Interview with Lukas Zaba: Trophy Hunter

Today a new kickstarter campaign has begun and we want to interview his creator, Lukás.

Here is the link to the campaign.

-Hi Lukás, can you introduce yourself and your new Zabaart project?

Hi Hugo, my name is Lukáš Žaba and I am a painter and sculptor from
Czech Republic. I am a huge fan of fantasy and traditional craft. My
project “Trophy hunter” is actually an crossover of both of these passion
and also I wanted to come up with a project where you can try different
kind of painting techniques… after few non- working concepts I made six
trophies and then I have picked the best trio. And it is working! Until the
very final stroke with the brush I worried how is this size and all those
details going to work for real once one is going to pain on! This project
also contains collectable items and three storybooks which can be used
like a starting story for table rpg playing. My main focus was to do a very
honest job and also to do something different.

-How many people are behind Zabaart?

Sculptor, painter, casting producer, storywriter, cleaning lady.. ONE .. And
I do have my lovely wife to help me with the wrapping. I am really grateful
for my supporters to let me spend my time working on such an amazing
project – is actually them who are the most important part of the Zabaart
label, without them this all would be impossible..

-Where you find the inspiration for this new project?

The inspiration of my characters I find in my notes which I make for years
as the time passes. I write the whole concepts, feelings, atmosphere of
the stories. The more clear the concept of the story is that’s when the
work on sculpting begins .. I let all the feelings through once working on
characters. As a result there are three stories which I came up. My all time
inspiration are of course the writers of fantasy books but I always try to
come up with my own
idea. I just love to play and I give all in..

-What challenges have you faced to create this campaign?

Oh my.. I really do not know where to start. I guess it is never easy right?
The very first and also the greatest challenge was actually from
Kickstarter. Czech Republic is not on the list of the countries who can
start a campaign. To make the long story short.. it took four months to get
there.. all the trying .. one worst than the other. There were intermediaries
which I could not even afford. Then to set up a new company and bank
accounts in Germany which I just swiped up from the table right before
signing it.. and other crazy ways.. But then friends from Czech Republic
help me found my way. There were more obstacles on daily bases but at
the end of the day there were manageable. Now I feel like I managed to “
kill” of all these monsters and Im happy to show it to Painters.

-How long did you take to bring life to this project?

I started to work on it in mid December 2020. You know how it goes.. you
think you will just rest during the holidays and few hours later you find
yourself in your workroom and work on your next project with a passion…
it happens to me very often..

-When you paint your boxarts, do you make research work or do you
prefer to improvise?

Improvising is my attitude mostly. Working on my own style and signature.
Sometimes I do not even know which colours or texture I will pick. I let my
imagination work and then I just work everything out.
Of course sometimes I do have specific idea which should really dominate
and then I am more careful about thinking about each
detail. But must important for me personally is the connection and feelings
during the painting.

-Your paintworks always have a lot of textures, wich kind of material is
your favourite to represent and wich one the hardest to make?

My favourite are the rust effects, I really do have control myself not use
them even for the skin-colour – that’s how much I love them! But I love to
use every texture even my style is a bit comic this element gives it the
depth. The hardest? ohhh the fur! which I paint occasionally. There are
hundreds of hours behind the work on fur texture .. thousands of small
brush strokes in so many layers.. For example the fur on Belobog took
more than two months to make..it is hard to keep focus and .. well sanity

-What are you thoughts about the 3d sculpture?

Difficult topic. Me, personally, I do have some trouble painting a digitally sculpted miniature. There is a huge difference between the “monitor work” and the physical miniature. I do see many artists who are affected by this environment because you can easily loose an idea about the size or it makes you think you have to overdo the details on the miniature. It can cuts off the realisation of your painting potential. I help my friends as an art director on upcoming table game “Kingdom Come deliverence” with the miniatures. And see this “problem” sometimes. We must resculpt and print them again and again to make it in top quality. Digital environment sculpture and painting of the miniature can be very different worlds. But these days this might sound as a scream of the Triceratops. In my heart I feel the same passion as the old masters. I need to feel the clay between my fingers and have no possibility of “undo”. On one hand I’m definitely glad that a lot of people started sculpting thanks to that and it’s more affordable.. So i think I do have mixed feelings about it. There is so many 3D sculptors i respect and they do fantastic work!

If it’s not just money talks (reducing production time compared to traditional sculpture) and the sculptor puts everything into it, then I’m a fan. Doing things from the the heart.. that’s the way how both the sculptor and the painter can be really happy. I say that as a painter… 

-Let́s talk about your weapons, wich brands of brushes/paints are your
favourites?

Good question. Some things are just a really good quality but most of the
things on the market just pretend to be.. When it comes to brushes I am a
long long fan of the W&N 7 series (long and short). More then a half to he
brushes are this label. But I have received a figure series of brushes “Da
vinci” to try which is loved by so many people, so I am really looking
forward to try them. The other half of the brushes are just cheap,
damaged or split brushes. These I like to use for textures and dirty work. I
never ever toss a brush! when there is not even one single hair I use them
as some new tool for sculpting and they stay with me forever 🙂 When it
comes to colours I use – in acrylic I feel a big pressure from big companies
which try too hard to be part of the thing which I think is good. If quality
goes up. I settle for few paints from Andrea miniatures, single-pigment
colours from “kimera models” or „MRP slovakia“ for example. Few inks
from “games workshop”. But when it comes to oil! oh man you can try so
many and there is never enough and they are all soooo good! so many
labels “Old Holland, W&N, Mussini, Blocks or cheap Umton”. So many
original and quality pigments. I also think that most of the artistic oil paints
do not really think about the final pricing but the quality. The amazing red
costs a lot of money (40€+) but the colour is amazing and the pigment is
so good. Be carefully it is addictive! but we all know that – don’t we? That
is part of “our sport”

-And for the last but not the less important. Can you talk us about our new collaboration?

Guys, I deeply respect the work you do and I feel so honoured that you
stand up for my project. You do exactly what the community needs. For a
bit of a money you teach people and show them “the way” the way which
in my own beginnings one did not know “what” or “how” to do. For
example I have been a fan of Alfonsos miniatures since my beginnings and
I have thanked him so many times for the motivation he gave me just like
many other artists. Our ways nad approach have parted but the respect to
their work is in me forever! I am so very happy that I can be part of our
upcoming collaboration – we will enjoy it so much! Thats what everything
in life is all about.. to enjoy things. Thank you guys!