One thing I've heard from a few artists during my career is that, to some extent, one of the regrets they have about pursuing an art career is that they turned their hobby into a job and in doing so, took the fun out of it. Whilst I have not experienced this, I seek to prevent this from happening by maintaining creative hobbies outside my professional work. Amongst these are costume and prop making. I wear them at parties and conventions/expos. Interestingly, these costumes and props actually end up helping me with my art. The props are particularly useful when capturing photo reference (as one holds a sword very differently than they would an umbrella). And the costumes (which admittedly tend to heavily feature elements of armour and such) allow me to develop a good understanding of how armour works and how the pieces move together. I can't tell you how often I see armour/weapon designs in video game characters and I think "that would never work, how would that guy even lift his shoulder without impaling his own head?" or "even if she could lift that weapon, the shaft is too small to support the head, if she swung it at someone, it would break on impact". What follows here are some samples of my creations, some pieces are items I bought in costume shops and simply modified to my liking, whilst others are made entirely from scratch, such as the chainmail shirt I'm wearing in the first gallery (yes I made it myself). Please enjoy!
BARBARIAN WARLORD COSTUME
LION WARRIOR HELM
HISTORICALLY ACCURATE VIKING HELM
FANTASY BARBARIAN HELM
SWORDS AND AXES
BLADE OF THE WINTER WOLF
(the runes on the blade say "beware winter's bite")
FIREARMS
WOOD CARVING
These are wood carvings I did to be totemic representations of the Norse gods. These don't really assist my art as much as my other creations but they are fun to make. In order from top to bottom, the totems represent Odin, Thor, and Tyr.
