INTERVIEW: Miniature Painting Masters: Dave Taylor
5 Minute Read
Dec 26 2012
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Welcome back to The Miniature Painting Masters Series where we sit down with some of our hobby’s most prolific and well known painters. In our second installment we talk with Dave Taylor, perhaps best known for his work in White Dwarf from several years ago.
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| Withdrawal of the 144th |
Tyler: How did you first become a member of the miniature wargaming and painting hobby?
Dave: During high school (late 80’s) I’d regularly play D&D with a group of friends, and over that time we slowly collected and painted up models to represent our characters and the monsters they faced on a regular basis. At the time our paintjobs were hideously amateur, but we didn’t know any better. Once I was at university (and working part-time) I had a little more money to spend on miniatures and discovered there were games associated with the cool Space Marines and Eldar I was buying. That was in 1991. The rest, as they say, is history.
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| Blood Pact Guardsman |
Tyler: Since focusing on the painting side of the hobby more, how often do you find time to play games? Is that still important to you?
Dave: I probably get a chance to play once or twice a month. I have a good group of friends that I used to work with, and we have a very relaxed approach to the games we play. We really play so infrequently that we spend most of our time checking new rules and learning about crucial changes in each edition. Is it still important to me? Sure it is, it’s a great chance to get everyone together and socialize.
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| Ironskin Irongutz |
Tyler: How long had you been painting at what you would consider a serious level before you won an award? (Golden Demon or other) and can you take us through a little of your thought process on how you prepared that winning model.
Dave: I think I’d been pretty happy with my painting for about five or six years, a serious level, but that was for army painting. When the Ogre Kingdoms models were first released, I was so enamored that I stopped painting anything else and jumped into a world of rusty metals and vast expanses of grey skin (as they were when GW released them in late 2004-early 2005). Later that year I picked up a couple of “Staff Golden Demons” at Baltimore Games Day, including the “Staff Sword” for my Ironskin Irongutz unit. All those trophies were for models straight from my army.
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| British Divisional Command |
Tyler: Can you name one major change in the painting world that has impacted you the most since you started? (basing changing from green flock to an integral part of the mini, more subdued colors, source lighting, etc.)
Dave: I think the biggest changes that have affected the way I’ve painted since I started back in 1991 are the use of more natural/less saturated colors and an increasing amount of shading/washes used to create a more natural look. It has been very interesting evolving my painting over the years. Sometimes a trend has passed me by, but I’m pretty happy with how my armies look nowadays.
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| Leman Russ |
Tyler: Which miniature painter(s) inspire you the most?
Dave: I love looking at the works of guys like Mathieu Fontaine, Roman (from Massive Voodoo), Todd Swanson, Chris Borer, Dave Pauwels, and most of the guys who have blogs (that are then found in my blog roll). The great thing about miniature painting is that it’s not always the “Slayer Sword” quality job that is the most inspirational. It’s the ideas behind each piece that I love to explore
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| Custodes Army |
Tyler: To many people who have read White Dwarf over the years your hobby projects are iconic. When you started one of those armies such as your Custodes, was it as a project for WD from the start or did you go to the rest of the magazine team afterwards with the finished project?
Dave: Generally, if you got to see the whole army (or a sizeable chunk of an army) then I definitely started as a project for me, and made it into the magazine later. If you see a single model or a small unit, then that would typically be a project that was done specifically to fit a WD design brief.
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| Grey Seer |
Tyler: Recently Cool Mini or Not has started offering a $10,000 grand prize for their Crystal Brush awards. Do you feel that this helps “legitimize” our chosen hobby a bit more?
Dave: As somebody who has made a legitimate living for 18 years from this wonderful hobby of ours, I don’t feel that it needs additional “legitimizing”. As for the prize money, I’m not sure it’s a good thing for the painting hobby. I guess it all comes down to what you want to get out of your painting (or painting competition), but for my money, I’d like to see painting competitions grow in not only the quality of entries, but also in the quantity. Unfortunately the number of entries in the Crystal Brush in 2012 was down from the 2011 competition, which was considerably down from the Adepticon painting competition in 2010. Hopefully 2013’s Crystal Brush competition will see a turn around.
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| Some of Dave’s contributions to the Heroes of Armageddon project |
Tyler: Any final thoughts before we finish the interview?
Dave: I really appreciate the opportunity to participate in this series. I know some of the other painters you are looking to interview and they are leaps and bounds ahead of me in terms of the quality of their work and comprehension of the techniques they use, and to be in their company is a real honor.
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| Chaos Lord |
Head over to Mengel Miniatures for the full interview and some exclusive photos and be sure to check back monthly for more interviews with the painters who help shape our hobby.
To see more of Dave Taylor’s work be sure to check out his site at Dave Taylor Miniatures.
What are some questions you have always wanted to ask the leaders in our painting hobby and who do you consider a Miniature Painting Master?
Tyler is a life long painter and hobbyist and took home his first Golden Demon award at the 2012 Chicago Games Day. More of his work can be found at his blog, Mengel Miniatures.
Author: Tyler Mengel
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