Hello and welcome to another entry in our artist spotlight series. Today we are lucky enough to be talking to Seb of _thunderbrush_. I came across his work a few months ago, and was in awe of his incredibly unique and charming comic book painting style. As he has mastered such an original way of painting, I thought it would be great to hear how he got into painting, and how he evolved his style.
The most personal aspect of painting miniatures, is when your own style of painting starts to come through, so much so that people can recognize the artist from the paintjob. If you're someone who hasn't fully developed your own style, or want to keep trying new techniques to evolve your own, then listening to Seb is probably the smartest thing you could do with your day today.
- How, why and when did you start painting?
I remember building and painting a few kits when I was a kid but I really started my journey when I was 16. I had a classmate who introduced me to the painting of 1/35 military figures from Dragon. For a while, I mostly painted historical figures from WW2, eventually entering
and winning a small painting competition at Omaha Beach with a Panther tank. A few years later, I entered a Games Workshop store for the first time as I was looking for Sci-Fi miniatures for a diorama. I walked away with Assault on Black Reach, started to paint and play a Space Marines army and joined a local club. I spent a few years painting both historical and gaming miniatures as a hobby. When I moved to London (UK), I started as a part-time commission painter. It was a great way to challenge myself with different styles and standards which eventually led me to become a full-time miniature painter in 2023.
- What do you love and hate about painting?
I don't think there's anything I hate about painting. But I can get bored when it becomes repetitive. That's probably the main reason I don't play Warhammer 40K any more but I switched to skirmish games like Kill Team for which most of the time a dozen miniatures are enough to play. Still, I hate it whenever I spill the Nuln Oil pot!
What I love the most about painting is completing different-looking projects. I truly enjoy painting a Comic-style kill team and then a Grimdark character or a historical diorama. I enjoy new experiences and trying new ways of painting. It can be hard to get away from your usual style and techniques, but it's a great way to make progress and be surprised by the results of your trials. I was not looking to paint in the Comic book style until I actually tried it.
- Favourite project you've worked on?
The comic book style Orks! I just love them. It was great to paint, it looks amazing on the tabletop and they were the beginning of my favourite style at the moment.
- Future project you're planning or working on?
I currently focus on the Comic book style. I want to paint different factions, different games, different colours. I discovered a community of Comic style painters that gave me incredible credit for my painting work. It pushed me to launch a Patreon six months ago and the support is growing every week and I'm looking to keep on writing tutorials to help more people enjoy this style!
Painting competitions are another challenge I enjoy. I'm planning my projects for spring 2024 as I'm looking to enter Salute in London, and the Golden Demon in the UK. The Golden Demon 2023 in Manchester was a great learning experience regarding painting competitions, and I'm looking forward to using it for my next entries.
- Tell me about your comic book painting style?
My journey with the Comic book style started with a test model for a potential commission that was cancelled. After a few days with this grot standing next to my painting desk, I was convinced to start painting my own Ork Kill Team in this style. I fell in love with the saturated colours which made it look great from a distance, and the very cool style when you get closer. I started with my stock of grots, went on buying Burnas and converted an Ambot into a Meganob for the first version of Kill Team. At the time, they did not catch much attention on social media, but I had fun painting them.
A few months later, I was offered to contribute to Wargames Illustrated with an article
showing historical miniatures in the Comic book style. This project was a matchup between Bolt Action and Saving Private Ryan, in a comic book style of course. With these miniatures, I slightly changed my process using unsaturated colours to match the ambience from the movie. Not only was it my first contribution to a magazine, but it was also granted a silver medal at Salute in one of the historical categories.
In Orktober 2022, I contributed to the community event with new pictures of the Ork team, just for fun. But for some reason, this time, the pictures attracted a lot more people, making my Instagram account grow quickly. After a viewer from Twitch subscribed to my inactive Patreon, asking for Comic book style content, I properly launched my Patreon and I started to write tutorials. It went incredibly well and the community is growing every month since, allowing me to plan more projects in this style and content to share with the community! Recent projects included an Elucidian Starstriders Kill Team, a Genestealer Cult Kill Team and a Chibi Space Marine, and I'm now preparing a Necromunda gang.
The Comic book style is all about using a limited colour palette, and most of the time it includes saturated colours. And of course, black lines, a lot of black lines! It should look flat which is counter-intuitive when painting miniatures as most of us spend a lot of time learning how to enhance volumes. The colours are applied first in a cell-shading style, and then black lines are drawn over using acrylic ink. I love painting in this style, and if you decide to give it a go, I'm sure you will too!
Well I hope you all found that incredibly riveting, getting your grubby mitts on the thoughts and experiences of Seb, and his evolution of his own painting style. I think it's always so very interesting being let into someone's brain to see their take on the hobby, and if nothing else, very inspirational to push yourself out of your comfort zone. Seb only managed to master the comic book style through experimenting, so who knows, maybe you'll be the next master?
Let's now have a look at some of my favourite paintjobs that Seb has created, so you can see for yourself why you should heed Seb's words.
As you can see here (and in case you stupidly chose not to read Seb's words) he does not pigeonhole himself into one style. The fact he can go from painting crazy comic book style masterpieces, to gloomy atmospheric gritty and grim works of art, is an absolute feat in itself. To have such a mastery over the brush, and not give yourself any limitations when it comes to creativity and style, is something I think every painter could learn from. Though in this case, if you'd like to learn from Seb on how to paint in that cool comic book style, he'll be more than happy to help; he even has videos on YouTube showing you how!
And so I truly hope that you have learnt something from this article. We must give our undying applause and thanks to Seb, for taking the time and effort to share his experience and thoughts with us. I hope you've also seen enough of his work to know that you should absolutely be checking out his page to see what other beautiful paintjobs he comes up with. Hopefully you'll also give the comic book style painting a go, but in case you can't, maybe hit Seb up and commission him to do one for you, as I'm sure he'd be more than happy.
If you've got a really cool take on miniature painting, or developing your own unique style, then please do get in touch. The more artists we can have a chat with, the more knowledge and inspiration we can share. If that's something you're interested in, then please get in touch via plasticpreacher@gmail.com or @plasticpreacher on Instagram.
Finally, thank you for your time in reading this article, and thanks to Seb for making it happen. As I'm sure you'll want to see more of his work, make sure you do go over to _thunderbrush_ to keep up to date with all his future works!
Have a good one!
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