Spotlight Artist - Arlen Pelletier

It has been a while since I have done a spotlight artist here on the blog. So let's get this back into the mix then shall we? :D

But this one will be a bit different as well and you will see more near the end of the article ( no scrolling down before reading the rest though!!!! ).

Now in Europe, I would surprised, but happy, if anyone knew this man. However I can assure you that given the chance, this will change over the coming year(s) as his portfolio grows and he becomes a bit more comfortable with showing off his amazing skills outside of our home island in Canada!

Some things to know about Arlen first..

He is a professional teacher of guitars... not just teaching how to play them, but also on how to make them.. yes.. Which is pretty cool to begin with really..

But that is just the tip of the iceberg as he likes to sculpt in wood as well.

The skull pipe out of wood on the left was sculpted by him. Not sure about you, but that is pretty bad ass... though is a bit simple for him these days if you talk to him about it. Though it seems the process of sanding all his projects is beginning to wear him down a bit ( har har.. I made a funny )..

You can find more of these and other projects of his on his Facebook page here...

He also has a talent for carving into pumpkins. Being from North America, we love our Halloween, and our Jack-o-lanterns that go with it. Arlen seems to take this aspect of the holiday to a new level though..

You can see more of these on his personal artist page located here. 

But Arlen is never satisfied to just stick to one medium, and to master the unknown.. and has been now branching out from carving wonderful images into odd pieces of inanimate objects, but also to create new things from clay..

And this is where we meet up once more. In a quick conversation on Facebook, and a follower of this blog, he asked me if I knew of anyone in Canada that could help him with regards to sculptures or painting locally.

It was from here that he sent me a copy of his Frankenstein bust shown above to have a look at and give feedback on. Supposedly also to paint up, but I have been remiss on that aspect so far though.

This was in no part short of the horrid time it took to be received from Canada to UK. Almost 3-4 months before it arrived.. which is quite a long time for both of us!

But looking at it, we talked in length about the piece, and how the busts look and feel in comparison over here in Europe. And I began to show him part of my collection of busts that are similar to comparable to this one.

He would go on to make a goblin bust as well. While on holidays back home, Arlen provided me 2 of them to take home with me and give more comments on.

My first comments was that it looks perfect as a bronze statue styled piece. So I took one of them and sprayed with Scale75 Brass to give that a better example.

I still am planning on working on the second one, but to paint it normally and to show the differences, and some of the challenges a painter would have with it.

What is really cool is that although I am not a sculptor or an artist, but a collector, Arlen is open to receiving feedback on how to improve. Or to change his style to be more suitable for painters who would ultimately be the person who would purchase these kind of busts in the future :)

He is also dabbling in the digital realm for sculpting as well! I mean.. come on.. does this guy not stop working!!!!

And it is here that we began to really dig deep in conversations.. cause when chatting with him about this type of work, he does it while watching cartoons with his daughter at night after work. So this is all spare time, downtime like creations. With a further thinking on some day maybe printing them to cast potentially.

Well.. this is where we stand today.

After having these conversations, and doing a quick little discussion on how to print, and cast the pieces. The discussion moved to something along the lines of what do people look for, and what might do well for people to buy and get proper feedback from the miniature community..

And I am really happy to say that Arlen and Mr Lee will be collaborating on a collection of busts to kick things off. Looking to break into the miniature market, but with an aim to improve both our skills ( Arlen as a sculptor, Mr Lee as a painter ), and to create cool things that people would like to have and paint up!

Especially from my side, I would love to back projects that are creating something that I myself would like to paint. Looking at a combination of all the pieces I have, or seen, or painted and taking from those into consideration when making these busts.

Arlen even had a face started up to get us started on this, and ideas were being formed from there!

Honestly, when seeing this, I knew I wanted to work with him further and to see what kind of final piece we could create from it! Ideas on genres and themes began to be passed back and forth..

Things have moved quite quickly, but kept us both quite busy over the past month or so prepping for this piece. And after a lot of back and forth, and revisions, and discussion with suppliers we are very close to being ready to have our first piece up for others to purchase!

I will be posting a more detailed step by step of how we went through to create the first piece, and o show off the final render here as well! Hopefully many of you ( maybe not all :) ) will be as excited as we are about this first piece, and are willing to support us in this adventure. And to provide feedback on what you liked and didn't like. And hopefully in the future we will be able to do polls showing some of the projects in the pipeline here, and get your feedback on which one to move onward with next!

Exciting days ahead for the 2 of us.. and we are looking forward to seeing you all join us in this adventure in the days ahead! So keep your eyes peeled to the blog and facebook page as more details come out starting next week!

In the meantime.. have a look at Arlen's work from his artist page, his facebook page, his instagram page for WIP, and remember his name. I suspect that it will becoming quite the name for pieces in the near future :)