Welcome to the Fantasy Creature Doll Club featured artist of the month article! We have some incredible talent and wonderful people in our club. How about we get to know a bit about each other? The following is our July 2018 interview. Enjoy!
Interviewer: Jenny Roemmich
Featured Artist: Samantha Beaumont
What do you do to keep yourself motivated and interested in your work? I get bored with projects quickly. I love the conceptualizing process, the prepping process, but I lose steam when it’s time to sit down and put everything into practice. To keep me moving on projects I like to talk about my projects. It reminds me how cool of a project it was and the added excitement from the people I am talking too, makes me want to run back home and work on it again. If I fall into a slump, I go online and look at other people’s similar art. I see how amazing it is and makes me want to jump right back into mine.
How did you get into what you do? When I was in high school, I went to my first Renaissance Festival. It was awesome. It was like I transported into a fantasy book and I could be part of the story. The next year I went as a costumed pirate. To add a realistic touch to my costume, I would bring my pet lizard with me. Back in pirate days, they would collect exotic animals to show off where their adventures. I figured it was perfect. Apparently, some idiot brought a huge snake, and it got loose at the fair since then only dogs are permitted. It devastated me. It was many years later I found a solution to my problem. I was wandering Tumblr when I came across Worms and Bones blog. I loved their work and looked into how to make my own. After a few months, I made my first art doll. And it was a few years later I realized I could make one to solve my lack of awesome pet problem for my costume. It was then I realized that there were more people with this problem. That’s when I started up a business to sell them.
What is the best advice that you have been given? “When eating an elephant take one bite at a time.” – Creighton W. Abrams, Jr. When I did this business, this was a quote someone told me. I didn’t think much of it but as I got deeper and deeper into the muck known as the business I realized the magnitude of what I had gotten myself into. This quote helps me stop, take a deep breath and take a step forward, regardless of what size project I am dealing with.
Do you listen to music while you create, and if so what song do you play most? When I work on projects, I don’t actually listen to music. I watch shows while I’m working. Never any new shows, it has to have been something I’ve seen before, it’s more or less background noise. Seeing how I have a short attention span, it works best for me. I can listen to what’s going on in the background so it keeps my brain stimulated while my hands and eyes focus on the project at hand. What I usually watch depends on my mood, sometimes it Let’s Play on Youtube, or an Asian drama.
Business: Mythical Menagerie
Website: Mythicalmenagerie.com