It’s that wonderful time of month again. The time for us to sit around with an interesting artist and talk about their work, the wonderful and weird hobby of 3D printing, and life in general. This month, we had a blast chatting with Christopher, the artist behind BlueWyvern. He’s been making his work available on MiniHoarder since he started, and has quite the collection available. He’s also has a Patreon that you can subscribe to, and receive all of his models for a low monthly cost.

Miniature Spotlight: Stinger

For every Artist Spotlight, we have one of the artist’s miniatures professionally painted. This months, we’ve asked our friend Max at MadMax Miniatures. Christopher selected one of the models from his recent “The Hive” collection, Stinger. Max did a phenomenal job bringing this model to life. You can find more work by BlueWyvern on their store here.

MH: We’ve had the pleasure of knowing you for quite awhile now, and remember when you first got started. Can you tell us about what first got you interested in sculpting 3D printable minis, and how you’ve ended up where you are now?

Christopher: I started BlueWyvern at the start of 2021 in February. But, coming up with BlueWyvern was a long and tedious journey. Having been in the 3D sculpting field for many years now I wanted to do something for myself. To set up my own company where I could bring my own original and unique looking fantasy miniatures to the Tabletop market and make a living off of it. That is a dream of mine that keeps me going every day. Creating an environment where I could independently create miniatures so I don’t have to rely on other people. Having to be dependent on other people to make content is something I absolutely despise.

At the beginning, when I started brainstorming about how I want to make my miniatures a reality. I took Character/creature design as a base. That was something I have always been passionate about and I knew I wanted to focus on. But I didn’t have an idea on what my selling point would be. After playing a lot of tabletop games months prior, I noticed that a lot of 3D miniatures looked very similar to one another. I felt like there really wasn’t anything unique going on with any of the miniatures I had seen both in real life and online. To me it felt like if I had seen one miniature, I had seen them all. So, it finally hit me. I could 3D sculpt original and unique looking miniatures that people could 3D print for their own tabletop games. Miniatures you couldn’t find anywhere else. That was a branch of 3D miniature sculpting that I could do completely solo. Perfect for what I was searching for.

I researched the market and found out that I was mostly right about my hypothesis. While you can find unique miniatures here and there, the majority looked and felt very similar. I now knew what I had to do. Though, I was a total newbie with 3D printing, so that was something I had to put time and effort into figuring out. After many weeks of further brainstorming about what kind of miniatures I wanted to make, what sculpting style I wanted to use and what I should call myself. I came across the creator Artisan Guild. I liked their style so much that I used them as inspiration for my own style. They have a very simple stylized sculpting style. And seeing how I’m all about efficiency and simplicity, it only felt natural to me to use them as a base for my own style. A semi-realistic stylized sculpting style.

Now I just needed a name. Being a fan of dinosaurs and dragons since I was a kid, I wanted to incorporate something with either in the name. Wyvern was something that rolled off the tongue very easily. So, I used that as a base, added Blue to the Wyvern and from that moment on BlueWyvern was born. It almost became RedWyvern at first because red is my favourite colour. But that didn’t sound very good. So I stuck with Blue and used that colour as a colour scheme for my entire brand. With that my dream was finally set in motion.

MH: What was it that pulled you into the 3D digital sculpting field in the first place?

Christopher: Like I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been in the creative field for most of my life. Not just doing 3D. I’ve done all sorts of things. Cinematography, photography, YouTube, game development, 2D design, manga’s, etc. I’ve always been curious about all sorts of creative disciplines and I’ve always disliked sticking to just one thing. I was curious about everything, and I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could. A jack of all trades but master of none kind of deal. Yet, out of all the creative disciplines, 3D is the thing I’m most passionate about. Having been a gamer ever since I was a kid and having a preference for 3D games in particular, 3D was something I slowly got interested in. However, I could never figure out where to start. It was only after finding out about how 3D models in video games were made that I really made a serious effort at learning 3D. I was fascinated by it, though, I was a bit overwhelmed. So I started simple, I just picked the first 3D software I came across and started making basic shaped models using poly modelling. At this point I didn’t even know 3D sculpting and miniatures were a thing. I only knew I could make 3D models in general and had video games in mind. Funny enough, my very first 3D model was a model of Kirby. A Nintendo character. It looked horrible. But, I’m a big fan of Nintendo IP’s so I suppose making a basic Nintendo character was a natural starting point.

After becoming somewhat skilled with poly modelling I came across the sculpting side of 3D design. Where, instead of 3D modelling polygon per polygon, I could just make models like I was sculpting something from clay in real life. I immediately felt a sense of freedom from it. A sense of freedom that I didn’t feel with poly modelling. Poly modelling can be very limited. I found out that with sculpting I could fully make anything I could ever dream of. That part immediately hooked me. I dropped poly modelling for sculpting and fully focused on mastering 3D sculpting. But, while 3D sculpting I didn’t feel like I had a specific direction I wanted to follow. I still wanted to do something with video games but I didn’t feel passionate enough to focus on that specific part.

A few years later, my opinion completely changed after I came across tabletop games and 3D miniatures. Both were completely new to me and I loved what I was seeing. I felt like my fiery passion only became bigger when working on 3D miniatures. These 3D miniatures were the answer I was looking for. The direction I wanted to follow. I fully shifted my focus to making 3D miniatures, started working on my own company and from that point on I became a 3D printable miniatures creator.

MH: It’s been a lot of fun watching your style evolve over the past year or so. What were some major influences in your work?

Christopher: I’ve always felt drawn to stylized styles. I wanted to develop my own due to my need for efficiency and simplicity. I never liked working too long on a 3D model and making them too detailed. With everything I do in life I want to do it as quickly, simple and efficiently as possible. That’s why a stylized style was something I’ve always naturally gravitated towards. As a source of inspiration I came across the creator Artisan Guild. I found out that they also have a similar stylized style for their miniatures. So it felt natural for me to use them as inspiration for developing my own sculpting style. My own version of a Semi-realistic stylized sculpting style.

MH: What can we look forward to from your Patreon subs over the next couple of months (if you know already)?

Christopher: People can expect to see all sorts of different creature and character races made into Miniature sets. Both Popular and underrated ones. Also showing more painted miniatures people can look at is something I’m working towards. Though, I really want to bring more spotlight to some lesser known/played tabletop races like Haregons and Loxodons. I’ve seen plenty of Goblins, dragonborn, kenku’s, gnomes, etc around. So it’s time to give the underdogs a moment to shine.

Besides that you can expect me to add some more new Rewards to the different Patreon Tiers when growth goals are reached. For example, I have a growth goal where I want to release Digital lore cards of Miniature design I put out that are also playable. Just some extra bits Patrons can play around and be more immersed with.

I’m always looking for new Miniature themes to design, new rewards to add, etc. Always going for the next new thing that hopefully my Patrons will enjoy. I just added two new merchant Tiers and a Paper miniature reward to my Patreon.

But, at the end of the day my biggest goal for the upcoming year would be to attract more people to my Patreon. I’m at around 28 right now. Yet, I want to at least reach 100 within this year. With another 100 the next. I’m working hard to get people on board my Patreon so that I will be able to work on BlueWyvern full-time as my actual job. I don’t know when I will reach that goal. But, I’m not second guessing myself. As long as I believe in myself, keep working hard and moving forward, I will eventually reach my goal. No matter how long it takes.

Like Sylvester Stallone said in his Rocky movies: “But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done”. Nothing will keep me from working towards my dream of making BlueWyvern my actual job. So expect to see my determination throughout the upcoming year!

MH: What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned since you’ve started your sculpting journey?

Christopher: Learn by doing. If you want to reach a certain goal. You will never get there by only imagining getting there. Just start doing and don’t wait for something magically to happen that will make you reach said goal. Life is gonna hit you hard. Nobody is gonna do the work for you. You have to do it all by yourself. Stop worrying about failure. Dare to fail. Dare to go beyond your limits. Failure and the drive to learn from said failures will only make you a better creator. Failure is ok and is the key to success. Don’t worry about what might happen. Just do. Dare to see your creative future not as how it appears to be. But, as what it could be. Enjoy your work and the time you put into it. Have fun. Your quality of mind will reflect on the quality of your work. So just breathe and relax. Everything will be fine. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next month or next year. But, it will eventually. Never stop dreaming.

Quoting the actor/comedian Jim Carrey: “You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love”. So just go out there, follow your passion and go for it.

 

When starting out you will probably come across a lot of doubters that will say that your dreams are impossible. That you can’t do it. These are the types of people that also have their own dreams. Dreams they don’t act on due to fear disguised as practicality. Don’t listen to them. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life. The only person that can decide what you can and can’t do is you. Stay true to yourself no matter what happens and surround yourself with people that make you better.