Interview With Hendarion
Interview With
Hendarion
Welcome to an exclusive chat with Hendarion, a passionate hobby miniature artist who’s been perfecting his craft since 1995. Having dabbled in both digital and analogue arts, he’s known for his Aeldari miniatures and the intricate freehands he paints on them.
Describing his painting style as “Super clean, NMM, Contrasting, and Colourful”, Hendarion stands out with his unique approach. He has blended his love for computers with his artistry, creating the innovative BrushRage app – a much-loved tool for miniature painters.
1. What background do you have – have you always worked in the arts?
I actually still don’t work in arts and have always been connected to computers, in fact. But I have been testing myself in digital and analogue arts in various forms and ways, be it airbrush artwork (on various surfaces and objects), watercolour and pencil drawings or digital modelling and sculpting. My original painting-background is scale models, which shifted to miniatures quite early in my teenage years. The other creative works have stayed, but I don’t publish them as much
2. How do you go about enhancing your painting skills?
3. What prompted you to create the Brushrage app?
At first, people kept asking me how long it took me to paint a certain mini or element of it and which paints I used. Although i had a small booklet, I am very bad at writing down things by hand and can barely read my own scribbles. So I couldn’t give a proper answer to the questions. And even worse, I didn’t remember the paints I used to replicate my own paint schemes when getting back to the same squad or when wanting to do the same thing on a different mini.
As a result, I made an app and kept adding features I found useful for myself to manage my hobby. At some point, I decided to polish it a little and release it to the public. Since then, it kept growing based on ideas or user-requests.
4. Do you spend all day painting or do you prefer to paint quickly?
Having made my own app for painters, I can now accurately say that I spend 45 minutes per day painting on average. There are barely any painting sessions longer than 2 hours straight, and only a few days with multiple sessions. Getting closer to certain competitions, the time may pile up more than in relaxed months.
5. What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given?
The best advice that was ever given to me? Hard to tell. The best one I would give to others is: Each of your paints is different. Find their specific strengths and weaknesses, the best situation they are suited for and don’t expect them to all behave the same way. Paint properties are vast and different from pigment to pigment, brand to brand and type to type.
6. Which do you find the hardest colour to work with, and why?
My personal nemesis is red. I find a lot of reds to be very transparent and hard to create an even looking coat. Mine also tend to dry darker than what they look like in the bottle or when wet in general. Mixing them with white or orange may strengthen the opacity, but change the hue and saturation a lot. I’m open for recommendations.
7. Are you sometimes discouraged from miniature painting, and if so, how do you overcome it?
There are certainly times when it is hard for me to get to my painting desk. What helps me to start is either a deadline I could possibly miss – i.e. usually some kind of event or competition I want to hand in certain entries to. But I think it is important to enjoy what you do and if you don’t feel like it, maybe step back and do something else. Personally, I always stay in the hobby in some form and finding time for non-painting projects can be great as well after all and maybe they boost the desire to pick up a brush again. Otherwise, the hardest part for me is to start. Once started, I can keep going for about 2 hours to complete certain parts of a miniature.
8. Which technique or tool do you think is often ‘underrated’ by miniature painters?
Underrated is probably loaded brush or feathering, and I’m using them not too often myself. Frowned upon is airbrushing quite often, and while this has become less bad lately, the community as a whole should embrace it as an additional tool instead. We want to complete cool looking minis and our lifetime is limited. Complete more, frown less.
10. Do you have any new or exciting goals or news for the near future?
Life-time-goals? Let’s say in regard to miniature painting I had a few life-time goals: (1) “git gud” ☑️, (2) win a Golden Demon ☑️, (3) get the autograph of my biggest idol Jes Goodwin ☑️, (4) Win the slayer sword – this is just a dream, and I am realist enough to know that it will not happen. That’s alright, though. I do enjoy my own miniatures and reached more and got better than I ever thought I would.
