SIX OF THE BEST: Iron Mammoth's Studio

I've been friends with David Drage since his days of running the Dial P For Pulp! podcast, but have never really spoken to him about his professional model making and figure sculpting. Today, he rakes us on a tour of modelling blog, Iron Mammoth's Studio

(1) How long have you been blogging, and how’d you get into it in the first place?

At least a decade! I started off podcasting with The Model Maker’s Podcast in 2006. It only ran to four episodes (it’s not easy doing an audio podcast about model making – one of these days I may resurrect it on YouTube), but was reasonably well received.

I then moved on to my second podcast Dial P For Pulp! Pulp fiction in all of its guises has always appealed to me. This was certainly very well received and I got a lot of feedback and satisfaction from it. It ran for 10 episodes and was great fun, however it was extremely time consuming, doing most of the recording and all of the editing myself, and my young family had to take priority so that also ended.

I then moved into blogging proper. I have since run six blogs, five of which are still under my control. The main one being Iron Mammoth's Studio.

(2) What do you blog about, and how frequently do you post?

I set up Iron Mammoth's Studio to share my experiences as a model maker and figure sculptor, both building personal gaming projects, terrain etc. and also professionally as I run an architectural model making workshop and sculpt miniatures on a freelance basis.

When I am in the middle of an interesting project I can post once or twice a week for several weeks at a time, but at other times, depending on work commitments, and whether I can actually talk about them in public, it becomes a little more erratic going several weeks between posts.

David's scratch-built Mausoleum for use with Frostgrave,
including 3D printed columns and laser-cut relief work.
Follow the whole project (and many more) at Iron Mammoth's Studio

(3) How does your blog stand out from all the rest?

I try to post interesting pieces explaining how I, as a professional (qualified) model maker, approach wargaming projects, as well as showing off some of the higher tech equipment that may be out of the range of your hobbyist. I usually try to offset that with alternatives that can be done on the hobby level, where possible.

(4) What’s the best (and worst) thing about blogging?

I love getting interesting comments and often starting conversations with commenters. I know how hard it is sometimes to actually get around to commenting (I don’t do it enough myself), so I appreciate anyone that has made the effort on my blog.

As for the worst, well, I always screen and approve comments before they appear on the blog. I don’t block bad comments, although so far I haven’t had any, but it is purely to stop the spammers. Spam comments that lead readers to follow links to unrelated websites really annoy me and I always delete them, but sometimes they are so persuasive that they almost get past me…

(5) Do you have any self-imposed rules (or guidelines) for your blog?

Try to keep on topic! That is why I have several different blogs, so that my primary one does not slip into some random rant…

I avoid bad language and pictures that might cause offence, at least on my main blog, as the subject hopefully appeals to a lot of younger model makers and sculptors and I don’t want to restrict the reach of the blog. On some of my other blogs I have certainly found that the odd photo of a pretty girl raises the hit count no end, but are those viewers really staying around for the serious stuff.

(6) Name one blog everyone should be reading (other than your own).

That is a difficult one. I could name several different blogs that I follow for various genre interests. If I am relating it to my own blog and sticking to model making I would say the blog from David Neat (another professional model maker) has some interesting articles.

Sticking with the wargaming hobby, I always enjoy the YouTube videos from The Terrain Tutor.