War figures artist creates masterpieces in his shed

Artist and model maker Gary MacMillan talks us through the painstaking process of making life-like war figures in his shed in Chorley.

Transcript

00:00It's a way of de-stressing. I make a little bit of money on the side as well.

00:23I would say 90% of the stuff I do is military.

00:27Thousands upon thousands of veterans in the UK.

00:30Some of them like to remember their time by photos, others like these.

00:36Obviously, with the military stuff, you've got to try and get it as realistic as possible

00:41because obviously the veteran's going to be looking at it and going,

00:44well, you've got that wrong, you've got that wrong, you've got that wrong,

00:46which I've been told many a time.

00:49The cat badge uniform is as a soldier should be,

00:54but I've had requests in the past where people have said,

00:57can you do it from a photo if I ask you?

01:00Obviously, it involves a little bit more, but yeah, it can be done

01:03and I've done them before in the past as well.

01:05Obviously, I've got to send the photo off to a 3D artist.

01:08They draw the head from the photos, send it to me to get printed off as a resin print, basically,

01:17and then I just paint it.

01:19Sometimes it means adding a moustache or sideburns or things like that,

01:23but it's 90% of it, you know, it's pretty easy to work with.

01:32Once you've got the model kit, they obviously need cleaning up first.

01:36Once they've all cleaned up, you've got to see if they fit together properly.

01:40If they don't, then you've got filler involved in it, which has got to go off,

01:44then it's got to be sanded.

01:45They all need undercoating, which I use the black for,

01:49and then highlight with a white using the airbrush.

01:53Once that's done, then it's just a case of picking the colours and doing the colours.

01:58And then there's various methods involved. There's dry brushing, there's wet blending, there's...

02:04Some people use oils. I just like using the acrylics myself.

02:08A lot of people, when you see it on modelling groups, are saying, you know,

02:12what's the best brush to get? There isn't a magic brush. You've either got it or you haven't.

02:16The samurais, Wukong and Monkey King, they're the ones I love doing, the samurais more than anything else.

02:28Because it's just, you can paint it whatever colour scheme you want,

02:32and the details on them are absolutely pretty amazing.

02:36And then I get like the samurai stuff, which I do for myself.

02:40I always try and treat myself once a year to something nice.

02:43If it sells, it sells. If it doesn't, it's stuff for me, so...

02:50I actually started off with the 28mm War Game stuff,

02:54and then I got asked to do one of these figures,

02:57and it's just sort of snowballed from there, so it's just taken over.

03:05The more I found I was painting, it was just de-stressing me completely.

03:08It just takes the time away. You don't know where you are.

03:11It just takes over completely.

03:13And before you know it, four hours has passed, and you're like,

03:16oh, I better go in.