Tabletop Geeks

This week’s interview is with Andrew Mosen, aka Foot_of_adhesive_tape. Andrew is the winner of the 2008 Golden Tom with his Moonlight necromancer, and also had several honorable mentions. His array of work is quite impressive. He is not only a talented painter, but is quite the sculptor as well. Check it out!

What is your real name?
Andrew Mosen

Where are you from?
The land of the long white cloud – New Zealand.

What is your occupation?
I am a qualified Offset Printer.

How long have you been interested in the tabletop hobby and how did you get into it?

I have been in the hobby side of things for about 10 or 11 years now i think, sort of had a break for a few years in between at one point, kind of got bored/wasn’t inspired at the time.
My first introduction to the hobby was when i was a kid, my brother brought home a copy of Heroquest and I really liked the miniatures, it was also quite fun to play (and still is!). Then when i was about 11 or 12 a couple of my friends started to make some 40k armies

and i decided to join in too and it kinda grew from there.

What games do you play? What armies do you play in those games?
At the moment I’m really into the classics like Heroquest and Warhammer Quest. I am playing as the Evil wizard(DM) in Heroquest and the Witch Hunter in Warhammer quest.

Mordheim would have to be the main game I play. When the first game came out I really enjoyed it and was hooked since then. The main warbands I play are Witch Hunters and Possessed. I also have a few other warbands floating around, Undead, Beastmen, Carnival of Chaos, Marauders and Pirates.
I have a Slaanesh themed Warriors of Chaos army for Fantasy which i never really got finished.
I have been very very slowly working on a traitor Imperial Guard army for 40K.
Got some Imperial Guard for Death Squads.
And lastly I have 3 “armies” for the Skirmish game Infinity.

Do you have any rituals while modeling/painting such as listening to specific music?
Hmmmm, not really. I do clean my water pot before I start some painting, but I think that’s a normal thing to do ain’t it? I normally have the TV on or some music playing, normally a band that I’m really into at the time (at the moment it’s Them Crooked Vultures).

What are some of your influences or where do you draw your inspiration from? Are there any books, movies, art, or other sources that have had an impact on your work? Whose work has had an impact on you and your projects?

I normally get inspiration from other peoples models I see around the web or hobby magazines. Also i normally bounce ideas off my friends and people I chat to on MSN or over the net.
I did get quite a few ideas for my Blood Pact Traitor Guard 40k army from the Gaunt’s Ghosts books by Dan Abnett. I have also come to own a copy of the book “Blood on the Reik” which has given me a lot of ideas for Mordheim characters.
Normally seeing GW or other miniature company’s artwork gives me some random ideas for my models too.

Your moonlit necromancer won the 2008 Golden Tom. Can you tell us a little about that? How did you come up with the idea? What techniques did you use (especially for that glow effect!)?
Well, I had wanted to make an Undead warband for a while but I wanted to do something different and what you don’t normally see. So after thinking about what to do for a while I stumbled upon this army on ebay and really liked the idea, so I thought I would give it a try. Now mine look a bit bluer than his but I kinda liked how it turned out. And while I was painting them I thought I had to try this lighting effect. So I first tried it on Dreg with a fire torch and quite liked how it turned out, so I just tried the same thing with the Necromancer but changing the colour. I started with the darkest colour covering the areas where I wanted the light to be and started mixing white into the original colour and slowly started getting lighter towards the source of the light.

What is your favorite piece that you’ve done or what are you most proud of? What do you like about it?
The models I would be most proud of would have to be my whole Undead warband. This is where I think my painting started to get better and I started experimenting with new techniques. I think that would be why I like them the most. Although the more things I do the more I seem to like them like my current Which Hunter or Possessed warbands I am redoing, though they have been put on hold at the moment.

Possessed, with Foot's sculpting

What is your favorite piece that someone else has done? What do you like about it?
Hmm this is a real hard question, almost as hard as asking me what my favourite song is, because there are a ton of great pieces out there. But there are a couple that pop into mind when I think about it.
First there’s the same as Tom’s fave, Victoria Lambs Which Hunter scene.
Just the whole atmosphere of this piece screams Mordheim and I have always had a thing about Which hunters.
Secondly there is this. I think the sculpting is great, the dirty and gritty look to the painting is how I see the 40k universe and Blood Pact troopers.

What is your favorite part of the hobby? Do you prefer working with terrain or miniatures?
Although I do enjoy all parts of the hobby, it would have to be coming up with new ideas and converting/making a model. I have a lot of models that need to be painted cause I keep thinking up new ideas for things.

What technique has given you the most trouble? Do you have any tips for someone else who might be struggling with it?
I think painting eyes or when I started working with green stuff gave me the most trouble. I got better at the eye painting as I got better at painting, a more steady hand helps with that I found. And with the GS work I just had a look around the net for tutorials and learned to keep my tools wet most the time so it doesn’t stick.

Are there any areas that you’d like to improve on?
Of course, there is always places to improve on. I would like to get a lot better at GS and terrain making.

What projects are you working on currently?
Well I normally have a few projects going at once, which is kinda distracting. But lately I have been remaking all the tiles for Warhammer Quest which you can see here.
Llso one of my friends has commissioned me to make him a Hell Pit Abomination for his Skaven army, so that should be fun to do.

Warhammer Quest Chaos Warrior

What would be your dream project?
I would love to get some time to make terrain and a table for Mordheim.

What tips, tricks, or advice can you share with us? Are there any special brands or materials that you use that other people might not know about?
I don’t think there’s any special brands that I use. I mainly just use GW or Vallejo paints cause they are easy for me to get.
The only real advice I can really give everyone is to just keep practicing. You know what they say, practice makes perfect (that sounded slightly cheesy didn’t it?).

What other hobbies do you have outside of tabletop gaming?
I do rather enjoy my videogames, music, going to gigs, comics, that sort of stuff.

Anything else about yourself that you care to share? Do you have a website that people can check out if they are interested in knowing more about you or seeing more of your work?
I normally just post my stuff on TBMF, but my main project log is here and a link to my photobucket.

Thanks to Foot_of_adhesive_tape for the interview this week! I hope you enjoyed this display. As always, if you have any suggestions for questions or people to interview please contact us.

Tags: interview, painted, Undead

This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 12:14 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.