Painting with... Rémy Tremblay

Now that I'm back from my week vacation in NYC, and following our line of interviews to Slayersword winners of 2011, today I bring you the winner of the french Slayersword, the very well known Rémy Tremblay. Professional painter and sculptor, he currently works for a lot of miniature companies all over the world. He has an extraordinay portfolio and a lot of works done in his career. If you follow Volomir's Blog often (as you should) you fill find that he is practically always mentioned in my monthly section Do Not Miss. Let's talk a bit with him and see what he thinks about the miniature world.

Volomir: Rémy, when would you say is the moment when you started to paint and sculpt miniatures seriously?

Rémy: First of all I'm sorry about my poor english, I only hope that English speaking people won't lose their eyes. I began painting minis 9 years ago I think... In fact with the first release of the french magazine "Ravage" , maybe with white dwarf 89. For the sculpting process it began with my big diorama, "le serment du Graal", 2004.


Volomir: Have you learnt to paint and sculpt all by yourself, have you attended courses, or do you have some sort of personal master?

Rémy: I'm self taught boy, as we are when making silly plastic toy painting :D. I followed a 4 year course at the Beaux Arts in france in my little city. But nothing about miniatures all those years.


Volomir: Your works are mainly fantasy themed, but we also see more historical works from you. Which do you prefer, historical or fantasy?

Rémy: I prefer fresh stuff, fantasy of historical doesn't matter. These days I want to paint crappy board game figures and sculpt fantasy minis for wargaming. Precise painting is too much for me.


Volomir: Which do you consider is your best work so far?

Rémy: Latest job :). I don't know, I like to make the minis but when done they don't have any interest apart sharing it ith other people. But to answer your question I would say the Cuchulainn figure.


Volomir: When did you decide to become a professional artist? Is miniature painting/sculpting your goal or do you want to shift to something else in the future?

Rémy: A friend of mine recently say to me that I was speaking about that at the age of 12 when I was watching X-files and playing heroquest. After 2 year of wasting my time with biology study I decided to become professional, so I followed the artistic path, mainly to conform to my parents wishes about study :). I don't have any ambitious professional project now. I'm enjoying my job and I will pursue it until I will be bored by minis. I will probably make some toys or big scale sculpture, more artistic stuff, anything that will be fresh at that time.


Volomir: Your diorama, Slayersword in France 2011, was an outstanding piece, something huge which required a lot of work and time put into it. How long did it take you to create something so big? Did you have all the diorama planned beforehand?

Rémy: It took me 9 month to achieve this in my spare time. At the very beginning it was just about making a cool Skaven vehicle. I like to let my projects live their own life, being attentive to little detail and emphasis it is my way to go. Everything planned is everything frozen if you don't take care. So freestyle with an initial idea is cool, but risky, you can lose your goal or messing everything with volumes or painting.


Volomir: People often prepare great works to compete for the Slayersword. They consider all the aspects, such as size of the entry, trend topics, or commercial decisions. Do you think there is a specific formula to enter competition to aim for the Slayersword?

Rémy: As you may know I was seeking for the slayersword for many years. I think I don't understand anything about the golden demon competition. I followed my path, I finnaly got my chance to win the Sword. The only rules this year were "only GW minis".


Volomir: Can you tell us something about your upcoming projects? Is there something as big as the diorama coming in the near future?

Rémy: In the near future I will paint 40 or 50 boardgame minis to play. I don't want to do competition anymore, It's really a painful process to have deadline and motivation all along the way. There are so many ace painters and sculptors, they do very good stuff, I think I don't have anything to bring to mini's world for now. My ideas are for too complex or time consuming to even think to begin one. Maybe a big project will be born, only time will tell.


Volomir: And finally, last but not least. I’m sure any painter new to the hobby is eager to hear some counsel from one of the best artists currently. Do you have anything to say to help someone who is starting now and would love to win a Slayersword someday?

Rémy: If you want to win in competition you have to put a limit then outstep it, step by step. You couldn't be good in one week, it takes years of dedication to minis. The best way to have a strong style is to try anything new for you, painting faster for gaming, painting with NMN, TMP, mix of both, vivid color, monochromatic scheme, using pigments, airbush... Fill your toolbox with everything you can learn. Read books about modelling, painting, sculping, art, play video game, draw and dream... Be rude with yourself, we make crap all the time but from crap to crap some people could find those pretty cool :).


You want to be good, you have to work, it's the only way to go.

Thank you for reading ;)

Thank you very much Rémy! He left us a lot of interesting comments. Let's see what he is able to create in the future, and I wish him the best on his professional affairs. Meanwhile, you can follow Rémy on his blog:

Rémy Tremblay Art

Until our next meeting!