The Team House - Special Operations Artist & Former Singaporean Soldier | Marc Lee | Ep. 126

Episode Date: December 27, 2021

Marc served in the Singaporean military prior to becoming a Special Ops artist. Today’s sponsor: MANSCAPED https://www.MANSCAPED.com Use the promo code “TEAM20” for 20% off and free shipping. Your balls will thank you! Ours do everyday! Thanks Manscaped!!! Want 2 bonus episodes per month and access to the bonus segments? Subscribe to our Patreon!👇 https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Check out Marc’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/coffee.n.perspective?utm_medium=copy_link Marc’s website: https://www.marcwashere.com/illustrations Team House merch: https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media Links: The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: 👇 [e-mail] #theteamhouse #marcleeBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five

with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit Child and Family Resource Network.org today. Special operations, covert ops, espionage, the team house. With your hosts, Jack Murphy, and David Park. Merry Christmas, everyone. This is episode 126 of the Team House.

I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park. We have a special episode for you today. We are visited by artist Mark Lee. Mark is, you know, he focuses really on contemporary military art, but also a lot of superhero art. And I think that many of you out there in our audience have already seen his work. Whether or not you know it's Mark, But I'm pretty sure you've seen it.

He also did the artwork for all of my novels over the years. So from direct action, target deck, reflexifier, gray matter splatter. This is all Mark's work. So as far as I'm concerned, he's the best in the business. It's why I love working with them. And I'm just really happy to have you here to talk to us today, Mark, and just chill out. And we're going to talk about you and your background in the Singaporean military, your process, how you got into becoming an artist and how you go about creating your art.

And we have some examples that you'll be able to show during the show itself. So thank you for joining us today. All right. Thanks for having me, man. Thanks, guys. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you guys want to start really?

We want to start with your origin story, man. Like all good superheroes, right? Okay, yes, I've heard that. Okay. Well, origin story. I'm born in 1984, so I'm not going to go off to see all the way back. but I was, I guess I've always been interested in drawing since young. So if I could, I would have found you some drawings back from 1994.

I think that's the earliest I can remember like drawing robots and aeroplanes, you know, I think as most kids would have. Then I went to, I guess, high school, what you guys would call it. Then poly. So polytechnics are tertiary education. And that's where I think I picked up most. of the basic skills. The course was about

animation and stuff. So I only went to that course basically because I was told that there's no exams. So I'll be able to draw most of the time. So, okay, I thought that was a pretty cool place to be. When there, it spent about three years, you know,

getting the basic ropes or things. And eventually graduated, went to the army after poly, and came out. I went to Melbourne for a couple of years to study further my studies and then stayed there for one more year. So three years in Australia. And then back in Singapore. And yeah, I mean professional artists since I think 2006.

And so as a young man growing up in Singapore, I mean, is it pretty competitive to get into some of those art schools? Oh, I think that's really dependent on your family background. for one thing, I think given the Asian culture, you know, most of these parents here, they're not very, they would dissuade most of their kids from doing art because it's not really something that you would think of as, you know, well, it's financially viable and, you know, most Singaporean parents, I think they're more traditional sense that, okay, you know, I want to have a doctor, lawyer, you know, typical, stereotypical Asian kind of family, right? But yeah, yeah, I mean, thankfully, I have. had good parents. So I think most people don't really know this. My dad was a graphic designer. My mom was a clothing designer. So I actually do have a bit of art.

I guess you would call it family roots in that sense. So a lot of the skills, simple things like mounting and doing good line work, actually picked up from my dad. My mom actually provided me a lot of materials, like color pencils, markers to mess with as a kid. So I think probably some of that helped to rebel from me and, you know, the advice from them. So in terms of industry-wise, I think it's competitive today because the government here is actually pushing for it.

But back then, it was pretty much really small. So I joined, after I graduated and left the army, I actually managed to, I was lucky enough to join this small studio called Imaginary Friend Studios. So I was under pretty good bunch of bosses. and really fantastic colleagues back today. So this is where I met like guys like Archer, Kitakumuki, Kunkha, I mean, these are old school now. And back then, our studio was considered

like one of the best regionally. But maybe even like, I think some of the guys in the States had heard of us, you know, because digital art was still very young back then. And back then I think, you know, like I said, the market wasn't that big yet. Most of the big studios are still American

based, but for a small studio to come up from, say, Southeast Asia, that was really unusual back then. Today you have a lot, like Malaysia, Philippines, you know, Singapore, there's a few, but yeah. And where was the intersection between your artistic work and the military, which features into your work a lot now? I mean, did that start when you did your national service, or was it already kind of as an adolescent male, was it already there? It was already there.

I think back in the day, I really liked, my first love was actually aircraft. So my really big inspiration or love for back then was like the F-14 Tomcat. You know, I think probably top gun might have spread that on. You know, back the day, everybody wanted to be a pilot and all that. And for me, obviously, I have, you know, specs. So no pilots license or anything. So it's just drawing all the way.

And I remember seeing like pictures. of you know Dick Kramer? I'm sure people know Dick Kramer. I mean, if you're into military art. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Old school. Like special operation.

Yeah. Military artist, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So his stuff was like, mind-blowingly awesome to me back then. You know, it's like I never seen anything like that. To be able to render to his skill. It's amazing, you know. So I was really interested, but I didn't know anything about like special operations

and all this back the day. And it was just like, you know, drawings of soldiers. and all this. And then, little by little, I think it's like little bits and pieces here and there. Just pick up magazines. Oh, look, it's a really cool looking like a gun. In that time, I didn't even know what it was called.

It was an MP5. But like I was asking around, you know, there's no internet back then. How do you search for these things? I asked like grown-ups who knew. It's like, oh, it's a gun. Okay, fine. I have to go and search for it myself.

So I've started to look up on books on like, you know, spec ops units. I mean, you don't. call them spec or spec dance. Everybody's all special forces. There's no distinction between special forces and special operations back in the 90s, right? Right. So that was where I started to pick a little bit of information here and there.

And then I actually started buying like model kits, those little 135 scale miniatures. And started painting there. And that's actually how I actually learned about all this, like Rangers, Lurps and Vietnam. That's also one of my first big love back the day. Yeah, so a lot of books and stuff back then. And then I think slowly, you know, only in the recent maybe like, I think 2010 onwards. I think since I met Jack, it's like only then onwards I actually started doing more military stuff. Before that it was a lot more commercial fan art and like, you know, different like contemporary pop culture stuff.

Mark, since our channel focuses, I mean, we definitely want to get to a lot of your art. But were you, since our channel focused a lot on like military and intelligence and things like that, were you, when you were a child, even though you had compulsory service, were you interested in the military? Or was it just an inevitable thing that was going to happen? I think there was some interest because we, for one thing, Singapore may be small, but we had really good advertisements. It's like, oh, we show you all the fantastic aircraft and like the soldiers coming out, you know, the war and all that. And then when you get into the army, you realize it's actually a lot of shit. You know, it's like the whole wait to rush, rush to wait.

Everything's not working. Right. But, yeah, I think there was some interest. But there was like this whole built up aura of like how good the army really was. And then when you get inside, you realize, oh, okay, it's not quite what you think it is. But it's an interesting experience, nonetheless. Yeah, I guess the interest has always been there somewhat. And what, for those of us who don't know, like, what are some of the regional or interest of the Singaporean military?

And, like, what are some of the challenges that they face, whether it's domestically or internationally? Well, I think this is where the sensitive thing comes in because it's always been that whole, historically, it's always been, like, a bit more of, like, bigger neighbors, especially our neighbor up north, you know. like if you were to talk about I think the focus will always be on like a defensive nature how do we make sure that the military is what's the word

it's a prepared to repel an attack or an invasion if that were to happen yeah you know it's basically a measure that you don't want people to come in mess with you sorry I can't yeah this that's the worst

deterrent so it's basically Basically that. I mean, we do have guys sent out to the Middle East, you know, for peacekeeping. And I think that time when there was like a tsunami or something in Indonesia. So mainly peacekeeping and like assistance missions that they'll get sent overseas. But if not, it's mostly local. Okay. And what was your experience like? Since it's national service, it seems like the boot camps would be massive. Like how do they process? those people and what was your experience like? Culture shock, man. I think unlike the states where, you know, do you have a certain culture and like a history of like, you know, militia or, you know, it's guns, right?

Like that kind of mentality doesn't sit with Singapore in general because since it's a peaceful country and we don't have that notion of, like, defense. In fact, I think most of my generation and the younger generation nowadays, it's like national service is a waste of time. For me, I went in with no real impression besides, oh, the army looks pretty cool. And then you actually find out there's a lot of nonsense, like bureaucracy, right?

So you go in, there's the about two months of basic. and that's where you see all the coxters and all the fuck-ups people doing also weird shit like bootlaces which I had a friend who didn't know how to tie his bootlays for eight weeks but somehow he kept it hidden from the sergeant until like the very last night before the graduation

and then it was raining and shit and the guy was basically the sergeant just reacted on him he made him it was an after shower and everything in your like RO last orders, right? He threw him it out into the rain and asked him to go and do laps and shit just to punish him, I think. But yeah, basic is interesting. So it's about eight months.

And then you have another eight weeks. And then another eight weeks of graduation through unit. And then after it's unit all the way until you finish your national service term. You were in a scout or a recon platoon, right? Yeah. So for me, after finishing basic, I went to what do you call guards. I think guards is kind of like our halibor on troops.

So they are considered one tier above infantry, I guess, if you want to put that way. Kind of like Marines, maybe. I wouldn't really want to comment on like the competency or not because I think the responsibilities are very different. but they are meant to go ahead and more of an assaulting force. So within the guards units itself, there are the various battalions or something. I think battalions.

So mine was the Racki company, which is the sister company for the snipers. So that was like, I think, two months or eight weeks of guards training. and Recky training at the same time. If I'm not wrong. Sorry, it's been a really long time, so I can't remember everything. That's okay. Did you volunteer for, like, I'm really, sorry to, there's so many questions. The whole idea of the military service is very interesting.

Did you volunteer for the branch of service that you wanted? And then did you volunteer to go into guards? How did that process happen? Hell no. I mean, I think most of us feel like, oh, you know, if you can get a crochet too much, two years in national service, that's fine. So actually, before I graduated Basic, right, they will actually have, so this is where people have different stories, like whether you're actually pre-assigned to a unit or

you're actually actively interviewed for a unit. So I know for a fact that I had two interviews, so-called interviews, right? Before you graduate, there was one which was military police. So these guys come in and they're like, okay, you know who, they call them. out a few names. And I think mine was among, you know, this bunch of guys from my company, we were called out. And then, you know, you go for your, like, they just mess with you and say, okay, you know, do marching and stuff, see whether your legs are straight. Okay, you seem like you're okay. All right, we might bring you in. They won't say yes or no, obviously. And then

there was one day. It's like further down the week. There was another interview. So we heard, oh, hey, guys, there's an interview for HQ. Now, HQ, the assumptions that Hsu means you sit in a cushy job in the staff office, right? So we went down to the hall for this, you know, the gathering of like all the guys got called out where the guys were going to come interview us. And then we saw one guy walk in and this guy had a brownberry. The brownberry in Singapore means guards and guts, what we like to call the fucked up commandos because we're not as elite as commandos, but we are like one tier below.

So we always consider like, you guys not. not, you're better than infantry, but you're not as good as commandos. Kind of like fucked up commandos. So, when we saw the guy in the back, Brownberry, you're like, oh, shit, it's not a cushy job. You know, and then we realized it's not just guards, but it's guards Racki. So, uh, Racki is, you know, I mean, you guys would know, the Racki is, uh, for us, it's to get on, uh, for us as bikes. But the scouts write jeeps, uh, for a Racky unit, we actually write a motorcycle.

So if all the kits stole on the back, uh, I think it's a 72-hour, usually, operation. Like, you go out, right here, and then you come back. Yeah. It was interesting. I remember talking about this years ago with you about, since for people who don't know, I mean, Singapore being a city state, you guys were able to get around on bicycles for most of your day-to-day job and missions, right?

Yeah. Well, I was just not bicycles. That was just motorbikes. Motorbikes. So, yeah. There are areas of Singapore where there's like, jungle terrain where they actually, I think the government just keeps it for training purposes and also, you know, for like conservation.

So there are pretty big stretches of jungle in Singapore where we have all our little exercises in training and all that. You can actually get a loss still, even though like the country is really small. I mean, it's smaller than New York, I think, if I'm not wrong. You know, so, but it's a fun time. I mean, I actually enjoyed my outfield days more than the in-camp training days. Because I outfew, you know, it's just four guys running around the jungle. doing whatever you need to do.

And I do enjoy the outdoors because I grew up with like my dad and I would go and catch bugs, you know, go fishing and all that. So it was pretty enjoyable for me when they're not getting ragged on or like punished, you know. But yeah, it's a good experience, I think. So after boot camp and all your training was the day-to-day life in the Singaporean military, was it still like very strict and very regimented and very. formal? No? No. I mean, you know, I think

like basic, because you have all the idiots and all the weird people, you kind of want to mold them into something usable. Right. So once you pass out from basic and then you go through your conversion course to unit, once you're up unit, that's it. I think a lot of it just boils on to basic discipline. Like, you know, you don't do stupid

things. Right. Like, you know, you just don't break the rules too obviously. I think they leave you well alone, pretty much? just your day-to-day duties and stuff like that. Yeah. So is that your Brown-Beret behind you? Yeah. Yeah. It's like 2000.

Yeah, Brownberry and the Racky hat. Can we see it, Mark? Old man, it's like super dusty. It's a part of your history. It's a part of Singaporean military history, right? Yeah, I think it's really cool. Yes. Well, we got Dave's beret right here right behind us on

Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. It's dusty too. Yeah. I don't think it fits anymore, though. Yeah, I don't think anything I had from back in those days fits. That's super cool, man. And before I want to ask you about your further education in Melbourne,

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I definitely could use some light on my bowls. Yeah. I mean, couldn't we all, though? Couldn't we all? So, manscaped.com promo code is Team 20 for 20% off and free shipping. So, Mark, your next step after you finished your military service was two years right yeah and then you went to melbourne for a graduate level program oh so after i finished army actually i went to join uh imaginary studios okay like i mentioned dave earlier yeah uh our german gang yeah i think it was about a year plus working there uh my parents still had some like traditional uh notions that they wanted me to get a degree paper because my dad was, you know, I never had the chance to study overseas.

I'm going to send you overseas. So why didn't you take the chance to get a good education, you know, get a degree? So I asked around and I think the nearest was Australia. Because Singapore had no degree programs back the day back in 2008. So I went to Melbourne, got my degree, then came back. I continued working for imaginary friends for another few years. and then left join a different company.

So why don't at this point you want to throw some of your art up on the screen and we start taking a look and talking about, you know, how you go about your process of creation? Okay, I don't have a work in progress. Okay, let me try and figure out the share screen.

Does that work? Yeah. Wait, is that a white screen? White canvas again? Okay, so I don't have the digital work in progress, but I have other work in progress images, unfortunately. So, like, I mean, you know, you would know this very well back in the day, right? The target deck cover. Ah, yeah, that was a piece that, that was a piece that you did on your own, actually, and I liked it so much.

I was like, Mark, you already, you're already doing what I love. I just want to buy this from you so that I can use it as my book cover. And I love it. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parents.

Visit child and family resource network.org today. Yeah, I mean, this was actually really fun to do because actually I had never done a portrait back then. You know, so this allowed me to like put a lot of detail into like, you know, the little straps, the first spear buckles and the knife and patch, which we still haven't made. I mean, it's really like photo realistic. You did something amazing job on it. That was the goal, but yeah, I do think looking back now, there's a lot of, of things that I wish I'd done it differently, you know.

There are things that grind on you that you pick out. You're like, oh, I wish I'd done this different. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely, man. How did you guys meet? Jack, how did you come across his art and choose it for your book? I, when I first wrote a novel, I guess it was 2010. I started, then in the 2011 probably published it.

And I was just like searching around the internet for artists who do military-themed work. and I very quickly found Mark. And I mean, for me, it was like a dream come true. I mean, I just loved working with you and I thought that your artwork was amazing. And it fit exactly what I was looking for because I was wanting to write military fiction that was, although it's a very over-the-top action adventure sort of plot, I wanted it to be realistic and have a realistic feel to it. And that's really Mark Mark's art. It's like he understands how all of the games. gear works. All the guns are very accurate. On top of his actual, you know, you can see his artistic

talent just on the cover here and how he's able to use light and color and everything else. I mean, it fit perfectly for what I was looking for. And I'm a big Mark Lee fan if you haven't noticed. And if you guys are listening to this on the podcast, A, we apologize, but B, you're going to have to check out Mark's art. It really is. Check out the YouTube edition of the show. So you can actually see, because he's, he's showing on screen right now. And also Mark's website, which is what? I guess you could go to like a bark was here.com. I mean, I use, I mainly upload on Instagram, but yeah. What's your Instagram for people? That's a good question. Sorry, I actually can't remember. Um, what is my Instagram? Oh, coffee dot. Yeah, we'll put it in

the description for you. It's, uh, Mark, you are, uh, uh, Mark, you are, uh, uh, uh, uh, Yeah, we'll put it in the description for you. I think I found you on here. You are, no, I'm finding other Markleys. It's quite a few Markleys. Oh, you're your coffee.n. Dot, end, perspective on Instagram. Yep.

Yeah, why I want to change that up. So I. Yeah, it's pretty long. So could you tell us a little bit about like your process, like a work like this. how do you go about creating it? Where does the inspiration come from? Do you start with like thumbnail sketches or wire sketches? I mean, how do you go about it?

I think for most of my art, it's really, like I mentioned earlier, it was, it's really interest for me. So like something really just bites, inspiration hits, right? And then it actually helps make the process a lot easier. So I don't have a digital art work in progress here. I do have another piece if I can find it. Does this show up? So like a couple of years ago, you know, I mean John Wick, I think everybody knows John Wick.

So I actually was, I really love the movie. And I, you know, just decided I want to do something about it. So for most of my pieces, they're the same. I would either start with like reference or I just start sketching. So like this one, I was, I just really wanted to do a iconic John Wick, you know, a fan art kind of thing. So I just ended up, okay, this one, you know, pretty much Stanis holding in that particular style of grip that he does.

Yeah. And then I just ended up, you know, doing a very rough trace over a sketch, you know, and try and give it a little bit of like that flow. So this is like purely digital, right, at this stage. So I would do the sketch and then, you know, maybe I'll refine it a bit, add some details. The only tricky thing with having something like this is that it's an active. face or a particular person's face. So if it doesn't look like him, that's a big,

that's a big boo-boo, right? So for this, I was kind of happy at this stage. I thought, you know what, throw some colors on. Right. So this one was done in traditional with a digital touch-up. So it's mainly watercolor and ink. The tricky thing, like I said, was to try and get his face to at least still look like piano. But then again, that kind of hairy, long hair and the facial hair I think pretty much always looks like Hiano nowadays

so that's usually my process for something like this digital is a bit bit of more of the same it's just like painting and adding on adding on adding so this is not when you say watercolor you mean literal watercolors you did this on paper with watercolor paints

so watercolor now scan in and then I mean some people say scanning really not as good as like taking a photo of a high-rest camera these days, but I don't have a high-rest camera. So I actually just scan it in. And then I'll just get Photoshop to do like color tweaks. If there are any smudges that want to clean up or add in certain strokes, you know, like these strokes here, these are all digitally added in. Oh, wow. Right.

Yes. To try and give it a certain feel. Because I can't replicate this. Like to do this traditionally, it's going to be too time-consuming. You know, so things like the risk. circle, also an afterthought that I added in like, you know, John Wick in the red circle kind of thing. So then, yeah, at this point, it's pretty much done and whatever I choose to do, it's like sometimes I sell prints or I just, like in this case, I felt that, you know what, it would be

nice to have it as a patch, you know, like a morale patch. So I went to do up a, you know, like I've colorized and vectorized it. Oh, that is amazing. from the traditional artwork. So to get producible as a graphic image. So it's done. I don't know if you can see, but yeah, so it looks like this. Oh, man. That's awesome.

I mean, it's nice to have something to hold, I guess, you know, every day. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this is like, for me, this has to be something which I need to find an inspiration for my artwork. And Mark, maybe it's. We are going to get hammered with questions. Where can people go and buy either the patch or buy your artwork if they're interested, buy prints or artwork?

I don't really have a web store because like I said, this is something I do on the side. You know, like even doing art for commission freelance spaces, right? It's really dependent on time. So like for prints, usually most people, they will contact me directly. Like, hey, I want to buy a print, you know, then I'll sell it. I'll send it anywhere in the world. But I don't have a shop. even the patches if I do make them.

There are some Facebook groups like there used to be this one called Morrell Patch Black Market. So people buy and sell patches. I mean, I don't know if you guys are aware. There's actually a really big market of people wheeling and dealing patches. Yes. So I know there's a certain demand for some of my patches,

which I guess is kind of nice. It's also interesting to see like the secondhand market which can be a bit. It's good and bad. flip them for a certain price tag, which I think sometimes it's a bit too much because it is a piece of cloth. But I guess it's like, you know, you're buying a piece of art in a sense. So, I mean, it's interesting to observe, you know, for me as an artist. Now, is the reason you don't have a shop is because you're independently wealthy and don't

care about money or you just don't really enjoy the business, the business aspect of it all? A little bit of that. I think the business aspect of it, I'm actually a bit lazy to really just get off my ass and get a shop set up. Because of logistics, I would be doing everything by myself. Right. So, like, when I sell patches, right, the few times I've done so, making the patch is already a challenge. Getting it like shipped into syncports, usually what happens that I make the artwork, I send it to a guy in the States. he would help me contact a factory overseas and then he gets the patches brought into the states and then he sends it to me

so then I have to sort out things like it's not just setting out the patch I start to design the packaging you know how do I want to pack it as well like packaging I mean like the artwork that comes with the patch I see a team house Mark Lee collaboration in the future I could see a collab yes

shipping to Singapore is super expensive as I found out, because I think I shipped you copies of my bookmark so you could have a copy. And I think it was like $40. Yeah, it's not cheap, man. Yeah, it's no joke shipping Singapore. Like if you're just shipping stateside, that's fine. But like once you go international, it's a day of a India. Once it goes on an airplane, the prices go through the roof. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it is. But I mean, you know, it's like, like, you know, Dave, you mentioned. to what I'm interested

in it's really just I'm lazy to be honest because I have a full-time job so everything I do it's really and I only have so many hours in the day

like if you work 9 to 5 you know there's only so many hours you have left for dinner to relax if you want to play games and then if you want to do any personal work

like I have tons of model kits that are actually waiting to be built but no time like there's projects I want to do patches I want to make

it's no time right So it's really just about maybe poor time management on my part. What is your day job, Mark? What keeps you busy nine to five? I'm a concept art lead. So I am working in a small, kind of like a mobile game studio right now. So I have a small team of like four to five guys under me, which we do concept art for a game and then you know, to push out and get it done production-wise.

Yeah. Very cool. And so the things we're looking at now are really. really side projects for you. Yeah, they're pretty much all side projects. Like, you know, even your books for me is something I have to be really interested in to want to do it. I know it sounds a bit snorvish, but it's really like at this stage in life, you know,

if something's not interesting to you, it's either A, it's got to pay you really well to make you want to do it, or B, it's something that I feel that I'm interested to do. Right. Yeah. And I'll spend time on it. As an artist, it must be such a drag to have to work on a creative, it's like you're forcing yourself to be creative. at that point to do something you're not going to be interested in.

Yeah, definitely. There are always the odd project where I will take on because, you know, the client's been pretty good to me and it's like, okay, you know, you want me to do another book cover. Yeah, sure. You know, like some of the clients, like, say, from the UK, right, the book covers are pretty fun. But once in all, you get like certain thematic covers like, it's not really that interesting, but, you know, the previous covers, you guys pay well. I had a really good time talking with the art director and all that. So, yeah, why not? You know, I know you guys need to help, and I'll step into help.

But other times, it's like, I don't know if I have the time to commit to another art project. So usually I may not, I may decline a new client or something like that. No. So what do I do like are commissions, actually. Sorry? You do like art commissions? Okay, so most of the commissions I take, actually, military vets. These usually interest me because, I mean, you know, I like the military stuff.

And there's a bit more of a personal connection, I think. So for me, military commissions have always been pretty fun because they do tend to be, you know, like let's just say, like, say, Jack, you want the commission of yourself, you know, back from time in Afghanistan or something. That's where I would like, okay, you know, what are we looking at here? Do we want a certain pose? What kind of kit are you wearing? So to me, these are little things which are interesting and it's very, very. personal. Because I think everybody kind of has a certain personalized kid, you know, the way they want to remember their time there. To me, that's kind of nice, you know, for someone who has

obviously not served in that capacity, but it's nice to see when people have, you know, I mean, it's a story to tell, right? Like, you've been through all this and here's something to memorize it by, I guess. Very cool. What are we looking on on the left now? The new one you brought that. Oh, this is the other, I would almost call like a fan art of, one of Jack's, uh, decade, the Samrup character. So this is also one of those things like, you know, I just felt like doing it for the fun of it.

Like, uh, there was a point where Jack was talking about all this new optical camo, uh, material that, uh, who was it? Hyperstelf. There is, uh, oh yeah, hyperstelf has worked on some of these different fabrics. Um, yeah. Some of which we've seen and some of which they still won't show me. But there's a character in my novels, Nikita, who is a, he's from Kazakhstan, and he's like the team sniper who wears the sort of like optical camouflage in the books. Yeah, so that was the inspiration. I just thinking, you know, it would be nice to visually represent that cloaked, you know, high-tech kind of look, right?

I mean, I think at this stage, again, it's one of those, like, looking back, I wish I did something differently. but back then it was really like this would be a nice idea to illustrate, you know, to have like that invisible cloak thing and back then when the panels were like all the rage after that movie, you know,

the Zero Dark 30 and all that. So I just thought, you know, pretty fun to just draw something like this and that's the only reason that's just a fella that exists because I felt like it would be a nice way to visualize the character. It's cool.

Yeah, no, I love it. Yeah, I do see this pop out on those weird Instagram accounts, though. Like, you know, the ones with the weird soldiers, soldier motos and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Instagram is a strange place. Yeah, it is. A lot of those accounts have built followings of hundreds of thousands just by taking other people's photos or whatever. They're like weird fanboy accounts. They're honoring, I guess, honoring, you know, the, the,

the military, but they don't really produce any content other than just taking other people's stuff. Yeah, I'm not really sure how they work. They like bought accounts or something. So strange place. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, the art piece was pretty fun to do, I guess. You know, I do have a few more if you want to see. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. Like this one was fun, you know. It's kind of like I did an older piece like a Bobber Fet against one of those inspirational ways strikes you so it's like okay

I do a Bobber Fett thing Bobber Fett's always cool to look at although only now does he have a bit of a story Right So I mean I love the design of the vector So I thought you know what

Kind of sci-fi looking gun A sci-fi character But I wanted to try a different art style So you have this Kind of almost like an angular Fractal kind of brush strokes That's so amazing. Thanks, man.

So I just thought, you know what? Red, white, black, a color palette. For me, I like to try things. You actually see me doing a lot of very weird variation in art styles as well. Yeah, so this one also, I got it done up as a patch, actually.

So this one, I know this is quite well-received, this patch. But yeah, this one's a fun piece. One of my favorite pieces. actually. Yeah, it's really cool. The John Rick, the one that you just went by, I laughed when I thought, that's so brilliant.

Yeah, I mean, I think I saw the name John Rick on one of those, there's Rick and Monty mobile game. And they had this spoof character called John Rick, and like, holy shit, that's a great idea to illustrate. So, you know, Portal Gun. Of course, you have to have the pencil, right, the crazy pencil. I can't know what's it called. It's a character in the Rick and Morty series.

And who can forget Snowball, right? That's so good. Yeah, but it's also one of those things, like, I'm trying a different rendering style. So, like, if you look at the style of the rendering compared to, like, say, the earlier one, it's different as well. Very different. Yeah. Well, it shows off your range, Mark, because, I mean, you wouldn't necessarily. necessarily know that it was the same artist.

Yeah, they're very different styles. Yeah, I had weird comments like earlier in the day, I mean, back in a few years ago, you know, overtime people like, because you have, especially deviant art, like people say, oh, are you stealing this art because it's so different one from the other? You know, and it's very hard to justify it because I'm just doing different things because I find it interesting to try different stuff. Yeah. You're expected to keep on doing the same thing, you know, like I think most, like you say,

most people probably might think of me with the military stuff. So, like, oh, you actually do these weird fan art and stuff. Like, I do covers for Warhammer 40K Black Library. So those are pretty fun, like, Space Marine stuff. I need to dig it up if you want to see it, though. Yeah, some Warhammer 40K, absolutely. Let me see if I can find 40K. Full screen them?

I think he is. Oh, he is, okay. Sorry, I'm trying to find the folder because it's, it's, it's, it's been a while. But now we can't see Mark. That's fine, you don't need to see me. Let me see if I can. So like this one. Oh wow.

I think this is one of the recent ones done. So this is for Black Library and one of the covers recently. So this was fun, I mean, trying a slightly cooler pallets, don't nice. Yeah, I haven't seen this, Mark. This is awesome, man. Yeah, thanks, man. Yeah, thanks, man. Again, it's a very different style. I wouldn't, like, immediately pick up that that's a Mark Lee piece.

I was just trying something else again. It's like, you know, sometimes you keep doing the same thing. It really gets boring. Yeah, I can see that. To me, it's like, going to try stuff. But that doesn't mean everything is going to come out nice, though. That's the only thing. Now, yeah, this one.

Do you generally, if you do do a book cover, do you generally read the book first so that you have an idea or do you just get a sense from the author? Do you be, okay, for example like this, I only got a sense from the author because most of the 40K stuff, they're not going to send you the manuscript. You know, so they will just say, okay, you know, I want the, like in this case, I want a space wolf, just the hero is going to be standing on, you know, showing off in a heroic pose or something. And then there's the vortex or something behind. And that's it.

That's the rough guide to give you. it's up to you to fill in the blanks. So this is where I think the experience of working with the so-called art lead that's managing the, or the art commissioning lead that's managing the artist comes in. Like I think it's a fine balance between how much creatively way to give to the artist, in this case me, or how much they control what they want to see. Because some of them, they can be quite specific on like,

okay, you know, he has to have certain colors or he has to have a certain proportion or design. Sometimes there's no specifics and you can come out of anything you want. And I think both of them have their merits as well. So like for Jack's covers, I mean if we had no specific look for Decker, do you know what I mean? I recall, you know, when you did the cover for Grey Matter Spider, we had some pretty extensive conversations about the type of gear

that soldiers would use in the Arctic. So like on the cover, like the ice axe. the skis, the ski poles, the helmet, I mean, down to like the type of goggles. Like it's all very specific for Arctic warfare. The Kalashnikovs they were using. But I mean, I think that did you come up with the downhill skiing concept? I think that was really your idea more than mine, Mark. I think probably you suggested some of it as well because to me it's like just trying to find something cool to illustrate.

You know, you want it to be eye-catching. but yeah like I wouldn't know like what kind of gear like until you mentioned that powered optics don't work well they don't you know they're not best suited for cold climates I wouldn't have thought of it that way

because you know all I would know it's like oh modern warfare or like battlefield like oh you know everywhere everybody has a powered optic red dot site and all that so it must I guess it works everywhere you wouldn't think of it but someone who has operated or at least have trained

in that kind of environment you would know certain things said, okay, you know, this doesn't work or what would you wear, what works better, you know. Yeah, I- I- Where authenticity comes in. I was fortunate enough to interview soldiers who worked and trained in the Arctic, including one American soldier who did cross-training with the Canadian Rangers and who's able to impart a lot of a lot of knowledge on me that made it into the book and onto the book cover ultimately.

And so that's where that came from. And, you know, Mark, you took it away, man. I love what you did with the cover, and you really captured that sense of movement as you have. If you guys watch the YouTube video or even just check out the book cover. I don't think anybody can see this right now. On Amazon. Put it on this one. Oh, show it on the...

Oh, right here. A little bit back, though, because it's dark. Back more, it's a big dark. All right. Well, people can go check it out on Amazon or whatever if they want to to get a better view of it. But, yeah, Mark killed it, man. I do wish you guys would consult more with the video game industry though. I like, holy shit, some of the new stuff is ridiculous.

Well, you know, I think we were talking about this last night, actually. The movie industry has the same thing. I think it's not a matter of like people not wanting to consult with them. It's just that they don't do it. Is it like some executive that thinks they know better or something? I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a sad thing about the video game industry today. I mean, I'm sorry if I'm digressing.

No, crazy. But, like, have you guys actually caught up with games recently? Like, there's the fiasco of the new Battlefield game? What's the fiasco? Oh, so, right, so, like Battlefield 2042, right? Have any of you guys played Battlefield? Like the old Battlefield games? Not really, no.

Oh, like one of the first ones, yeah. Like, yeah, Battlefield has always been considered, like, more of a traditional, you know, it's like a tactical semi, I guess you're called. it's not realistic shooter. It's not ghost recon, it's not Rainbow Six, you know what I mean? But it's supposed to be like warfare on a semi-realistic scale. But like the new one is, oh my God, it's like red, yellow camouflage clothing and weird looking characters. Like I don't know, it's kind of weird weird that some of the devs today, they place so much emphasis on like, I think marketing and, you know, trying to get that certain kind of crowd, the younger crowd,

in, they forego all the, I guess, realism and authenticity. Right. Well, I think a lot of the... I'm sorry, go ahead. I don't know. I was just going to ramble on, but I guess Beck's best example I can think of is Rainbow Six when it was still Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six back in 1998 to Raven Shield or something. And today, the Rainbow Six is entirely different.

I mean, I don't know if you guys grew up playing that, but for me that was also one of the things which got me into this whole special forces thing. Yeah, no, I definitely grew up playing the PC games of Rainbow Six. And then what's the other one? It's another like Tom Clancy branded book where you're in New York City. Ghost Recone. Oh, the Division. The Division. The Division.

The Division. The Division. That's the one I'm thinking of. The Division. I played the Division when it first came out. I did not like it all. Yeah, I played it in its case. data. What do you do not like about it?

I just felt that it was sort of like an empty open world. There wasn't really anything to do really by comparison to like, say, fallout or Skyrim or a game like that. It was just kind of like, go here and then empty like magazine after magazine through an RPK into somebody's head until they die. It's like, why am I firing like three magazines of ammunition into this guy's head before they die? To the head, right? Yeah, yeah. That was a big gripe for a lot of people as well.

you know, I think one thing they did well was like the, like if you've seen the division two, I love the division two because of the, not the characters, but the world building. Like, I've not been to New York, you know, New York. I think it's said in New York. Yeah. But the world was fantastically done. Like the level design of like, you could walk down on the city street and it's like debris, there's trash, there's overgrown weeds. And it felt lived in. You know, like, it felt like, oh, this looks like what New York might be if nobody cleaned up. streets for like months on end you know i love that part of the yeah that's not now that's like a year like a year like a pandemic that's what brooklyn looked like oh man but yeah i think games have i don't know if they've got a battle of worse these days you know so yeah any more guys like you to consult

seriously you know if only they would like listen to people the dave the dave and jack line it's open you know uh some like big wigs out in hollywood or the game industry We want to contact the team house. We're here. We're here. I think a large part of it is the micro transactions that video games are using now. They found out how profitable that is. And there are only so many different styles of like realistic camouflage that you can use.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. So what are you going to sell, you know, 13-year-olds with their mom's credit card once they bought the woodland, the desert, the tiger stripes? You know, now we need something else to sell them. And so I think a lot of that comes down to the whole business model. I'm such a, I'm like a boomer video game player. You know, my Xbox is covered in dust. And when I want to play once in a while, I've dusted off, put the disc in, spin it up.

And then Xbox needs to do like a three-hour update. And I just turn it off. I'm like, now I got stuff to do. You guys should, oh, try. I keep telling Jack, try a thought. under tier one. It's a pretty fun game. It's a top-down shooter. The, the trailer you sent me looked really interesting. It reminded, you know what game that reminded me of that I played back when I was a kid? Do you remember commandos or commandos? Yeah, I love commandos. Yeah,

those are great. Whereas like six or seven players, there's like 2D top-down looking. And each yeah, yeah, yeah. Each commando had their own specific skill set. So there's like the sniper, the diver, the spy. And you had to utilize them to get around the map and complete the mission. And that was cool. Yeah, those are good games. Yeah. So we're totally nerding out right now. And with this isn't like, no, no, no, no.

I'm talking to our audience right now that this is our Christmas gift to us. Yeah. Our Christmas special. Yeah. Is, you know, like this is just such a thrill for Jack and I. And we hope that some of you are enjoying like this too. And definitely, definitely check out Mark's art. Let's spin up some more Mark Lee or let's see what you got.

Because some of the superhero stuff that I saw, I told you that the one Shazam looked really reminded me of Alex Ross's. Yeah, Alex Ross. Yeah, that reminds me so much about Alex. Yeah, this is actually expired by Alice Ross. You know, this is actually a pretty old piece just doing some touch-ups, I think, like a few years ago just to try and spruce it out a bit. but I really love the way the Alex Ross look of the Shazam character in Kingdom Come.

To me that's the definitive Shazam look and also because the movie came out recently in the newer one. So it's like, oh, rekindled that love in this character again. I think there was like this old cartoon as a kid. I don't know if you watched it. Yeah.

There was a Shazam cartoon and I remember vaguely liking it a lot as a kid. You know, Big Red Cheese. So, yeah, pretty cool character. Yeah, again, great sense of movement in that picture. Yeah, I have some of, some of his prints, like his collectible prints. I bought Scars, the Batman.

I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it's Batman when he's older, or Bruce Wayne. You bought Alex Ross's artwork? Not, man, not his original art. We need about 200,000 subscribers before I can do that. But I buy, like, the limited edition. below. I get the limited edition prints at each time at Comic Con. Hit that like button guys.

Stuff is expensive, man. Yeah. Yeah, even the prints are pricing. Yeah. But his original art is like, yeah. I think he's like one of the most expensive artists I can take off actually when you go to the cons, not cheap. Yeah, the cons aren't cheap. It's just

you're getting it before it hits the resale market which makes a substantial difference. That's true. That's true. I've yet to actually visit one of the cons We were planning, like some of the guys were thinking of going, this was like, I think, 2019, and then we'll pandemic it. Like, you know what, forget it.

It's not going to happen. Mark, 2022, you're coming out. I'm getting your team. You're coming to the con with us. We'd love to have you. Yeah. That'd be cool. Someday I'd definitely like to visit you guys, you know.

Yeah, but I guess not a lot of stuff I have right now. That's a death stroke. Destrook. This was a commission request by Instagram follower. So it's like, hey, you know, again, I don't really do commissions for like fan art because to me it's like it's a great area I think to me. Like I don't really want to do fan out of like popular characters. But sometimes like, you know, certain characters, I think, you know, design is pretty cool.

Yeah, why not in this time? So this one was, yeah, this dude here. That's all that was pretty cool to try and give him a bit more realistic like, you know, gunbell, make the straps and the, you know, scabber and all is a bit more realistic. Yeah, I don't know. For me, I think, like Jack says,

it's probably rubbed off for me after a while, the whole trying to get that sense of realism and authenticity to get the gear. Sometimes it's too much, but sometimes I guess it kind of works out. So I try to add that little aspect to some of my illustrations as well. So, this one's all, sorry.

No, yeah, go ahead. Sorry. I was just going to say, You've obviously done a Punisher or two, right? No. I haven't done a Punisher. Nobody's asked for a Punisher, no. Yeah.

That is Red Hood. So this one's... You blow that up a little bit? Wow. Yeah, this is all that was fun to do, actually. Because I had never drawn this character before. So this time around, I thought, you know what, it'd be nice to give him some realistic weapons.

What was this? I think it's like the silencer coal pistol or something? I can't remember what it's called. And then some slightly more realistic looking, you know, bits of gear and all that. And he's wearing like cry precision pants. Yeah, yeah. Just to add that, you know, military technical angle. And this is, again, that was done with watercolors.

Yeah, pretty much all of these, I tend to work with watercolor. So I will touch up with, like for this one, I touch up. have a little bit of like color pencils a bit of markers here and there like copy markers but usually I use

this trusty brown pen to ink all the lines that you see the background saw watercolor

you know yeah then this one was a fun one it was like a drink and draw night with some my colleagues

and friends so we're just drawing random comic blanks and like you know Star Wars Mandalorian's pretty popular

and Lawrence Cole. So just, you know, do this one as well. That's amazing. That's incredible. Thanks, man. I wouldn't know that wasn't an actual cover. Like,

I would, had I seen that, I'd be like searching eBay to buy that issue. I mean, there's really a lot of good, like this is a market in itself right now, I think. Like,

I know a lot of friends who do fantastic covers and they do like these originals. Something you would think like a, I mean, this is not, for example, like this, right? This is just like a little, this sort of overlaps the logo, for example, right? Like, sometimes really change out the entire logo and the thing looks seamless. You would think it's printed, but it's all hand-painted, you know. That's amazing.

I mean, this one was pretty fun. That's amazing. Sorry, yeah. Sorry, you're going to say something? Oh, no, no, no. I was just heaping on praise. All right, thanks. I only have one more blank cover that I did for fun of it.

So, like, Doom was a pretty fun game. So I think this was actually the walking dead cover, but, like, just for the fun of it, I thought, let's change it up to Doom, Doom Slayer, just, like, you know, smashing some zombies. I was trying for that Jove Darrow kind of linework detail. you know but yeah this is another one of those things like I'm just trying something out you know instead of like full color I think traditional is a bit tricky like if you if you fuck it up it all goes wrong so when you're trying something new it's a bit of a edge of your seat kind of a thing now are these are these comics with the white covers yeah yeah these are the blank covers yeah so they only have like the title on it yeah and it's up to you to draw anything you want yeah I'm just looking at through your Instagram right now, Mark, and again, just seeing, you know, you're going from

science fiction to pictures of Pat McNamara to night stalkers to like sci-fi tanks like Mecca and then samurai. I mean, it's just incredible the range of different things that you work on. That's stuff to keep me interested, man. Yeah, these like beautiful samurai women that you're drawing on here. I'm trying to get a theme going. you know, it's like the Inktober thing. So it sounds like Samurai September.

I'm just like, okay, you know what, I'm just going to try. Because it's not easy to like draw a drawing a day. So like I just tried, okay, you know what, every day one Samurai drawing. So Samurai September. Basically these are all reference from like actual photos I could find of like older samurai. Some of them are like, I think a few of them like Mifune, the actor. But most of them are like old samurai photos or like actual reenactors and all that. I'm looking at the weathering on your tank model right now.

Tank model. You mean the scale model? It is some sort of a scale model. I'm sorry, I can't show this to show you. It's a, it's a Temea Sherman. Oh, you mean the details on that one? Yeah, yeah. It's not done yet, though.

Yeah, yeah. It's a unfinished state. I'm going to show you something. We can nerd out. I just finished doing this guy. Oh shit, that's cool, man. Which is a, like a

clockwork dragon. Is this a Dungeons and Dragons Dragons Line or something? Oh, yeah. So, yeah, we can... I think you should post more of this stuff too, man. It's like, I think you can start to have some, like, reviews on, like, kids and all that.

I, um... Sometimes I post pictures of this stuff on Twitter just to change shit up because the things I, I normally write about and cover are so depressing that I try to change it up and, and, you know, just mess around with models sometimes. Yeah, we try to. I think that's a cool part. I think people like to see, you know, I would like to see this angle.

Like when I found out, hey, you know, you play Dungeons Dragons and you started painting your own miniatures, I thought that was pretty cool. It was incredible the progress too. I mean, because I, because he just bought some miniatures and was like, okay, well, I guess I'll paint them. So he started painting them. And the next thing I know, he has this entire wall full of like paints and spray guns. And I'm like, and he was watching videos.

He's creating landscapes. It was incredible. It was an incredible process to watch. Yeah, but it's like, it's a great hobby to have. You know, it's not so it's not as expensive as booze and cars. So I can't complain. That's true. Yeah.

Well, I mean, it can get expensive. Yeah. I mean, I guess so. I guess so. It's, it's the gateway drug. You know, the next thing. you know you have like a couple airbrushes and like 250 acrylic paints and it's like what's wrong with me what would i think i think that's just a start man my wife just bought me an airbrush so like yes

can finally start painting the tanks now that's awesome how many uh how many um so you do like scale uh military miniature models tanks airplanes things like that yeah yeah i do um man i would get them for you but i would have to leave the camera is that okay yeah of course yeah sure You can just bear for a moment. We have where's to sell. So folks, thank you for joining us tonight and checking out the show. And I hope you're enjoying this sort of Christmas special that's a little bit more offbeat talking about Mark Lee's artwork and just nerding out over this stuff for a little bit. And please remember to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and hit the bell icon and select all notifications.

So you get notified whenever we go live. there's also a link down the description for our Patreon page if you want to support the stream and there's also links to get merch and check us out on Instagram as well we were also going to announce the winners of the Instagram giveaway but we actually haven't tallied those votes yet so if you haven't done it get your you know follow the rules on the post for that get that in and then we will tally it all up by by the next show I imagine. Hey, Jack, why don't you tell them what we give them for Patreon?

On Patreon, you get access to bonus segments. We do with many of our guests. And also we do two bonus episodes a month. And we're trying to do one episode where we, of the two bonus episodes, we're trying to do one where we have like a guest on to talk about something that's sort of specialized. And then, like, the last one, we had a Kurdish analyst on talking about Iran. And then trying to do another, the other second episode where it's kind of Dave and And D and I just kind of BS and talking about what's on our minds at the moment.

So, yeah, jump on to Patreon. Tea, we spill tea. Spill in the tea. Spill in the tea. All right, Mark. Sorry. Well, I don't think it's going to show up very well. But, yeah, I make these.

What I do is for a second, take your screen share off. So we have your full screen again. Oh, okay. There we go. All right. Let's see. this one was done a while ago. Very cool.

I don't even know it's going to show up. Yeah, it's, you know, Recon Marine from the old days. Yeah, I don't think that's going to show very well. I mean, these are the kind of things I like to do once in a while as well, if time permits. You know, so like yourself, I think, like, that whole learning process of, like, how to paint

the, paint the miniatures. Because, like, now you're not dealing with a flat canvas, you're dealing with a three-dimensional lighting. That's a bit tricky. in itself. So you've got to readap the whole painting process in some sense. By the way, if you want to check out this guy called

I feel like I'm plugging people. Kelvin Tan. So this guy is a Singaporean painter. He paints like 135 scale infantry. Mainly World War II Germans. He does fantastically well. And it's like he's pretty well known in the model world actually. And what's his name again? Check him out if you want. Calvin Tan.

C-A-L-L-V-I-N-T-A-N. Okay. I'll take a look. Absolutely. Yeah. So you mentioned, I'm sorry, you mentioned like your patches on the resell market, maybe some of your art. And I know for like variant covers, for different things, there's a huge aftermarket. Like, you know, you buy a variant cover for 200 bucks. And there's a lot of speculation also.

But you buy a variant cover for like 200 bucks. And then within six weeks or eight weeks, it might be worth $200. 1,200 sometimes. What is the most expensive piece of your work, whatever it was, that you saw on, on, on like from a reseller or a second? I have really sold my art per se, you know. Oh, sorry. I just reshap.

It's okay. You can leave that up if you want. Yeah. So I don't really sell my art and I don't know what the like the commission stuff. Once it disappears off my hands, I actually haven't seen it appear anywhere. Yeah. But the patches, like there was a summary patch. I did.

There was a point where I think it got some ridiculous amount because I didn't sell those. I gave it out to friends. Yeah. And some of these guys obviously are in the patch, you know, the patch game, if you want to call it that. I think there was a point where it was like worth, I think, $1,000,000 or something ridiculous, something like that. You know. I'm going to take, I'm going to take the Mark Lee art that I bought and turn it into an NFT. sell it for $200,000

then launder it into Bitcoin and we're all going to be super rich I love that idea. Yeah, I mean, if it works up for you, please be my guess man. You can come visit my island, it's okay, Mark. Yeah, sure, sure. I'll get my boat. I'll get my boat. I'll be able to row it there.

So when you see like some of your patches going up and price, do you make a couple more to throw them on the sell them anonymously? No, I think that would be a nice idea to be honest. I mean, financially, who doesn't want a bit more money?

But I've actually never done that. Like, that summary patch, I think, because I gave out a bunch, I had, like, I still have a couple of handful left. I usually give this to, like, you know, people who I think are pretty cool. Sure, here's a patch. Because to me, it's like, I make it for the fun of it.

Some people who want to collect it, you know, to them, it's like, I like it a lot, or I just want to sell it. So you get these flippers who who, they're just there to make money, you know what I mean? So like this one, I made this a couple of years ago because like I said, it's just for the fun of it. I thought it would be nice to have a Mandalorian style patch. So I sold it for I think 45 or 60 bucks, US dollars.

There was a point where immediately, like within the next few weeks, I saw one selling for like a couple hundred bucks. And people pay for it. And that's something which I don't, I can't say it's good or bad because it's the way the secondhand market works. sure you know and as an artist it's nice to know that there's a demand for my art or for my productive you want to put that way but it's also a bit strange to see like um people flipping it to make money off somebody else right right you know what I mean I mean it's the same with original art like say um I don't know I say art gym stuff right yeah you know as a friend we we talk you know like all of us as artists you know hey you know cool art

you want a drawing, you want a sketch. If you ask him for a sketch, he'll give him a sketch. He'll give you a sketch. But if you were to take that drawing, I know this for a fact. For example, in Singapore, when we had the conventions, right, there will be guys who would come to our booth, like when we were still under the IFS brand name.

They would specifically look for his stuff so that they could resell it at high prices. Simply because they know that there's a demand for it. As an artist, I'm sure it's gratifying to see that, you know, there's a high demand for the work. And that's where I think it's a bit difficult to really say whether it's a right or wrong thing, because that's just the nature of it. If there's a demand for your work, the price is because it's sky wrong. Right, right.

We were talking a little bit before we started recording when Dave and I, we went to a comic book convention in New York City with my daughter. And she was dressed in costume as Batgirl. And Art Germ saw her and said, hey, do you like Backgirl? And, like, drew her a picture of Batgirl and signed it. And it hangs on her bedroom wall. Yeah, I mean, I feel like selling something like that is that has like sentimental value. Yeah, it's like, yeah. But there's probably her college fund right there, man.

Yeah. But there are there are people out there for better or worse, you know, who will go to Comic-Conn's commission art and then. Yeah, yeah. And then list it the next day for three times what they paid for it. definitely so it's a it's an interesting thing that happens you know and i think in every industry as well like uh i collect knives yeah sorry mark could you just hold up the patch again i think uh i think actually take us off screen share he's got it yeah just just hold it up to the screen so folks can see it that is amazing show you blur it looks good so you're saying you collect

knives also? Yeah, I used to collect knives until I realized that the knives actually would have paid for my renovation of my home right now, so I stopped collecting knives. Like, for example, the same thing. I know of like a couple of makers at least back in the day, like people were specifically buy their knives. The maker himself doesn't get any commission obviously, right? But like, they'll buy his knives for say a few hundred bucks because that's the price that he values his work at. but the guy who resells it, you're going to see it for like four digits. Yeah. And like maybe $2,000 to $4,000.

You know, people buy and sell. And the only reason that they're charging the price is because the maker couldn't push out as many knives as you wanted or couldn't. You know, I mean, the pace that it takes to make those pieces of work takes time. Right. But people are willing to pay a premium for getting something faster, I guess, if you want to put that way. Right. I was just going to say, you know, you hope, I hope, you know, that the artist actually gets paid and you want them to be paid for their work. And I think, you know, I know this as a writer.

It's hard to get paid for your work. And I know it's the same for artists as well. So, I mean, like, I know you've given me some good deals, I think, considering the quality of your work when I bought the book covers. But, you know, I always want to make sure that the art. that we work with get paid. And even in a guy who we bought the theme song to the show from, you know, even though we only needed 30 seconds of music, we paid him for 60 seconds, because I'd rather just build a good relationship with the artist going forward.

Yeah, I mean, I understand it's still business, you know. Everybody needs to make money. So it's, I think especially in the creative industry, like when you're writing or if you're doing, illustrations and all this, right? There's always going to be a little bit of that whole, oh, you enjoy it, so therefore you should be able to do this for less. Right.

You know what I mean? Like, it's not so much like, you know, if I call it a plumber to fix my sink, it's a fixed price, like, okay, you know, that pipe's going to cost me a couple hundred bucks or something. Right. If it's a piece of art, it's very subjective to what you can charge or what you should charge even.

Right, right. There's not an hourly rate for it or whatever else. I mean, there is. in the industry that's supposed hourly rate of sorts, but again how do you justify how much you're worth? To give you an example,

what we charge in Singapore and what you charge in the states sing dollars to US dollar. Again, you already have the dollar difference, but the quality of life, for example, just to take that into account. Maybe in the states you might need, I don't know, say $2,000 a month at least

to survive, right, 2,000 USD, you convert that to sing dollars, you know, that's maybe like 2.6, which is not a lot, but it's enough to survive. Now you convert them to say, Indonesian, ring it. It's a ring it, rupee, sorry. That's a lot of money. So maybe one piece of work which costs $2,000 in the States or Singapore, I could do maybe half of that amount of work, right, or the same amount of work, and it will last me a long time. So that price, is a bit of a interesting thing, I think, once everything has become international, right.

It's tricky nowadays. Right. Well, I know that like in the mobile gaming industry, in the gaming industry, that's been a big point of contention where for loot boxes and things like that, where something might cost, you know, four bucks in the states, you know, for a little thing. You know, if you go to India or Nepal or someplace else where people are playing this game, it's still $4, which is a lot. a lot, a ton of money for them. It's not a micro purchase anymore. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And they can't reduce,

and they can't reduce the price in the game for those regions because people will find ways to work around regional settings in their game or whatever in order to take advantage of those lower prices. Yeah, I mean, but there's nothing you can do about it. It's just the way the market works, you know. So, I mean, reselling stuff on the second-hand market even. It's totally out of my control. I mean, if it happens, it happens.

I'm just going to observe. Because I think if you step in as a creator, right, for example, I have friends who have suggested, hey, like what you mentioned, right, why don't you keep a few for yourself? Right. And then you sell it anonymously. I could do that. But then once people realize that you're doing that, right, there's a certain level of integrity, I think people expect from an artist as well, or even any sort of creator, right?

Like, if you knew that I'm marking up my price for stuff which used to be there, I think there's a certain expectation of how you should handle it. I'm not sure I know how to handle it, but I don't I don't necessarily agree with that because as a creator, you don't know, you just never really know what the market is going to grab. You know, that's why variant covers buying comics like Virgin covers that are variants. It's a game of speculation if you get into it. you might pay anywhere between $40 to $600 for a variant cover when it comes from when you get it. And again, I think that in my opinion, my humble opinion, if somebody's going to play the speculation game and really cash in, I'd hope it's the artist. Yeah, exactly. And you don't know if that cover, like some of Art Germs covers have like skyrocketed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some of them have actually decreased in value. And so as the artist, he doesn't, like, he doesn't necessarily know either that every single one of his, you know, you don't know that every one of your patches is going to sell gangbusters, right? So why isn't it fair for you to sell them at all, you know, when you do sell them, to sell them at whatever price you think is fair? and then if you see it go up, take advantage of those prices on the resellers market. I mean, I guess it's fair to say as well. It's just something I haven't really gone into. Like I said, to me it's like I feel that if I'm going to sell at this price, that's what it is.

And whatever happens in secondary market, that's on other people to figure out, okay, you want to buy that price. You can't get them for me anymore. You know, that's on you. It's your money, you know, feel free to do whatever you want. right? Mark, I'd like to ask you, what would be your dream project that you would just absolutely love to do? That's tough.

I don't know. As much as I enjoy doing the military-related artwork, right, it's always, I think a dream project is something that you control yourself. And that's why I think, like for you to write books, for example, I don't know if you feel the same way, but to me, because they are rich. written, they're edited by you, you're in full control. To me, those are what you were considered dream projects.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, like for me, I think dream projects are a bit difficult to really say that's a dream project, because if I have a topic which I really like, for example, recently I did a concert art for a studio

in the US, and you were looking for, like, you know, realistic military concept art of a character. So it's supposed to be a AAA studio. and I thought, okay, this was quite a good opportunity to take. And I mean, most artists say, hey, AAA studio, military, like for me, military, right? That's great, you know, and it was a decent price for the commission. So I thought this will probably be what some people would consider a dream project.

But when you realize that you actually have a limited amount of creative control, and then of there, you still have to answer to the art director and who have to answer to their, you know, their other team members, the execs and all that. I guess it's very relative to say what's a dream project. To me, I enjoy doing what I do. Like the commissions, all of them are, most of them, I'm not saying all, but most of them are stuff which I really enjoy.

So to me, a dream project, I guess, would be something I have creative control. And that's why I do my own art, because to me, that's stuff that I enjoy. To me, it's just to be able to enjoy the process of. Can I say, as a Mark Lee fan, the dream project, I guess it's my dream project that I'd like to see Mark do is I'd love to see a Mark Lee graphic novel. Yeah, I was thinking of that too. People have mentioned that, but I suck a sequential hot man. I've tried it. It's difficult. It's really difficult. You've got to plan the panels, you've got to plan the composition,

the character design. So that's a lot of work. That's a lot of work. So what's what do you think the future holds for your, you and your artwork and your professional career. I feel like I've already, I mean, we've, we've known each other, you know, talk off and on for like close to a decade now, right? Yeah, man, it's a long time. Time flies. It's pretty crazy. And I feel like I've seen your artwork. It's a lot more gray in your hair now and I've a lot less hair on top as well. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. I start getting self-conscious about these things. But yeah, no, we're not getting any younger. But I mean, with that,

I mean, I've seen, you know, your artwork mature and change. And, and I, kind of, kind of watch some of your work grow and go into different directions. And it's really cool to see that and watch that happen over a period of time. And I'm just curious if you have any thoughts or inclination about where you're heading into the future. Not really, actually. I mean, to me, it's always been trying out new stuff. So to give a definite thing, no, I can't think about anything really. It's just, who knows, I might actually even stop drawing military stuff at some point.

You know, it depends where the wind takes me. I just, to me, it's just about finding something that's interesting. Like, I actually like, I find that, for example, if I go traveling my wife, one of the things I like to do is actually just sketch the streets nowadays. I find it to be very relaxing and very therapeutic, you know. So, yeah, it really depends, I guess. Yeah. So it really is like day-to-day, piece-to-piece?

Well, you would definitely still find me drawing military stuff. I don't think that's going to go away anytime soon. but yeah I think as you know as you get older the perspective when things changes you know so what I guess I would choose to draw over time might change as well yeah do do you or did you at one time read a lot of comics and this is how you knew like know about Alex Ross and these people or do you just like the art comics man oh I there's all comics and books at the back oh I didn't see the comics um who were like aside from Art Germ and Oxrass,

who were some of your biggest influences when you were coming up and who did you really love and want to emulate? I think the biggest one, Metal Gear Solid, Yoji Shin Kawa. Back in the day, that was like, wow, I really loved the art.

I really loved the game. And it was like a big influence. Like that brushy style, you actually will see a lot of it in my art that I try to emulate to some degree. Like the John Wick one, there's a bit of this like there's a bit of this brushiness to it

and this all stems from that Yogi Shinkawa style I mean it doesn't look anything like it's but that's where it actually came from so that's one of the big influences you know Metal Gear Solid I think anybody who actually knows me knows that I'm a fanatic for that franchise

Lano You so another one of the Filipino artist he's really good I love his line work you know Alex Ross to know for the back in the day the colors

that he used and very nice realistic blend one of my friends now today he was actually one of big influences when I was

starting out digital painting his online name is Okita Kumuki but it's better known as Skylin so he's actually

younger than me but like back then he's like holy shit this guy's amazing and then I thought he's from Japan

but it's actually another Singaporean and then turns out he was also an imaginary friends so in stroke of luck I got to learn a lot from him back in the day.

You know, I mean, there's a whole bunch of other artists I think. I can't think of right now. You've turned me on to some people, too, Mark. Who is the South Korean artist that does things from the Fishbowl perspective? Oh, Kim Jong-Gi. That's unreal. That's surreal. Right?

I mean, it's unreal. He also does a few of those military style illustrations. So, yeah, he's got good stuff as well. You know, he's famous now. I think when I first heard of him, this was like 20, 10? Back then he was still like, you know, he's known, but not that well. Now he's like really big today. Super wild, man. So folks out there, check out Mark Lee on Instagram. It's coffee.comn.com. And you can check out a lot of his work on there. And I guess you can hit him up on there for commissions. Is that how it works, Mark? They slide into the DMs.

Yeah, man. Just drop me a DM or something. slide into the DMs. Anything else do you guys think we need to hit upon? Because I know it's really late in Singapore, Mark, and I appreciate you. It's only 1 a.m. I appreciate you doing this, man. I really do. And I'm really happy that we were able to put this together for a Christmas episode.

Yeah, I could honestly sit here and talk for the next five hours. Yeah, I know. Me too. Yeah, we'll have to talk offline about like comic art and artists and stuff like that. It's incredible to me. One of the things Jack and I have talked about in the past is whether for good or bad, modern comic books really are sort of modern art. You know, back in the day, when you look at a comic book cover, there'd be dialogue, there'd be stuff like you knew what was going to happen in the comic. Now they're like gorgeous pieces of artwork on the front cover. Yeah.

Yeah. But insight may not reflect the cover. Exactly. That's a difference. That can be an issue too. Yeah, exactly. And now, you know, with the virgin variance where there's no print at all on it, you're, I mean, it's like a piece of art. Like sometimes you buy a comic just because of how beautiful. I mean, the cover sells you the entire reason of buying the comic, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely an interesting trend. And again, like I said, I don't know if it's for better or worse because like, like, does it sell a comic as well as? looking at the cover and seeing a part of the story and going, oh, wow, I want to see what happens. Yeah, I don't know. I'll do with changing trends, though.

I was out at the comic shop this week buying the new issue, Batgirls number one came out. So I was out there buying it for my daughter. And there are different covers. One was very cartoony. And the other was like very realistic of the two Batgirls, Cassandra Kane and Samantha Brown, I think it is, like very realistic, a beautiful piece of artwork, right? And that was the one I bought. Yeah.

So, I mean, not that, I don't know if I could even tell you why. I just thought, oh, this looks really cool. It just boils down to personal preference, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mark, is there anything else that you want to plug anywhere that you want to direct people to your website or to other social media before we get out of here for tonight? No, man. Sorry, I'm boring that way. Instagram.

I got nothing to plug. Yeah, and we will put the links down the description for you guys. so you can get to them easily. Yeah, again, Mark, thank you for doing this. And thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, I hope we can do it again sometime, actually, because you're right. I mean, we can sit here and just kind of nerd out talking about models and comic books all night. And actually, it's been really fun.

All right, man, cheers. All right, take care, man.