Interview: Chris Poole of ThirdEyeNuke

Hey everyone!  I'm back from my cruise and ready to get back into the swing of things!  Today I have something very special, an interview with one of my current favorite miniature painters around, Chris Poole of ThirdEyeNuke Studio! His work has been shown all around, and recently has shown up on the GW Blog a few times as well as White Dwarf.

A: Do you have a particular favorite game?  Favorite army?  Why are they your favorite? C: I play 40K whenever I get the time available, which isn't that much due to work. I play Deathguard and I'm planning on starting a Tau army. I like Deathguard mainly because of the models. I'm a big fan of anything Nurgle.

A: How did it feel having your work shown off by Games Workshop? C: They tend to show my work quite often. But they never tell me when its going up on the blog. Usually I normally find out from customers telling me that the models I have painted for them are being shown. But its all good. I find what they write quite funny.

A: I bet your customers are proud!  So, how long have you been a commission painter? C: I have been working for a commission painter for almost 3 years now. I originally started it to make a bit of cash in my spare time whilst I was working for a couple of art galleries in London. And then realized I was making more as a commission painter than I was making at the galleries. So quit the gallery thing and moved full time into painting models.

A: Just out of curiosity, what is your going rate? C: I don't really have a going rate. I basically make prices depending on how long something is going to take to complete. For instance Orks are quicker to paint than say Eldar. So I charge less for Orks, etc.

A: Do you have any background in other forms of art, or traditional painting? C: I originally studied BA Fine Art at Oxford Ruskin  school of art and then went on to do a MA at Chelsea college of art and design in London. I was mainly making a lot of marker pen, spray paint,oil, enamel pictures/paintings. When I left education I was asked to show work at the Pure Evil gallery in Shoreditch London and New Image Art in California . Both galleries still have my work, but I dont really do that sort of thing any more. But maybe one day I'll get back into it.

A: Wow, quite the credentials! What was your favorite model to paint?  What was your least favorite? C: I pretty much like painting most models. I think they are all fun, apart from High Elves. Those guys I don't enjoy due to taking so long to paint and I'm not really keen on them as models.

A: Haha, I know what you mean, after the starter set Lothern Sea Guard, I decided HE weren't for me. What kind of paints do you prefer to use (what brand, oil/acrylic, weathering pigments, etc.)? C: I use mainly a mixture of Vallejo, Citadel,P3, Tamiya, W&N oil, Mig pigment etc. I use a lot of different brands.

A: Do you have a particular method of primering models (black, white, black then white zenith, etc.)? C: I tend to use GW Chaos black as a primer and then use Vallejo black to cover and parts I have missed. I sometimes use GW skull White on top of Chaos black when the models need to brighter. But most of the work I do is quite dark so I usually stick to black

A: Do you prefer to use a lot of preset colours, or do you mix most of your own? C: I would say 50/50.

A: Do you have any tricks that you'd like to share? C: Not really. I think if you look around on the internet you can find lots of really good tutorials. For instance I show on the site Tale of Painters and it has a chap called Garfy who does a lot really good tutorials etc. I'm not really that good at doing them.

Great, thanks a ton Chris!

If you want to find more of his work, you can check him out over on Tale of Painters, or his own studio site, ThirdEyeNuke.  Cheers!