What a lovely chat this was with Adrian!
As usual, this transcript reflects as faithfully as possible the content and tone of our conversation, with some thoughtful editing to make sure things read smoothly.
Show notes are included after this transcript. Find this episode on The Incomparable.
[jazzy jumpin’ trumpet music]
Sandra Wong:
Hello and welcome. This is We Contain Multitudes, the casual interview show with our favourite people, famous and accomplished guests who share the geek-outs, hobbies, and interests which they might not necessarily be known for. C’est moi, I am your host, Sandra Wong. And today I am so thrilled to be joined by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Hi, Adrian.
Adrian Tchaikovsky: Hello. Hello. Thank you very much for having me on the show.
SW:
Oh, it’s such a blast. Let me just read this for you. As you well know, listeners of the podcast [chuckles], Adrian Tchaikovsky is an incredibly talented and prolific British author of science fiction and fantasy, with an entire slew of awards to his name. Not just a shelf, but a slew. You will also recognize his dulcet tones [Adrian chuckles] from Starship Alexandria, the podcast Adrian co-hosts with the delightful Emma Newman. I personally am particularly fond of your Christmas Advent episodes of 2025, Adrian. I loved hearing the shows and, like, TV series and movies that you and Emma shared, because it was just so cool. And I’m still looking for a way to watch Black Sails, by the way. [both chuckle] Okay. So thank you so much for joining us, Adrian, especially as I think you could have probably just stayed on in the welcoming and warm embrace of your fans in Finland, [Adian laughs] enjoying what looks like a really fabulous book tour. So I’m so thrilled that you made the time to join us today. And also friends, Adrian is feeling a tiny bit under the weather, so I promise to be gentle. [both chuckle] So. So what do you want to talk with us today about?
AT: I, I guess I’m going to talk about my hobby of visual art.
SW: Oh. Love it.
AT: And kind of the slightly peculiar and not necessarily healthy reason of why that is what I do resort to as a, as a sort of a de-stressing and hobby activity. So this is two-stranded.
SW: Okay.
AT:
So first, first of all I draw…digitally. I do post stuff up occasionally on whatever social media platform I’m on, currently Bluesky. And I draw anthropomorphic animals much like I write about. And I also draw people riding bugs, which also kind of feels fairly on brand. And the other thing I do in and, and post up is I paint miniatures, Warhammer, Warhammer miniatures. I don’t actually play, play the war game particularly, but I do build and paint a lot.
SW: Oh, okay. So two-stranded. So let’s, let’s deal with the first one which is your visual arts. So is that something that you trained yourself in or did you have training. Have you always been a visual artist from childhood?
AT:
I’ve always drawn. I have traditionally not been terribly good. So but there was something, I mean, my dad tried to teach me to draw, and I was not a terribly teachable child, [Sandra laughs] but I used to doodle a lot in lessons. And then I went on to doing, like, sort of cartoons and things. I have done until recently, like, an annual sort of calendar I’ve given out as a Christmas present with cartoons in it and things like that.
SW: Right.
AT: But actual sort of art art, as in, in any way representational art is something that I can only really do digitally because I am not very dexterous.
SW: Okay.
AT: And the great joy of any kind of digital art platform, and I use Corel Paint Shop mostly is, of course, that you can just go back if you make mistakes.
SW: Yeah.
AT: So at that point, it kind of overcomes my sort of skill ceiling that I tend to run into.
SW: Right. [chuckles] So was your dad, is your dad an artist?
AT: He is. I mean, not professionally an artist. He is a furniture restorer, which is an artistic thing in itself. But also he does a lot of art,
SW: That’s so cool.
AT: usually things like maps for geology. He’s a, he’s a keen amateur geologist.
SW: Yeah.
AT: And from that kind of, you know, came a certain amount of artistic sort of drawing skill that he had attempted and mostly failed to pass on to me.
SW: [laughing] Okay. I am…I’m going to resist the temptation to delve into what made you a not teachable child, and [Adrian laughs] we’re going to move— So what is it about, like…anthropomorphizing animals that interests you?
AT: I mean, partly, you know, as anyone who’s read my books knows, I like animals. My, my books are always in conversation with the natural world in some way.
SW: Yeah
AT: I quite like doing, though you know, in general, I will do kind of animals in historical or sort of fantasy world style costuming. I’ve done, I do a lot of sort of animals as various sort of Dungeons & Dragons character classes and things like that.
SW: Right.
AT: There is, partly it is that human faces are very difficult. And if you’re doing an animal, you don’t have to worry about that. [Sandra laughs] Partly it is that when, what I try not to do is, so sometimes when you see sort of anthropomorphic art, the animal involved has been given essentially a human body.
SW: Mm-hm
AT:
So it’s like a sort of Egyptian deity sort of thing, animal head on human body. And then you can just dress them up as you want. What I quite like doing is you just have the animal in its shape, and you bipedalise it and potentially give it some sort of thumbs or whatever that it needs to hold whatever things you want it to hold. But there is a really fascinating challenge in working out what, how you would dress…a bear or a spider or anything like that. So you get to, you get to play a lot with that kind of, you know, basically it becomes a little world-building exercise in and of itself.
SW: Yeah, yeah. Well, so do you remember what the…like, when you’re drawing, like, how did you get into digital art? When did you discover that, I guess.
AT: Oh well, I, because I kept trying to do physical art and I was never very happy with anything I was able to produce. And then it struck me, oh, actually, these, you know, you can have a drawing tablet, which obviously means you have to train yourself to it to a certain extent, because rather than looking down at your pen, so to speak, you’re looking at the screen while the pen is moving.
SW: Yeah
AT: But that’s a, I found that a reasonably easy adjustment to make. It was just working up from that. And obviously, you know, like I say, you have the option to undo things that go wrong. And also at the end of the day, if you don’t like it, you can just delete it. So you don’t have lots of, you know, bins stuffed with bits of paper or anything like that.
SW: [chuckling] Right.
AT: And it was, yeah, it was, it was just a thing I worked and kicked around. There was, oh, I think it was Sarah McIntyre who was a children’s book artist who had on Twitter, like, drawing exercises for a while. And I got involved with that.
SW: Ah.
AT: So there was like a, she would produce a shape and you would take the shape, and then you would make a picture that involved the shape. And I found that quite a fun challenge. And that was just a good, a good practice ground. And a lot of the time nothing terribly useful came of it. But it was still…
SW: Right.
AT: It was a good way of visualizing things. And one of the things I seem to be able to do is visualize stuff and then draw it. I can’t draw from life. I cannot do portraiture or anything like that, but I can draw from imagination. Interestingly, a lot of people, there seems to be a bit of a divide in that. So, for example, Annie, my wife, can draw from life, but can’t draw from her head.
SW: Oh that’s fascinating. I just want to take a moment to, to say RIP Twitter. [chuckles]
AT: Yeah.
SW: And like, lovely, you know, little serendipitous things like that, like finding drawing exercises just because. That’s so cool. So then, did you start drawing things from your own novels and stories?
AT: I’ve tried a couple of times. I think the problem is mostly because the majority of my characters are human. Like I said, I’m not. I’m getting better at drawing people because, like I say, I do also draw people on bugs. But it is quite noticeable that the vast majority of my people on bugs have hoods or helmets or [Sandra laughs] some other thing that means I don’t have to do the faces.
SW: The secret! [laughs] The secret revealed.
AT: And yeah, and when I’ve tried to do, when I’ve tried to do characters from the books, it’s never turned out terribly satisfactorily. So I’m not a good sort of…self fanart sort of person.
SW: Right. And then, is it line drawings and just vector drawings you do? Or do you do full colour…3D..?
AT:
Well, this is the other advantage. If you’re—as long, as long as you kind of have no gaps in your lines, you can do flood filling with digital art and then you can do shading over that. And so I’ve worked up a technique. And again, I was never able to get kind of smooth colouring when I was trying to, working with kind of pencil crayons and things, and things like that physically. But you have a lot more control over things on the digital sphere.
SW: Do you have [chuckles]—and I don’t know if you’re going to have an answer to this—do you have a memory of, like, the worst thing you ever drew, and what was it?
AT:
Oh, God. I mean, I’ve certainly had some incomplete drawings. I mean, sometimes my imagination does rather get the better of my ability. [Sandra chuckles] So I’ve got somewhere, you know, on the digital file, a half-done thing. There was an amazing picture I found of a wasp and a cicada fighting. So I had the idea, I’d have them kind of clasped together, and then you have the two riders duelling over them. And that just turned out to be far, far too complicated for me to really make…make happen, sadly.
SW: Yeah. So how many years have you been doing this kind of digital art?
AT: I mean, I think I must have been doing it about ten years now, to be honest.
SW: Yeah. Do you think you’d want to re…try again at that wasp and cicada scene?
AT: I mean, like I say, the incomplete, the incomplete file is sitting around in my, in my pictures folder. So at some point I may, may go back to it.
SW: That’s so cool. So then I’m fascinated too—like, this is sort of the mini-strand off of this strand—about people riding insects.
AT: Yeah, insects, spiders, all that sort of thing. I mean, again—
SW: What is that about?
AT: So it’s…partly, it’s a thing I, you know, that turns up in various of my books.
SW: Yeah.
AT: Anyway. But also the way I work is I’ll find a good reference photo.
SW: Okay.
AT: And this is one of the things. You need to find a fairly side-on reference photo. And that’s actually quite difficult to hunt down with a lot of bugs, because usually you’re seeing a top down view.
SW: Yeah.
AT:
You need a very good sort of photographer to give you a nice, a reference from a useful kind of perspective. But doing that, I then will sort of trace around the bug and so make one layer of that, and then you can do another layer of all sort of tack and harness and things and, and then the rider on top and again, it becomes this little world-building of, well, how do you saddle up a tarantula or something like that?
SW: [laughing] How do you, how does one saddle up a tarantula, do you think?
AT: Well, you know, then you think on, what sort of person is riding that tarantula and that—and so you get to tell a little story as part of the art. And that’s, that’s kind of grown more, more elaborate as I’ve gone on.
SW: Yeah.
AT: And yeah, it’s, basically it’s one of those things that my, my artistic ability has get, has hopefully become sort of steadily better through doing. And also, like I say, it is a very useful de-stressing activity.
SW: Yeah, yeah. Say more about that.
AT:
I have a very strong drive to be productive. I mean, people will notice I get a lot written. I try and get something written every day, and there is a limit to how much I can write. But there is a little goblin on my shoulder basically saying, well, you’ve got to do stuff, you’ve got to do—you’ve got to have something to show for your time at the end of the day. And so a lot of the time when I’m relaxing, I still need to feel that I’m producing.
SW: Mm
AT:
And I don’t think this is particularly psychologically healthy. [Sandra chuckles in sympathy] But there we go. And I know, I think towards the end, we will talk about potentially like, other things, sort of comfort things to do. And at that point I’ll talk about things that I do with, that are entirely nonproductive, but that I also engage in. But the idea of spending time doing this and then having a picture at the end of it, or having a painted figure at the end of it or something like that, is psychologically useful to me. And like I say, I don’t necessarily endorse this as a healthy way of going about things. But it does seem to be the box I’ve ended up in.
SW:
Yeah. Well, I mean, there is something to be said too, of understanding ourselves, you know, and knowing what works for us and not trying to do something that someone else says is better for us, that we know is just not going to work. So I think, I mean, [laughing] I don’t think there’s anyone who’s going to say, that’s a terrible idea, that you’re de-stressing by creating art [Adrian chuckles] right? Yeah. So is there, do you have any favourite drawings, either of the anthropomorphized creatures, or of, you know, a human figure riding an insect?
AT: Yeah. I mean, certainly with the human— One of the things I did a couple of years ago, there was a kind of an invertebrate challenge, a year-long invertebrate challenge, where you ended up doing, I think it was like one picture a week across the year.
SW: Yeah.
AT: Or four pictures a month, I think, across the year. And I absolutely went to town on that and each one was its own… So I started off doing generally fairly martial, sort of, this is the person with a sword on a bug.
SW: Right.
AT: But while I was doing this, I very much broadened my kind of, my topic so that it was people living with bugs in all sorts of weird ways.
SW: Oh-h.
AT: So you had, like am Ichneumon wasp being used as a drilling rig, and you had two people taking tea inside a jellyfish and all of this—and sort of medieval peasants harvesting sea squirts, and all this very bizarre [Sandra chuckles] stuff. But, you know, there were some, there was things like, I did a city that was built on an encrustation of mussels…
SW: Oh!
AT: and I, through a bit of computer trickery, I got a reasonably good reflection in the water of the city and that kind of, that turned out extremely well—
SW: Oh neat!
AT: for example. And I’ve started playing a bit more with, like, lighting and shadow and stuff like that.
SW: Yeah, yeah, that’s so cool. And so is that, I know that you say it’s for de-stressing. Do you spend a certain amount every day, you know, creating art?
AT: No. It kind of comes and goes.
SW: Okay.
AT: I’ll go through a period where I’m doing it a lot and possibly doing a bit every day. And then they’ll, I mean, you know, it’s been quite a while since I’ve sat down and done that because I’ve just had a lot of, a lot else on.
SW: Right.
AT: And I’m still doing the miniatures painting, which is something that’s kind of easier to do in small bursts, I think.
SW: Right. Okay. So before we seg—that was, thank you for giving me that lovely segue [Adrian laughs]—I do have a quick question though. Do, like, any of your friends or family ever ask for commissions? Not that, you know, to pay you, but just ask for you to draw something for them?
AT: No-o-o. [Sandra laughs] No, and I don’t, I mean, the thing is, I, I think at the point it became something I was specifically doing for something else, I think it would cease to be fun. I think that doing it, for me, and having complete control over what it is I draw is, is part of the attraction.
SW: Yeah, I love that. Okay. So I’m going to take your, your beautiful segue [both chuckle] into miniatures painting. So, one of the first things I actually learned about you was that you paint miniatures. So I’m fascinated by that and also by the fact that you don’t play at all, you just do the miniatures. So how did that come about?
AT: So around about sort of 2019, my son got into the game.
SW: Yeah.
AT: And I had also, I used to play and have some miniatures, which I absolutely could not paint at the time because I didn’t have the patience way, way back in my teens.
SW: Right. [chuckles]
AT:
And then it had been quite a gap. I became interested in Warhammer again because I ran into some really quite evocative art at the UK Games Expo one year. And I ended, I ended up, on the back of that, contacting them and saying, well, look, can I write some stuff for you? And that’s, that’s, you know, that is now something I do with Black Library, but that kind of, because my son was interested and we, yeah, we went down to the game shop and so forth and I thought, yeah, I will, I’ll get some orcs or something and give it a go. And it,
SW: Right.
AT: to my absolute astonishment, I actually could paint figures now in a way I couldn’t back then. And, you know, I hadn’t been practising or anything like that, but I think it’s simply that being older, I am able to sit and be patient and work away at something in a way I just didn’t have the tolerances for when I was young.
SW: But isn’t the dexterity the same though, for drawing physically as painting?
AT: It is. And there is a level of detail I cannot do because of that. I cannot do that. You know, you see some of the figures done by like, the Games Workshop ’Eavy Metal painters, where they’ve got actual kind of, full whites and, and iris and pupils to the eye and all of that sort of thing. I can’t, I can’t do that.
SW: No.
AT: I am, I am a kind of, I am a functional painter. At the end of the day, you get something that looks mostly okay.
SW: Right. [laughs]
AT: And the other thing that you have now, that you, I don’t think you had back then, is there are contour paints that follow, that give you…that bring out the, the details of the figure a lot. So you get a lot of sort of,
SW: Oh
AT: essentially sort of automatic detail when you put it on, these paints. Like folds of cloth and skin and fur and that kind of thing, which is really handy because there’s no way I could do that sort of thing by hand, either.
SW: Yeah. I’m not sure I understand what a contour paint is.
AT: So it’s a very thin paint, so when you put it on, it settles more deeply into the creases of a figure.
SW: Ah-h. Okay.
AT: So that if you have cloth, you will get, it will bring out, with a slightly deeper coat, within the kind of the dips and the folds of the cloth, and similarly with kind of hair and anything else that is, that is a, like a contoured surface. It’ll bring out the, the features of it.
SW: Yeah that is—wow, technology. [laughs] That’s amazing. Wow. Okay. So—
AT: Yeah, you can get a very nice looking finish on a lot of sort of textures and surfaces without having to do this incredibly detailed kind of hand work.
SW: Yeah. So what is, like, the most basic kit that—like, what did you, what was the most basic kit you started with? You bought some orcs and then…
AT: Yeah. I mean, I bought a, like a set of orcs and I bought just a starter set of paints, which would be like, ten paints and a paintbrush.
SW: Do they tell you what, like…paint palette colours go with what sets, or you just get to choose all on your own?
AT:
There’s always a kind of, like, this is the standard colours these things are in, but you’re kind of encouraged to find your own paint schemes and so forth. There’s nothing particularly prescriptive. Unless you are trying to say, oh, well, these are this particular space marine order or something like that, in which case, you know, they’re supposed to be a particular colour. But you can just go off and make up your own order and paint your space marines, whatever colour you like.
SW: Yeah.
AT: And I mean, this is one of the other things. There is an amazing online community of miniatures painters painting up their stuff. And you see people, like, paint an entire sort of space marine army and sort of, in sort of trans pride colours and things like that.
SW: Yeah.
AT: It’s amazing.
SW: That’s so cool. So I mean, this is the question: how many painted miniatures do you, Adrian Tchaikovsky, have?
AT: I think the specific number is, too many. [Sandra cracks up] To the extent I couldn’t tell you how many, but just, I mean, it is one of those things… Yes, we have a room in the house where the walls, you know, three of the walls have shelves up and the shelves are pretty much full of miniatures, many of which are not, in fact, yet painted, but are awaiting painting, because every miniatures owner knows the idea of the grey horde of things that you intend to paint at some point.
SW: [laughing] Okay, so now we know you’re serious because you have a room dedicated to storing these figures. [Adrian chuckles] What do you do with them after you paint them?
AT: I just display them. I mean, this is, it’s also that— So normally when I write, I go out of the house. But if I’m in the house to write, because for whatever reason, I’ve got a little desk in that room and it’s very nice just to sit surrounded by all this stuff. And when I take a break from writing, I can just look at my handiwork and feel generally good about myself because of that.
SW: That’s fabulous. That is so fabulous. Wow. I just work in an office. I don’t [both laugh] Hm, I’m thinking now, what should I do about this? But did you say that you usually write outside the home? Outside the house?
AT: Yeah, I usually go out to cafes and things. Basically, there’s less, less distraction…
SW: Wow.
AT: outside, it’s much easier for me to just do. Yeah, because I, my laptop is non-internet capable. So I’ll just go out and and write, you know, and I can look stuff up on my phone if I need to. But otherwise it’s just me and whatever I’ve got, music I’ve got playing and the writing.
SW: Whoa. That’s totally opposite. I find people too distracting. I just, you know [laughs]
AT: I’m very—as long as I’ve got music to block out sound, I’m very good at retreating into my own head.
SW: Fabulous. Well, yeah. So then, like, does your son also paint miniatures? Does he still play Warhammer?
AT: He plays Warhammer very enthusiastically. He paints a bit and he builds his own. He does a lot of weird custom sort of figures.
SW: Oh, that’s a thing?
AT: Oh yeah. Because if you’ve got the bits, you can make all sorts of weird, weird things out of them.
SW: [laughing] That’s fantastic!
AT: So you’ve got the whole thing about guys with extra arms and things like that. But yes, he also, he’s a very keen player, as well. He’s got a whole group of friends from college he plays with.
SW: Okay. But he does not play with any of the figurines, the miniatures you paint? That’s separate.
AT: No, no, no they are just for display. [Sandra laughs] They, they are, they are serious [chuckling] serious adult, adult miniatures, obviously.
SW: [laughing] Of course.
AT: [laughing] Sorry, I am reminded… It may be a weird time to, to quote Peppa Pig.
SW: Oh, never.
AT: There was a Peppa Pig episode where the father had built like a scale model car or something like that, and everyone is referring to the toy car. Every time, he’s saying, No, no, it is a scale model of such and such and such a thing, and it’s a very serious adult thing and just— Yeah, yes, I feel very seen by this Peppa Pig episode. [both laugh]
SW: Oh, the magic of Peppa Pig never ends. So like, do you also, so you mentioned that painting miniatures, like, you, you can do that more often because you, you just can take a little spot of time to do it.
AT: Yeah, it tends to be. It tends to be a short burst. I’ll go sit down and I’ll do a particular sort of set of colours across a, you know, like a unit of ten figures.
SW: Yeah.
AT: So I’ll do, I’ll do all the, like, the belts and leather straps and things like that, or I’ll do all the cloth or that kind of thing.
SW: Right.
AT: And then obviously you have to let things dry anyway. So it’s a, it’s a perfect thing. You can then go off and do something else and then come back in a couple of hours and do another bit.
SW: Right. Do you need, like, a light and a magnifier? You know those…
AT: I’ve tried. You do get magnifying lights and stuff. I can’t…or at least, I mean, thus far, I’ve not really been able to coordinate my hand movements under the magnifying glass.
SW: Oh?
AT: I do have a little desk light, so I can see, so I can see what I’m doing and it’s quite, the place I paint in is quite airy, so.
SW: Oh, that’s so interesting because you mentioned about drawing on a tablet. So I, I know about that because my, one of my children is in art school doing a degree. And so they recently bought a tablet and they talked about having to adjust to looking at the screen
AT: Yes.
SW: while they’re, you know, while they’re drawing. And I would think it was, in your brain it would be something similar.
AT: I would th—I mean, it’s one of those things if, I think if I kept practicing, I could probably do it. But the difficulty with the magnifying glass is just that, a small movement becomes a big movement, which to me is a very different adjustment to not looking at your hand.
SW: Yeah… Oh, I’m just thinking—Sorry for the pause, listeners to the podcast. I’m just like, thinking how, how difficult that would be. Yeah, that’s a really good point. Do you have any goals with painting miniatures? Like, is there a [laughs] a line, you’re like, that’s enough? [laughs]
AT: No. No, I mean it’s just very much an ongoing thing. And at some point, I’m presumably going to have to get rid of a bunch of stuff to make room for the next lot. Which is, you know, it’s one of those ‘living on Vesuvius’ sort of [both laugh] sort of things of, you know, it’s going to happen, but you don’t want to think about it.
SW: No. Yeah, we’re not going to think about it. No, we’re not going to think about it. So then, it’s also, clearly painting miniatures is also de-stressing for you.
AT: Yeah. And again, you know, you have something at the end of it which ticks that box in my brain.
SW: Right. It’s always good to know oneself [both laugh], what works. Okay. Yeah. So if anyone wanted to start getting into digital art, what would you recommend that they start with?
AT: I mean, so this is not something I personally use, but a lot of people I know have become extremely proficient with a, with a, I think it’s an Apple program called Procreate.
SW: Okay.
AT: So if you have an Apple device, that seems to be a very good way of getting, of getting going and being able to produce really quite good-looking stuff relatively quickly.
SW: Yeah. And the key is to, like, start and…draw badly and then keep going. Right? [laughs]
AT:
Yes. I mean I think it’s like any, like anything. You…you know, innate gifts will only get you so far. You need to just keep going. You need to not worry about it being bad at the start. There are plenty of— It’s one of the regular things I run across in Bluesky, is artists saying, you do not need things, especially in reaction to people resorting to AI generation which, which frankly, you know, at that point you are not being an artist, you are just telling a thing to…
SW: Yeah
AT: bundle a bunch of ideas together for you. But the fact, you know, you can do you know, you can do internet cartooning with extremely—with stickman figures, for example. xkcd, for example, is enormously popular.
SW: Yes!
AT: You know, if you’ve got—but also, yes, you can just do art and get incrementally better and enjoy doing it. I think the key thing is, you know, what is it you want to get out of things…really? What is it you want out of the thing? I think they basically, I think the most important thing is, enjoy doing it.
SW: Yeah.
AT: And that’s very much similar to writing. I think the most, one of the most important things in becoming a productive writer is, actually enjoying writing.
SW: Yeah.
AT: Not just enjoying there having been something that you, you have finished, but also enjoying the process of producing it in the first place. If you…if you can get yourself into that kind of mindset, I think that’s going to see you getting better and better at whatever creative endeavor you’re working on.
SW: Yeah, that’s brilliant. And I mean, I don’t think that you’re saying you have to enjoy it 100% of the time, because as human beings,
AT: Mm-hm
SW: we’re just not built for that, right?
AT: Mm-hm
SW: But overall, there’s got to be something that’s enjoyable.
AT: Yeah. But like I said, I mean, getting, finding enjoyment in the process as well as the result, I think.
SW: Yeah that’s great. Oh, I had a thought, and of course it just, just ran away. [laughs] Should I run after it [Adrian laughs] or move on? I guess, too—okay, so with…painting miniatures. So it sounds like your advice would be just, like, find a set of things that you think would be fun to paint, get a starter kit of paints, and go.
AT: Yeah, I mean, one of the things obviously, you know, it’s not purely a Warhammer game, tabletop thing. There are plenty of other places that do paints and miniatures and so forth. One of the things I will say is that, Warhammer shops will generally have people who will sit down with you and just teach you painting techniques
SW: Oh, fab!
AT: completely, completely for free as just because, you know, they’ve got a big incentive to, to try and kind of encourage people into the, into sticking with the hobby.
SW: Yes. [laughs]
AT: And so, as well as teaching the games and things like that, they will also sort of teach you how to paint.
SW: That’s fabulous.
AT: So, going along and booking a session to see how you take to it is a very easy thing to do.
SW: Oh, that’s a great tip. And then you also mentioned a really huge and supportive miniature painting community online. How did you access that?
AT: I mean, I think it’s like a lot of stuff. You see one person’s post.
SW: Yeah.
AT: And you like that and you follow them and then they will kind of boost someone else’s post and you just, you accumulate. And then one of the things that Bluesky has, is lists. So you find, you know, this is the list of, sort of miniatures painting people. And you can follow that as a group. And then you’ve got loads of stuff to look at.
SW: Yeah.
AT: And similarly—exactly the same thing works with artists. It’s a really good place to go just to, you know, have a lot of fun stuff to look at on a daily basis.
SW:
Yeah, yeah. And I do think too, on Bluesky, I think there’s usually portfolio day…monthly if not weekly. So if you just like, do a search, you will find artists sharing their stuff. And many of them are extremely generous in sharing, you know, tips: how to get started and stuff like that, things to avoid. So yeah, social media for good. Yay! [laughs] Okay, we’re going to move into the Small Joys segment. So Adrian, I want to ask you, what is something that you have or you do that lifts your spirits when you need it? It may or may not be the same things we’ve been talking about.
AT: So. Well, I am going to wave a small flag for what is normally considered, I think, a big problem of our time, which is the parasocial relationship.
SW: Okay.
AT: So there are certain, like, Twitch streamers I follow or podcasters I follow, who bring me a huge amount of joy. And it’s usually, it’s usually because there is, there will be two of them, usually for podcasting. Or there’s a, there’s a particular Twitch stream called, I think Stumpt Gamers where there are four, four of them and you get to watch people having a good time together.
SW: Yes.
AT:
Or listen to people having a good time together. And that is enormously uplifting. And you, it does put you in this weird situation where if you met one of those people, you would feel that you knew them, and of course they wouldn’t know who the hell you were [Sandra chuckles] which is going to, you know, would be a peculiar position to be in. But it is, I think, certainly as a writer, being a fairly solitary profession, it’s very nice to have this sort of idea of you’re sitting there listening to a bunch of friends chat while they play a game, or while they talk about a topic.
SW: Yeah.
AT: And I do find that enormously entertaining and just heartening, I suppose.
SW: That is really lovely. But I totally get what you say. I mean, parasocial relationships, they definitely have their downfalls. But I mean, the whole point of this show, this podcast you’re on, is really just so people can listen and hear joy.
AT: Mm.
SW:
So I totally understand what you’re saying. Yes. And so, friends, I will link things that I can find that are related to what Adrian’s been talking about. So hopefully you can discover the same kind of joy, too. So thank you for sharing that with us, Adrian. We are going to end on something I called my world famous Speed Round. [Adrian laughs] Do not be alarmed. [laughs] I’m just going to ask you silly questions, and you’re just going to answer off the top of your head. There’s no pressure, no judgments,
AT: Okay.
SW: absolutely no stakes at all. It’s just to be silly and have fun and end on a laugh. So are you ready?
AT: Mm-hm.
SW: Okay, so this season, Speed Round questions, I’m doing favourites. So this could mean your one favourite or afavourite out of many, because sometimes it’s hard to just choose one thing. Okay. First category, favourite way to eat potatoes
AT: Oh, God. Starting with the hard ones.
SW: [cracks up] I’m here to challenge you.
AT: [laughs] I mean, I’m a bit of a martyr to potato crisps in the…
SW: Yes!
AT: or chips if you’re American, I suppose.
SW: Okay. That’s great. Do you have a favourite flavor of crisp?
AT: I like weird flavors.
SW: Of course.
AT: Except I’m very judgy.
SW: [laughing] Are you?
AT: Yeah, well, it’s like every Christmas, someone decides, oh, we’ll do a mince pie flavoured crisps, and they’re always horrible.
SW: [laughing] They are!
AT: But I do like, sort of very sharp or spicy flavoured crisps.
SW: Yeah. That puts me in mind of when I lived in Japan many, many, many years ago and I discovered… [laughs] I discovered a bag of—chips, because I’m Canadian, that were like, roasted chicken flavour. [laughs]
AT: Mm-hm.
SW: They were actually incredibly good. Anyway, okay, this is about Adrian. So let’s move on to favourite pizza toppings.
AT: Ah, well, I don’t eat cheese, so I don’t eat pizza.
SW: Oh okay. I’m so sorry.
AT: [chuckling] So, none, pizza.
SW: [chuckling] None, pizza. X on pizza. [Adrian laughs] Okay. Favourite…favourite comfy outfit when you’re schlepping around at home.
AT: Oh, God. I mean, t shirt and, I guess you call them jogging pants.
SW: Yeah. Sweatpants.
AT: Sweatpants.
SW: [laughing] Sweatpants. Okay. Favourite holiday?
AT: Oh, G—I mean, I don’t really do…
SW: Is it, like, non holiday, like none, pizza? [chuckling]
AT: I guess maybe Easter because there is an Eastercon. So it’s like [Sandra laughs] one of the big convention dates, and it’s very kind of a home ground convention for me, but I…I’m not really a holiday celebrater per se, other than that.
SW: Yeah. Okay.
AT: Certainly not my birthday, having got as old as I am.
SW: [laughing] I’m just going to point out that I’m older than you, Adrian. Anyway. Moving on.
AT: No-o-o-o. [incredulous]
SW: Yes-s-s-s.
AT: Really?
SW: Yes, I am! I am.
AT: Blimey, okay, would not have thought it.
SW: We’re very close, close, but technically, I am older. Okay. [Adrian chuckles] Okay, a favourite tree or a favourite flower? Because not everyone has—so either or both. Favourite tree or flower? Either or both.
AT: Oh I’m going to, I’m going to go with a slight tangent. I’m going to say horsetails, which are not, neither a tree nor a flower, but a plant nonetheless. And it’s mostly because they are like, they’re crazy, sort of prehistoric-looking… What are they, weeds, I guess.
SW: Are they?
AT: I think you got them a lot, when I was, when I was growing up. Yeah. They are arthrophytes, I believe. And they, they, you tend to see them in reconstructions of like, the Carboniferous and things like that.
SW: Do they look like giant ferns? Sort po?
AT: They are kind of fern-ish, but I think, I don’t think they are, they are technically ferns, but they just look very, very weird and archaic.
SW: Oh, on brand. [laughs] Okay. Favourite kind of movie or TV show, whatever, to wind down with?
AT: Oh…trying to think when I last watched TV of any kind…
SW: Yeah.
AT: I mean, either a really good sci-fi show or a really good, intelligent comedy like, say, The Good Place or something like that.
SW: Oh, yeah. That’s great. Okay. Favourite kind of chocolate?
AT: Just, just UK style milk chocolate, honestly. Possibly, fruit and nut.
SW: Love it. And this is the last one.
AT: Okay.
SW: Usually it’s a favourite. Favourite word?
AT: Disarticulate.
SW: Oh. That’s dark. [laughs]
AT: Which my editors will tell you I am far too fond of.
SW: That’s fantastic. Adrian, you’ve been such a good sport. I so appreciate you joining when you’ve been feeling a little bit under the weather. So thank you so much for being here.
AT: Well, thank you very much for the invitation.
SW: Okay, lovelies, thank you for joining us. As always, I will have all the relevant links in the show notes and we will meet up again soon. So in the meantime, please create joy for yourself and others, however works for you, because we contain multitudes.
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SW: We Contain Multitudes is on The Incomparable network of smart and funny pop culture podcasts where members can access exclusive podcasts and a wonderful community. Find out more at theincomparable.com.
Special thanks, as always, to Erika Ensign, our editrix extraordinaire of Castria Communications. Award-winning excellence in podcast production and media solutions. Check them out at wearecastria.com.
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SHOW NOTES:
Adrian’s website
Starship Alexandria
Emma Newman
Corel PaintShop
Black Library
Games Workshop ’Eavy Metal painters
Procreate
xkcd webcomic
Warhammer miniatures
Stumpt Gamers