s OK for me. ;) And I often use the
colour-wheel just to compare some paints with it so I don’t
accidentally use the wrong colours. I am red-green colour blind so I
often have to be extra sure to use the right colours. Thank god my
wife helps me often enough with this. :D
MV: Do you have a picture of
your table?
Jürgen: Sure, but it’s nothing
fancy.
MV: Some short questions: Are there any
painters you admire?
Jürgen: As for “normal” painters I would say
Frank Frazetta. His oil paintings are really inspiring.
As for miniature painters there are just too many. I love the clean freehands of Derwish, the cool sceneries of Matt Cexwish or Picster, the cool busts of Pepa and many more.
As for miniature painters there are just too many. I love the clean freehands of Derwish, the cool sceneries of Matt Cexwish or Picster, the cool busts of Pepa and many more.
MV: Do you lick
brushes?
Jürgen: Sometimes. I learned it the hard way to stop brush
licking while using special paints. DON’T TASTE DUNCAN PAINTS! ;)
MV: Favourite
breakfast?
Jürgen: Sounds strange but since my first trip to Scotland I
just fell in LOVE with porridge.
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| Hanako |
MV: Favourite
song?
MV: Favourite
film?
Jürgen: The Godfather 1
MV: Favourite
color?
Jürgen: Purple.
MV: What is your favourite miniature so far?
Jürgen: Very difficult. I would say the “Barbarian Dude”, because I knew I had to buy it just as I saw it online and it was pure fun to paint.
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| Outnumbered |
MV: Last question: please tell
us which would be the greatest development in our hobby?
Jürgen: I think the
competition idea in our hobby is getting a bit out of hand. It would
be great if the hobby would concentrate more on the fun of painting
and to act out ones imagination than just on the next competition. In
my perception there is often a compulsive ambition to be better than
the others and to win competition after competition. But our hobby is
no sport, the performance is not very measurable and I think many
loose the fun and relaxation on the long run. How often do I read
threats that complain about a lack of motivation and questions how to
overcome this crisis? Why do these people think they have to press
on? I think because they are afraid to fall behind and are no longer
able to “compete”. It really makes me sad if people have this
mindset because I think that’s not the idea behind our hobby. You
shouldn’t need advice how to get motivated if you already have fun
what you are doing. I had my ups and downs with the hobby and I will
have my ups and downs in the future, but when I am not in the mood or
I lack the right ideas or inspiration I just take a break. I even had
a nearly 2 yearlong break, so what?
Don’t get me
wrong, everyone wants to improve and that’s great but YOU should be
your own hardest competitor, not the others.
So to come back to
your initial question, I would say the greatest development would be
if we would stop comparing our work with others constantly, be more
relaxed and stop taking our hobby too seriously. After all we are
just painting some tin soldiers. ;)
And I like Romans
phrase: Keep on HAPPY painting!
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| Jolie |
Posts
Coolio! and i really like the shot of the paintstation after the info about the red-green colorblindness ;) you're the man crackpot!
Very cool read, thanks to you both, Peter and Jürgen!
I really enjoyed to read the interview!
:D... Unnecessary to mention that I LOVE your Projects as well and know that I'm in for some Quality Eye Candy whenever I see your Name...:D... I also love your Hammam Scene a lot... Thanks for this Interview! :)
"So to come back to your initial question, I would say the greatest development would be if we would stop comparing our work with others constantly, be more relaxed and stop taking our hobby too seriously. After all we are just painting some tin soldiers."
Repeated for truth!
Great interview - thanks for sharing :)
Peter
Thanks for the cool interview! :) Really some interesting thoughts here.
Great interview! I realy agree about competition part, specially that I am competitive person. I had no idea Haw many of dioramas I admire and inspire me are yours!
Great interview and great sentiments about the motivation to paint. Always a pleasure to see your new pieces, Jurgen. :)
great read!
interesting thoughts and good interview!
thank you
Thanks a lot to Peter and Jürgen for this eye-opening interview, especially Jürgen's view on competitions and motivation!!!
I will always remember the time back in at "Max Paint", when Jürgen showed his masterpieces like "Drunegar Runekeeper, "Pi-Well" and the "FW Death Korp General" for the first time. AND I can still hear the sound of my jaw hitting the ground then!!! ^^ Who can ever forget this "Leather coat tutorial" of the Death Korp General???
[Fanboy-Mode ON] Crackpot was and will always be one of my favourite painters [Fanboy-Mode OFF]
@ all out there: Go ahead to brushhour.de and take a look (AND listen to your jaws hitting the table or ground ^^)
Best regards,
Skyle
Wow, thanks for all your feedback! :)