[Deptheads] Need info on special guests

[Robyn Nixon]

Hey Eric,

Did you notice that we got Matt Gubser for this convention??

Matt Gubser wrote the Circle Conversions article for BrushThralls.com

Plus here is his bio
http://www.prophet-miniatures.com/articles/bio/bio.html
> 
>  The Unauthorized Miniature Autobiography of Matt Gubser
> Hey! Don't leave yet! There are pictures! Come back!
> 
> Well I know I frequently find myself wondering about how I got here, what I'm
> doing, what I should be doing, where I left my pants, and other such universal
> questions. So gather round while I tell you a little story. First we need to
> go back aways...
> 
> In the beginning, God created...whoops, a little too far.
> 
> Let me tell you about my father. My Dad is a gamer. It's all his fault really.
> He has many, many armies in 15-25mm ranging from ancients to medieval to World
> War II (and more recently Reiklanders, Space Marines, and Cygnar). He was my
> first introduction to miniatures. I used to go with him to hobby stores when I
> was little. In junior high, I cut my teeth on Grenadier's Fantasy
> Personalities and Ral Partha figures. The Fantasy Personalities cost a
> whopping $1.25 each (Yeah that's $1.25 for a whole figure, not just left arm
> #3). All of these figures were painted with liberal applications of Testor's
> enamel paints. Good times!
> 
> I remember seeing Citadel figures in the stores back then and thinking how
> ridiculous and cartoony they looked. That hasn't completely changed (though
> they are doing much better than they were 15 years ago). But still, who could
> resist a box of thirty plastic space marines for twenty bucks? For a 12 year
> old who liked putting together my own figures, those were perfect.
> 
> I enjoyed painting and my friend Tyson and I would make up rules to play with
> our miniatures, but I never did any serious gaming.
> 
> And that was that. During high school basketball became my passion and
> miniatures were left behind without a second thought.
> 
> Then in in late summer of 2000, I found out about Ebay. My brothers had picked
> up a copy of Heroquest, a game we had played when we were younger, and had
> started painting the figures. I checked out Ebay and found painted figures
> selling for astronomical prices: $30 each!! "I can do better than that," I
> thought to myself. With my wife returning to school in the fall, painting
> looked like an interesting second job. So I dove head first into the world of
> miniatures. I spent way too much money on way too many figures, most of which
> I never got around to painting and later sold back on Ebay. What a great way
> to get started...
> 
> Of course I had no idea what I was doing when I started. I was awful and
> didn't know any better, but I improved. I got hooked up with a local club and
> met many fantastic painters and learned a great deal from them. Painting led
> to customizing, known as converting, the figures I worked on. I read an
> article about a product called "green stuff" and found out that it was used to
> sculpt miniatures with. Sounded like fun! My conversions became more and more
> involved and eventually led to my sculpting entire figures, which of course,
> were terrible.
> 
> I also stumbled into the market of unpainted, one of a kind conversions. I had
> converted a Space Wolves Lord, but still hadn't painted it after several
> months. I put it up on Ebay and was surprised to find that it was better
> received than my painted figures! We'll just ignore what that says about my
> painting at the time. Of course the one figure that most people remember is
> Typhus. I think my personal favorite conversions would probably have to be the
> farseer I did in May 2003 and one of the wolf scouts from Last Stand, done
> around the same time. I have a thing for wolf scouts. I think it's a
> combination of the feral Viking imagery, the sci-fi element, and the commando
> role that they play that does it for me. That combined with the last two
> official versions of the wolf scouts being pretty bad, has led me to convert
> quite a lot of them.
> 
> During the summer of 2002, a Games Workshop retail store opened two blocks
> away from our apartment in San Francisco. They held several competitions and I
> entered a few, winning most of them. They were pretty small, never more than
> four or five entries, but I had gotten my first taste of the pinnacle of
> ubergeekdom: Competitive Miniature Painting;)
> 
> I soon painted my first figure strictly for competiton: A Leman Russ
> conversion for Conquest in August 2002. My real reason for going to the
> convention, being a budding sculptor and all, was to attend the Perry twins'
> sculpting seminars, but the competiton was a close second. I managed two first
> places out of my four entries. Russ was runner-up for best of show. Since then
> I've competed at Kublacon, and two Golden Demon competitons (the highest level
> of fantasy miniature painting competitions in the world) , doing fairly well
> at each. Of course I expect to do better in 2004...
> 
> All of the responsibilities that go along with pretending to be a grown-up
> don't leave me much time for gaming. I played Mordheim for a while, but money
> was tight and I pretty much had to sell everything as soon as it was finished.
> I had illusions of starting a space wolves army but that suffered the same
> fate. Warmachine is currently the game of choice, although I only play once
> every three or four months.
> 
> Although I'm not a fan of the game, most of the figures I've done have been
> for Warhammer 40,000. It's a big universe with lots of elements and imagery to
> explore. I lean towards chaos and space wolves primarily because these are
> armies that allow for a huge degree of individuality and conversion potential
> with every figure. It works for me because I get bored pretty quickly of doing
> the same things over and over (yes, even wolf scouts!).
> 
> As far as other painters go, I really admire what Victoria Lamb is doing. Most
> people (myself included) rarely go beyond the "I'm a big bad ass" motif when
> creating figures. Victoria is one of the few who really explores other
> avenues, something I'm trying to do myself. Cedric Lurkin, aka Brother Sinaer
> is also someone who I occasionally draw inspiration from. His creative
> combinations of different pieces and the amount of mind-blowing detail he
> crams into his creations is a stark contrast to what I do. His work is much
> more detail oriented while I focus more on creating a mood through the pose of
> the figure. Johnny Wong is definitely up there as well. His painting is
> fantastic and his conversion work is flawless. His style is very distinctive.
> Cyril Abanti is another guy who is both a world class painter and sculptor and
> is probably most responsible for what we consider the Rackham look.
> 
> While these are all people whose work I admire, I generally try to forge my
> own path. I've developed a style that is dark and gritty (gritty being the
> diplomatic term for sloppy) with a penchant for creating strong, dynamic and
> dramatic poses. To me, the pose is everything. With any still medium (like
> sculpture) you have one shot to get your entire point across. You have to be
> able to communicate not only what is happening, but what just happened, what's
> going to happen next, and how the subject feels about all this. To me, this is
> the difference between a good figure and a great figure. Technical skill is
> one thing, but applying that skill within an effective context can elevate the
> piece to a whole new level. Sorry if that comes off as too "artisty," but
> that's what I shoot for with my more involved pieces. Whether or not I'm
> successful depends entirely on the viewer.
> 
> And there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about me. Now get off
> the computer and go paint slacker! You've got 371 primed minis just sitting
> there waiting for you!


On 1/18/09 10:24 PM, "Eric M. Aldrich I" <ealdrich at penguinlust.org> wrote:

> I'm now going to start cranking out news on the web site. Anything
> anyone wants added to the front page let me know ASAP. I'm obviously
> going to promote the special guests, Broadside Bash, Flames of War and
> anything else that deserves front page mention I can get. The room
> news is up there now.
> 
> We need someone to check on the parking rates so we can update the
> parking info page.
> 
> With everything backed up a week and the room deadline extension, I
> need final room requests to Norm by the meeting next week. Other
> deadlines are unaffected.
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
> 
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