Her Shrink Ray Eye Podcast

In this episode of Her Shrink Ray Eye, I explore Memory Maps as an interesting, practical source of creative inspiration for miniature painters and modelers. Instead of relying on endless reference images, I look at how the places we know through repetition, such as hallways, stairwells, workspaces, and in-between rooms, can be translated into inspiration buildable miniature scenes. I talk about why memory-based ideas often feel more original, how spatial logic helps a miniature read as a place, and how choices around boundaries, light, wear, and cropping help shape what a viewer understands. The episode includes an easy, audio-friendly exercise and a clear step-by-step method you can return to whenever you feel creatively stuck.

We talk about color all the time in miniature painting and modeling, but usually as technique. This episode steps away from recipes and rules to look at what color is doing underneath all of that.

In this conversation, I explore how color carries memory, cultural meaning, and emotional weight long before we ever sit down at the bench. Why certain colors feel familiar or unsettling. Why emotion color charts don’t always hold up in real life. How childhood palettes linger. How grief attaches itself to ordinary colors. And how institutions use color to shape behavior and judgment.

Working at miniature scale intensifies all of this. Color compresses meaning, establishes mood quickly, and often leaves less room for ambiguity. Whether we intend it or not, color becomes one of the primary ways miniature work communicates identity, memory, and power.

This isn’t a color theory episode.
It’s an episode about meaning.

In this episode, I explore something that keeps appearing in miniature work whether we plan for it or not: windows. Not as symbols, and not as architectural details, but as practical tools that help solve some of the most persistent challenges of working at small scale.

Windows allow us to imply space without building everything we suggest. They help orient the viewer in relation to the scene. They give us control over light, enclosure, and depth. And often, they allow a miniature to feel complete without needing to explain everything.

Along the way, I talk about why implication sometimes works better than completion in miniature work, how windows shape the act of looking rather than entering, and why scenes with clear boundaries can often feel calm to view.

This episode is about perception, restraint, and judgment at the bench. About learning to recognize when a scene already holds enough. And about how something as simple as a window can help us know when it’s time to stop.

What happens to creativity after midnight, when the world gets quiet and our minds start to wander differently?

In this episode, I explore how time, light, and solitude can change our focus and imagination once the day lets go. From the “mind after midnight” effect and the science of chronotypes, to the painter’s single pool of lamplight, I look at why some of our most meaningful ideas appear when the world is still.

This isn’t about staying up late for its own sake.  It’s about noticing what happens when distraction fades and thought slows down. Whether you’re a night owl or an early riser, this episode invites you to find your own pocket of quiet, where creativity feels less like effort and more like discovery.

This episode began with a simple question: are miniature competitions fairer when names are removed? But what if fairness is far more complicated than that? In this episode, I look at a whole landscape of bias in miniature art evaluation: halo and contrast effects, stylistic bias, fatigue, and sequence order—and why anonymity can’t fix what’s built into human perception.

I also explore what names really add: history, dialogue, and the threads that connect our community. Fairness doesn’t come from hiding an artist’s name; it comes from understanding how we see. And in the age of AI, keeping the artist visible may be more important than we realize.