Thinking about miniatures…

It’s not so long ago since I first decided to start on my little venture in to creating a Tesseract miniatures line, consisting of busts, sculpted around a variety of subjects. Today I want to dive DEEP in to this. I want to tell you all about why I make miniatures and create a conversation about the miniatures we sell.

That said, I don’t just want this article to be an insight in to the mind of a miniature maker, I want to see that comments section light up, because I’m going to be mining the depths of what YOU want to see in a miniatures line made purely for the joy of painting.

The Pale King - Our first bust!

This whole journey, in the version you see it today, began with The Pale King… the origins of this mini are kinda weird though, and I think they really represent my general thought process, and expose why I think it’s important to pull ideas from your audience.

At the time that I came up with this idea I was DEEP in my early explorations of Trench Crusade. The artwork from that game has a few models with a kinda faceless mask theme - muted or totally absent features combined with a kinda gothic inspired vibe. This is CREEPY and I love it… and it sent my little ADHD think box on a journey.

The first time I recall seeing this aesthetic and falling in love with it, was seeing the 2005 Ridley Scott film, Kingdom of Heaven. King Baldwin of Jerusalem is depicted throughout the film in a series of gorgeous silver “leper masks” and that look really burned itself in to my brain.

As I was list writing and video making and (obviously) painting for Trench Crusade a lot at the time, I kept seeing these models and every single time, they’d remind me of King Baldwin. That was when I had the thought… what might King Baldwin look like if he was actually IN Trench Crusade?

A few hours later I was in a chat with my sculptor friend, Martina (AKA Tynah_3dart on instagram) and we had the initial ideas for The Pale King.

Now this may sound like a fun and breezy process and it probably seems hilariously flippant to just have a random idea and get it sculpted, but things actually run a little deeper.

See a while back I started working on a game called Nexus with a friend of mine… with the minis for that we meticulously concepted out every one - full concept drawings with zoom-ins on all the important details, the works.

But that isn’t how Martina and I collaborate on the busts. It’s REALLY important to me that her voice and vision comes through in every sculpt. She’s not a printer, she’s an artist…and an incredibly skillful one at that. Instead, I send her photos of the things that have inspired me to make a mood board, and she sculpts freestyle from there!

You need to understand that this is FAR harder for the sculptor than working from a fully finished concept drawing. The sculpting software allows images to be loaded directly in to the background of the workspace. With a full concept, the sculptor can literally match the drawing perfectly. When sculpting freestyle, the training wheels are completely off and everything becomes way more difficult to get right.

Nonetheless, Martina consistently pumps out gorgeous sculpts and I was absolutely thrilled with TPK when she finished him. We did a test print, did a test paint…and he was live. I was officially a seller of miniatures.

Fergus, the second TMS mini

Now there was/is a big problem with this approach…and it’s probably not what you’re thinking… but sculpt two wasn’t quite when I was ready to learn this lesson.

When we came up with Fergus, the genesis point was very similar. I am frog OBSESSED and my partner and friends all constantly send me frog pics in my various DMs. I remember seeing one particular frog pic where the little fella just looked so happy and content and I thought to myself “That’s the kinda energy I wanna put out in to the world.”

Then came the moment… “But I can, I can make a miniature like this!”

For some reason, what my brain decided to envisage was a super chill froggy farmer… for some reason the iconic American Gothic painting by Grant Wood was what I had in my mind, but with those stern looking folks replaced by this laid back frog dude.

Again a short conversation with Martina with a little back and forth on ideas and before long, he was real.

And here’s the rub… I LOVE these first two sculpts… they are direct windows in to my mind’s eye and I think that’s really cool. But there’s also an emptiness I feel when I look at them. This isn’t something that sours me… I stand by them, I love them, I still smile when I see them, I still get super excited when someone buys one. Everything about them is great. My issue is with the process.

Because whilst making fun minis is AWESOME, I am someone who needs to be driven by purpose to feel fulfilled. The work I do needs to say something, stand for something… have substance beyond its aesthetics.

Retrospectively I guess these sculpts do fulfill that because they reflect the need creatives often feel to just make an idea real, that’s been rattling round their brain. However sculpt three is where I started to actively pursue this idea…and not only do I think it shows, but I think its shaped the future of our miniatures line into a REALLY exciting place.

The Luchador - Sculpt three from TMS

Creating a sculpt of a Mexican wrestler might not seem like the embodiment of inspiration from a working class white boy from England… but in truth, I think this sculpt has defined the mission and set the path forward, and I want to tell you all about it.

See wrestling is REALLY important to me…

I met the love of my life in the pre-covid era and by the time we wanted to live together, lockdowns hit us ONE MONTH in to it. That means that our brand new living situation was forged in the fires of being forced in to a two bed flat together, all day every day.

For the nosy among you… we never had a single argument, and actually STILL haven’t after nearly 7 years together… we win! But we’re talking about wrestling, so lets not get too distracted. You see wrestling was a mutual love of ours from day one. We had a ritual of watching it and having a treat meal every week all throughout lockdowns and as soon as they were lifted the very first thing we did together was going to wrestling shows!

We’ve created some amazing memories because of wrestling. Bonded over in-jokes related to wrestling, shared all the wrestling memes you can imagine. It is hard-wired in to the household culture we maintain at home.

Amongst all the different styles of wrestling, lucha libre is my partner’s favourite. She’s always loved a “high spot” (usually when a wrestler jumps off something tall, on to another wrestler, or does something really acrobatic)…and lucha libre, the Mexican style of wrestling, is literally built around high spots.

So the choice to make a Mexican Wrestler wasn’t about a cool and fun idea… it was about paying tribute to the happiest period of my life. It was about wearing my heart on my sleeve and putting something out there that deeply meant something to me…

It might be because all that skin creates a lot of room for fun in the paint job, but this sculpt has also really resonated with you folks…and that’s been a huge warm and fuzzy for me.

But the warmest of the fuzzies is in realising the sense of purpose and mission that this sculpt created.

If you close your eyes, turn off your Instagram brain and just let the thought breathe, I feel pretty certain that almost everyone reading this will agree that miniatures can MEAN something to us, on a deeper level.

Miniatures gave me my career, the way I feed my loved ones, the reason I get out of bed and work my ass off every day… that all came from little toy people who like to be painted.

Jeanne De Clisson, from Bad Squiddo (painted by me)

What I learned here was kinda a hard pill to swallow…

Painting the current hype miniature made me feel good because of how it made other people feel. The paintjob itself could be a total chore, but so long as the number on socials was good, it made me feel good…

Painting the miniature that deeply resonated with me and connected with me on a personal level didn’t even move the needle on Instagram… but it left an enduring feeling of achievement and contribution in me that’s worth so much more.

The above mini, Jeanne de Clisson, from Bad Squiddo… that probably only deeply excites two people, myself and Annie (who owns Bad Squiddo)… but the fact that she accepted it as a gift from me and shows it off at shows, combined with the fact that the history of the character was so interesting to study, means that that miniature holds a far deeper meaning to me.

It’s this thought that made me realise what I really wanted to do… I wanted to make miniatures that people connect with DEEPLY. Miniatures that look badass and are fun to paint, but that also connect with people’s real lives. Miniatures where the painting is the culmination of a process of inspiration, resonation and genuine love.

So on to the future, and the next miniature (spoilers ahead).

NASA Astronaut Christina Koch

This is Christina Koch… she works for NASA. She’s the woman with the highest space hours on the planet. In the (hopefully) soon to launch Artemis II mission, she’ll become the first woman to ever fly to the moon.

Since she isn’t on the Artemis III mission, she will sadly miss the accolade of being the first woman to actually land on the surface of the moon, however she is a HUGE inspiration of mine, as is human space flight in general.

We are a miniatures company powered by a woman sculptor… I feel like it is my duty and my honour to shine a light on the importance of women in human endeavour. In a world where women are still regularly gatekept out of our hobby, I feel like this is an even more important message in the miniature painting space.

So… the next sculpt will be a lady, an astronaut and (this is super cool) she’s going to be wearing the actual space suit they’ll use in the Artemis III mission, when we land that first woman on the moon! How fucking cool is that?!

The model will also have a really cool party trick, but we’re saving that for the reveal, so you’ll just have to keep an eye on our Instagram/Patreon if that kinda thing excites you!

And this is exactly what I want to do…and this brings me to why I am actively asking you to light up the comments section on this blog. Because TMS isn’t just about me and Martina. It’s about you. If anything you are even more important because without you, we don’t exist. We’re just two arty nerds, doing our thing… you are what allows us to have a miniatures line in the first place.

I want to hear the subjects that resonate deepest with YOU… the things you would jump for joy if you could see them in miniature form. The things that would maybe give you a feeling similar to that one I got when we completed The Luchador.

So let me have it… I can’t promise I’ll make them… but if I hear them, I just might and I think that would make us both feel amazing. So hit those comments and tell me what inspires you, what means the world to you, and what makes you proud to be human.

Thanks for reading, folks.

Hell, thanks for everything… y’all mean the world (and moon) to us!

With love,

Stu