Muse

How are you doing, everybody? Welcome back to the Sean Atwood channel. I'm Ron Swanson. I'm joined here with Justin Hughes, and we're going to be delving into his career from Navy SEAL to fine artist. And Justin, thank you so much for being here and giving up your time. I really do appreciate it. It's... Oh, God. Hang on a second, Justin.

What's happening? What's happening?

I've got something playing in the background there. The live stream was playing in the background. Carry on, Justin. I'm so sorry.

Are we good? We're good now, brother. Yeah, we're good now. yeah awesome man no thank you so much for having me for taking time out of this out of your day to uh to chat about some art and uh interesting career transitions and uh yeah man we had a little bit of backstage talk here but yeah it's you know um i mean it's cool it's cool to be here

it's it's incredible art and it's we're gonna we're gonna start the beginning we're gonna go through your career and what brought you to this stage because i think for a lot of people it's quite an interesting leap in careers i mean you could say it's a transition but i mean that is it's a large jump and i'm looking forward to hearing about your journey justin i really am

well thanks ron man i appreciate it yeah you know it is funny i think a lot of people the the first question that is typically asked like how does a navy seal become an artist and and i would i kind of identify more as an artist before i became a navy seal you know or something that i did as a kid i drew constantly i grew up overseas in a place that didn't speak any english so art was always just a way of communication for me you know i draw pictures of people's houses or of other kids in my class and it was a way to just bring a smile to people's face when i couldn't when i couldn't communicate with them normally and so just growing up in that environment and kind of like you know uh kind of developing those those draftsman skills as a young kid um it kind of it became something for me that uh i always kind of came back to and i thought was really exciting and it was interesting but you know i grew up in a in a time when there was no real internet internet wasn't a thing we in order to connect to it it took like a minute or two and then there were sounds that came through and you had to plug in right or two and and there just wasn't the resources that there were now and the only people that were really doing art were disney you know or or that was like in my imagination the only attainable art career and so it was just never something that i even looked into honestly right and uh just you you grow up and you hear stories and and you read books and um eventually i i i wound up being a navy seal but uh yeah here i am

come full circle back and like you wind you wind up being an artist no one accidentally just winds up being a navy seal okay i imagine there's a few more links in the chains there yeah yeah we can go way back if you'd like well look i think i think setting the stage and because i mean i don't know how much navy seals can talk about but i mean you can at least give us an overview of what that period of your life was like and the transition of course the re-transition obviously back into

being uh an artist-minded individual sure sure yeah um so you know i i grew up uh as a kid in in foreign countries. And I got my first inoculation of patriotism on 9-11, like most Americans, you know, I became an American patriot. And you see the towers go down. I was in Malaysia at the time, heavily populated Muslim area. There were immediately bomb threats and stuff on our school. And I remember being a kid and the Marine Corps sent an attache to our school to kind of get a scope on you know how many kids were there the they were looking at like beach operations if if they needed to evacuate americans out of this area like what what would it look like to try to evacuate people off of off the beach and i remember seeing a marine and being like you know going up to him and saying hey mister what are you here for and the guy's like you an american i'm like yes sir and he's like well i'm here for you kid and i remember thinking as a as a young boy like i haven't spent really any time in america you know um but this citizenship and this flag means something across the globe and and i just remember having a deep sense of pride in in in my country and just thinking man wouldn't it be cool to be that for other people you know like wouldn't it be cool to one day grow up and be the guy that can go and save other americans and and go into foreign countries and, and protect other people. And so for me, man, you know, a kid without a country, it just gave me a huge pride in, in, in our nation. And yeah, I grew up, I, at that point, I kind of knew I wanted to serve at some capacity. I didn't know what that was. And I came back to the States for college, started doing the ROTC thing, which is the reserve officer training where i was looking at adjoining the service and and you know it's like a classroom setting and everybody's in their little uniforms and stuff

And the ROTC instructor, he says, everybody, you know, let's one at a time stand up and introduce yourself and tell me, tell me why you want to join the military, you know. And one person stands up and they're like, oh, I want to, you know, this, the scholarship money is really good. And another kid's like, I want to, I want to have some good job experience or another one, you know, I want to go overseas and get some, get some experience and travel the world. And, and I just remember looking around the room and being like, where are the people that want to do really dangerous things, go into hard places and rescue good people, you know, or hurt bad guys. And I said, wherever those people are, that's, that's who I need to find, you know? And, and so I started doing some research. I'm looking at special forces. I'm looking at, you know, Navy SEAL training. And I read Marcus Luttrell's book, Lone Survivor, and about Operation Red Wings and stuff. And I'm like, dude, these guys, he writes about the training pipeline and all that. I'm like, these guys, whoever makes it through that training, the SEAL training, they want to be there with all their heart. You know, those are the guys that want to do the hard mission. And so, you know, I was talking to an army recruiter as well. The special forces pipeline was very appealing to me because they they're kind of called warrior politicians. Right. They go into foreign countries. They meet the foreign nationals. They build armies internally, build relationships with with other languages. They learn other languages. And so as a kid who grew up overseas, that was very appealing to me as well. Right. And so I was going to go in. I was going to talk to the army guy first. Their office was on the right. And then I was going to talk to the Navy recruiter. And I went in. The army office was closed and and the Navy office was open. So I turned left and the rest is history, man. Got a SEAL contract and went off to Bud's. but dropped out of college and um from there just went straight to buds and uh and joined the seal

teams and how long did that chapter of your life last the the buds portion or kind of like the

the whole military career uh so i did nine years on active duty and three years in the reserve teams um which is you know it was kind of during the whole covid fiasco so not a whole lot happening there right across the military so so nine years unactive yeah yeah and i mean nine years is a long

time to especially when a large portion of that i would imagine was with the seals that's right

yeah you know it's long enough to kind of wear on you and and i think uh there's a lot of like life transition going on for me too i was a young guy joining i think i was 20 22 years old and i I was dating my now wife and we had met in high school, kind of the relationship survived through all the training and whatnot, ended up getting married right before I checked into the SEAL team. And it was just one of those things, you know, life starts happening. You get married, you go on deployments, you have a kid, you go on deployments, have two more kids, and then you're kind of like, life is different at home than it was when I joined this thing. And so you kind of have to like reassess, you know, what is, what is 11 more years of this career look like realistically with, with kids at home and a wife that you also want to spend time with, you know, and you're spending 280 days a year gone. um so uh yeah man it was it was definitely a hard period but um the best job you know i could ever ask for really other than being a father and uh and uh a husband to my wife but um yeah man it was a is amazing career and i tell people all the time like if i was a single guy and no wife no kids like i would i would love to stay until the day i died right and what was the pressure like

when you became a father and you know a married man was an instant pressure change for you

um yeah i think your your motivation is a little bit different right now i want to come home i remember my my first born son was was born and 10 days later i deployed and i remember just thinking like so badly like please smile you know like just let me see you smile before you before i leave you know and then the whole time i'm gone i'm like dude i want to come back i want to see that kid smile yeah i want to see with my own eyes not on a not on a recording or something and so there there's motivations there that i didn't know i would i had i i wanted to go on deployment with all my heart and I wanted to be with the guys constantly but at the same time there was this thing in me that's like dude I want to be the best dad I possibly can be too you know I want to be the best husband I possibly can be I don't want to just be a great team guy I want to be you know the whole man you want to be the whole man and so yeah it was just the the press

pressures for me changed and that i wanted to perform not only um for my my my brothers that i was deploying with but also you know i wanted to perform and uh make it back home

to my wife and my kids of course of course and as your career went on and i imagine it was a lot of things to process pushing into art and how it really came i came about and if it was you know a direct consequence of not so much you wanting to be a better father a better husband but if it was the right time to to use it as an outlet yeah that's a great question man

um so so after my so i did my first appointment um did my my twin i had twins that were born three months before my second deployment wow yeah and so my wife my wife's home like we're in california we have no family out there and no help nothing and yeah have you got a history of twins and from my knowledge i can have twins anytime i want um but my wife i guess it's in my my wife's side like it it's a thing um yeah man i had no idea um so you're you're going to be the ones that when

they talk about in like two or three generations like oh my god i'm having twins do you have twins

in your family you're the guys that started yeah you're the guy now we do and that's wild and what

i mean first of all right were you a father before that or was this baby number one that became buy

one get one for you this was baby so baby number one 10 days later deployed deployed um and then maybe number two and three three months later deployed deployed again yeah wow and so you know there's a little bit of training and the teams that you you work up before deployment but yeah kind of you know we're starting a family and so yeah you have kids and and so i i had the kids on their babies during the deployment and my wife's home all alone and i'm dealing with you know combat deployment and my wife's dealing with three combative children and and i'm kind of like looking at the next platoon and and where i'm going to go next and i wanted to do another deployment and my wife's like hey is there any chance that maybe we could do a shore duty like something else where you can be home for a little bit more time and uh and it ended up working out i had some buddies over at buds uh that were instructing and they're like man come over it's it's a great group of guys that we're working with right now so so i ended up actually getting the opportunity to be a buds instructor and teach uh kind of like bring young guys in through the pipeline to become navy seals and and and that part um was great because it gives you a little bit more of an opportunity not to you know like take a knee but to balance your life a little bit more um it gives guys kind of a chance to be home a little bit more or be present a little bit more and um all in during that time i kind of picked up drawing again um okay and if you want to get into the whole story about like my first time painting or whatever we can get into that sure just go

our life we can well no take us take us through the journey take us through the journey yeah

yeah man so i actually sorry if you're looking at the thunder the thunderstorm right now um yeah so i i ended up i was instructing as a budget instructor like i said and i went into my boss's office one day and he had this big old statue of a trident and the seal trident has an eagle an anchor uh a trident and the eagle's holding a flintlock anyway it was this really big you know statue behind it okay of this our little emblem our pin that we wear on our chest i said that's really cool i would love to have that one i can't fit it in my house my wife would never let me have it uh and my office my little cubicle that they have for like the instructors you know when we're yeah we're not at the pool or out of the beach or something like it ain't gonna fit that i said but i wonder if i could paint it you know you're always going into museums or or whatever and you're like i could do that i could you know i could draw that or whatever and

are we though i mean maybe you are justin right maybe you are come on come on i'm going in there and i'm going i remember trying to draw an apple okay at high school and going this is not for me mate this is i can see it and i know what you're saying just draw what you see

yeah it doesn't add up bro yeah well you know i was like i'll try i'll try i want to you know i want to paint it so it looks like it's alive you know and um i went to hobby lobby i picked up a canvas and some paints and stuff and my wife's watching a show and that night i'm just kind of like painting on painting on this picture and i end up finishing it i'm like dude this is better than i thought it was going to be you know and i bring it to the studio or not the studio the uh the office put it up on the wall and one of my teammates behind me he's like dude where'd you get that picture i said i painted that he said you didn't paint i said i painted the picture man and he's like you didn't paint i said bro i painted that picture with my hands you know i was like look you know look at the brush strokes and all this stuff he's like oh man that's sick can i get a print and i said no

idea how to do that um he said take a picture and take a picture have somebody printed out you know the same size and i'll give you 100 bucks and i said bro done you know i'll take i'll take your money and so i give him a print he takes one home next thing i know another guy's like hey i saw the print that you gave so and so can i get a print and dude before you know i have these things like all over my house you know i'm putting them in tubes and stuff and i'm i'm doing better selling pictures or prints uh some months than i am um you know as a team guy which is ridiculous and so i ended up doing a diver the little dive helmet you know for the divers that i was working with and i'm doing a little seascape of coronado and and dude i just immediately fell in love with the craft you know and it was one of those things where i said you know i don't know um what i would ever do outside the teams but it if i could do anything i would love to do this you know it It was one of those things where guys have a really hard time transitioning out of the teams because they want to be as passionate about that thing as they were about becoming a Navy SEAL, right? Because you really have to want to be a Navy SEAL to make it through that training pipeline. And for me, it was just like there was that spark all of a sudden inside me where I said, wouldn't it be so stinking cool if I could make this work? Wouldn't it be rad if I could really match with this and do something with it?

it's such an interesting connection to still have when you step away from something to have this this incredible gift to have the inside knowledge and the inside respect not just as an artist but as the artist who's you know painting it going through the training and understanding what these guys have went through it's it's quite a unique connection justin yeah thanks ron i and

you know, to me, it was one of those things as well, where I'm very grateful that I had that experience in the teams. But I think about Hemingway, you know, and he said, in order to write about life first, you got to live it, right. And I don't think that I could have ever been an artist before I was a team guy, because I learned how to fail. I learned that it's okay to just sit in your crap, you know, to a certain extent, like sometimes something's just not going to look the way that you want it to look and um that's that's all right um learn your lessons take your licks and and do better next time you know and the teams guys mess up all the time and it's always public you know everybody everybody in the community sees it everybody addresses it once it's addressed you take your licks and you move on and and you do better next time and so it was just one of those things where you know i come to you come face to face your your errors are looking right at you your work is looking right back at you and you can see the things that are wrong with it um and sometimes you can fix it sometimes you can't and you just got to move on with what with what you got sometimes so right it was extremely great um to have that that life experience and obviously the story of the the community and the heart of that brother is really fun to kind of explore and and and draw upon as i as i create so now as you sort of

progressed through the art right you you found your foot in there was these moments where you were creating these iconic emblems and you know the masks and these things are really relatable to anyone who's served of course what was your first bigger project was there a moment where you were trying to encapsulate something that you'd gone through man that's a really good

question i i don't know about like my big bigger project everything to me at the time feels like it's the best thing that i want to do you know every time i talk to somebody it's the best thing i want to do well that's my first still life so i've never i saw somebody on instagram dude i feel like i'm just learning right so this was 20 2018 was my first painting and i got out of the teams in 2020 and started painting like mid 2020 or yeah mid 2020 full-time and and for me i i remember going into an arts art studio right where they have a bunch of other artists hanging up and stuff and and when i first started kind of getting back into painting and stuff i i would love to go and look at other people's work and i remember going in and like getting real close to somebody's art and the ladies the gallery owner is talking to my wife and and my wife is super kind she's like oh my husband he's an artist he he loves to paint and the lady's like oh what do you like what do you like to paint or um i'm sorry she's she says what painters do you like and i i remember thinking like i don't know you know i i felt like i was like totally caught with my pants down like i'm a director who wants to direct movies but never seen a movie you know right well yeah i know yeah yeah you know what i mean like we all know like certain paintings that we we like i remember like Michelangelo

like cheesy like class yeah you just try to whip something out from the knowledge yeah but it

totally challenged me because i was like how i need to explore um i call them like art parents you know okay yeah i need to find somebody that i want to be like you know i i want to look at somebody's art um and pinpoint something that i like about it and try to emulate it in my own work and so i was really into statues and i said okay i want to learn how to paint these these mediums i to learn values right the lights and the darks what better to paint than statues right from statues to paint black and white super super easy um to to replicate and so i i feel like i'm learning right i paint these things post them on social media and you know that somebody asks to buy them and they sell real quick and so i go to the next thing i'm like okay i want to add a little like color what artists do i like how they use like light and value and so i look at the baroque painters right like rembrandt and caravaggio and those guys and i'm like how can i replicate some of that dark you know baroque you know moody atmosphere and and so i try to create that in my own work you know and so it's just one of those things man where i'm trying to teach myself and i'm trying to just look at what other people are the people that i admire and draw like little bits of that and that's always been something that you do in the teams too right you find a guy or any career really you find somebody that's doing it really well and you copy them we do it with language we do it with writing we do with music um we do it with everything and so you just find somebody that you love and you copy them a little bit and then over time your style develops your preferences develop and you kind of grow so so all that to say to answer your question man i still feel very much like i'm learning this this medium every project that i have um and that i've sold is kind of like a learning lesson for me and i get really excited because i want to do something different i want to do something unique with it and um i remember like the first like big breakout paintings were probably when i did all the sean ryan shows or sean ryan stuff you know he was one of the first kind of guys that got behind me and he wanted to preserve his pictures in the form of oil medium because there's longevity to it right it's not something that he's looking at on a screen it's not something just printed out it's something that can be tended to taking care of nourished it's the same reason people like a good wrist watch right because you got to wind it you got to take care of it um it's it has it has form and function to it that that is meaningful and um fragile yeah yeah i think that the people have that sense of like they appreciate the analog nature of it and and you know i've just enjoyed kind of like telling other people's stories through whether it be painting their their portraits or or deployment

photos that kind of stuff has been super meaningful now let's talk about mediums for a minute right because some of these are oil on canvas but am i right in saying some of them are oil on copper

was that something i've seen yeah that's right um so another thing that kind of comes with this is i want to paint with things that are going to last for years and years and years and i guess i think it was a lot of the the um the the dutch painters started painting on copper apparently the you know and i'm not a scientist but the the apparently the the way that oil paint expands and contracts with its environment is very similar to what copper does and so things that are painted on copper tend to last um a lot longer wow over the years and they keep a lot of their have you ever seen like craculature on oil paintings and museums and stuff yeah yeah i mean i'm going to assume

what cracker crack i'm going to use the my brain to assume yeah do it that's a bunch of dry paint

that cracks on a painting yeah that's right that's right yeah yeah yeah sometimes it's like microscopic you know it's like tiny little spider webs across the canvas and so supposedly you know it helps prevent some of that stuff in 100 years 200 years or whatever whatever all of

things are a little bit easier right whatever elite came up with that term the centuries ago had mercy on us and made it sound exactly like what they're talking about so we were saved there

hopefully i didn't just make it up and people in the car no that's not a word here's the thing

right i don't i mean i i'm not a big art guy so to me it's freaking fascinating that we're talking about a sheet of copper and you're painting on it because you know if you run your finger down a canvas it's it's canvas there's no big deal right you just crack on painting but how thick or thin is the copper how fragile is it are you incorporating like in like embossiness to it like what's the the stick yeah it it's actually super annoying

can i get it off my seat i can show you oh yeah you can yeah let me grab one real quick um so i paint on a couple things man um there's so i have these

one's custom made okay this is a example of the copper this one's actually primed already and so you can see here this is a mahogany back it's beautiful and then there's like the a wood and then very thin very thin uh piece of copper you can't even really like i mean i don't even know if you can okay yeah very thin piece of copper um glued onto the is that whole

bit that's not mahogany that's not all copper right there's there's mahogany

and then there's copper essentially right here and then the copper plate is is nice so it's almost

impossible then for it to be you know you know because if you imagine that the thin piece of copper stretched out you know you could you could do a lot of damage to it so that's really interesting

right so and people do that there's all sorts of stuff um this is like aluminum backed substrate so the backing is aluminum and then they'll they'll glue like a linen onto the aluminum this is just good for like longevity you know there there's actually if you have like a canvas on the traditional wood frames you know what i'm talking about yeah that you see in a hobby lobby or whatever yeah yeah um that that kind of stuff like there's always like tiny vibrations happening in your environment and so over years that kind of like the canvas layers with humidity and all that stuff there's all that that makes sense it's just one of those things man if i'm going to be in the space if i'm going to create these things i want to i want to use the best stuff you know i I want to make these things to last for generations so that people can pass these down for years, years and years. And, uh, so man, yeah, I'm just trying to take ownership of the craft and be the best that I can be, man.

Okay. Well, let's, let's talk about dream projects, right? What's, what's the one project that lurks in the back of your mind that you're just not really at start yet, but you've wanted to.

Gosh, man. Oh, that's a great question. Um, you know, that's a great question. Um, I think it would be really cool to pay, you know, as a kid who got into artwork and who picked up books off shelves and admired the paintings of N.C. Wyeth. And, you know, those those first pictures that inspired your imagination. I think it'd be really fun to get into illustration and illustrate some of those like great classics, you know, if you're a big reader, but I love to read. And I think just kind of like using my brain to create some of these these pictures that that are stories that mean something to me would be really cool to experience. But, man, honestly, I used to say a presidential portrait would be really sick, but I've kind of become cynical of our government, like many people. And, you know, that would be that would be a really cool project for the right person. um right yeah man i i love to paint great stories i would love to paint great stories

that's that's that's awesome and like for you what was the piece where you learned the most

about yourself as you were creating it um that's a that's a good question as well i think like one like this big one this five by five seven foot painting it's massive you know yeah it's a beast of a painting and it took me like two or three months to paint and uh and i had this vision of it there's a lot of old painters that painted like the old biblical stories you know and that like for instance this one like caravaggio would paint like the taking of christ right and jesus is being carried away by all these soldiers but they're wearing like flemish armor like flemish you know modern armor and i'm thinking well i don't want to really paint jesus being carried away by a bunch of police um so wouldn't it be cool if i took some of these stories and kind of like gave it a modern spin to it and and painted like you know david's mighty men from like the old bible stories and so but you know this one story in particular it's about these men who heard their king the desire of his heart was to get water from a well that he drank when he was a kid and so the men hearing the desire of their king bust through the enemy lines grab water from the well and bring it back to their king and the king compares it to like the lifeblood of his men right and he's like dude i i'm not worthy to drink this cup and he pours it out as an offering to god you know and and so for me it's like you know we we've all been given a cup right we all have our cups and we get to choose to drink it selfishly or we can choose to pour it out and and it that's something that i i didn't really think about when i was painting it i just thought it was a cool story and it would be cool to paint a bunch of operators bringing the cup back you know but to it became a challenge to pour out my own cup you know as an offering to to god and and to my brothers and sisters and so yeah man it's one of those things where sometimes the idea and the inspiration comes to you and and the story and its impact comes after you sit with it for a really really long time have you ever i mean also now that i know that's an is that the actual that's not a print that's the actual canvas that's a real painting oh bro like like that is way too risky a hanging position for my life like i'm tripping over something tripping over something

and going straight through that bro i got three kids that are like constantly running a wire fence

or something needs to go around that yeah do you know what i'm saying uh well listen what about um other art styles from the without with the fine art realm right we've seen this huge influx of you know japanese artwork we've seen manga go crazy oh yeah is there ever been any um completely opposite end of the scale art forms that you've ever decided to have a little dabble in or would

like to dabble in oh man yeah i've messed with like the 3d sculpting and stuff on blender and all that i think that's all right wow nothing worth like showing anybody no for sure we talked about a little bit before the show it's like sometimes you feel still like a little kid and your parents you're drawing something on the table and your parents are come looking over the and you're like don't look at it yet it's not done yeah there's a lot of stuff like i don't want want anybody to see yeah for sure i'm actually working on illustrating a kid's book right now and i'm drawing some inspiration from like ghibli and some inspiration from wyeth and all those guys let me just have a look here so um yeah i'm always looking at other artists and and seeing how i can kind of like collaborate with where their head's at and uh create something that's uh unique and part of my own little um artistic portfolio yeah that's gonna look i mean that's gonna be

awesome and like when you're doing the grander pieces and then you're doing more passion-based stuff like you know the children's books and things like this i imagine it's two different parts of your soul that are going into this and one doesn't supersede the other of course but do you oh that was a solid eight out of ten for four on that one yeah he is he is swinging his mallet i'm in it right um it's a different type of passion right and do you have you found a different kind of piece between the two i imagine one with the fine art there's going to be a lot of like scowling and looking really closely at things and doing this a lot right yeah sure do you find when you scale back the the workload so to say that it it's a bit more

freeing with what you can what you can do in the medium yeah you know even something that that really attracts me about oil paint and just the painting medium in general is when i was a kid it was like the closer i could look to photograph the better you know it's like when you see a painting you're like the more that it looks like the thing that i want it to look like the better the art is and uh as i kind of like learn the craft i can appreciate the abstraction more you know i i appreciate when an artist can do more with less oh yeah there's an artist called john singer sergeant man if you look up his portraits that guy can like do a finger and a brushstroke and somehow it works you know right somehow it just freaking nails it and so um yeah there's a part where you're like your analytical brain is like trying to do the thing and make it all look like mathematically correct and then the artistic side of your brain where you just like want to just throw paint at the canvas and and just make the color happen um instinctively but um i i do think that art is a lot more mathematic than most people people know i think i think it was actually michelangelo when he was doing this big statue of david he said something like if people knew the work that i was doing to make this they wouldn't be so impressed right right so it's

one of those things where i just it's fascinating though like the repeating um designs of life and and art when you see just how much duplication and repetition of equations that go into the face or body it's it's mind-blowing right i mean it really is do you think do you think that you've got a gift for like hyper detailed processing in your brain and and i imagine you can also tap into the the seals because i imagine there were some moments there where focus and all of that probably paid off too but do you think that's something that you've got a specialty in yeah that's that's

a good point a fair point i i do think that that is something that i've been gifted with and and you know it's something that's always being refined i think anybody that finds themselves in in a career

or a path you take lessons from whatever job you had in the past and you bring it into the the new job right and so uh part of the thing with art is just being okay with the process being okay with it looking bad for a period it's not going to be perfect as soon as you put that first brushstroke down it's like anytime you draw something um the first hour or two it's going to look like a stick man or just a mushy blob of something but trust the process work through the problems you're gonna get to the you're gonna get to the finish line and that's something that i think just with the seal teams is yeah you go into room clearing um yeah process you know it's you you make initial entry you uh prioritize your chart your threats and then yeah take your way into the next room and it's the same thing it's like i'm painting this section right now i have to do this part of the project and then get the rest of the project yeah don't worry about what it's all going to look like at the end yeah i'm doing this part right now the best that you can

the trust the process mindset trying like carry over is it's quite quite quite impressive just how much that would also people are discussing right how to remarket you as like a navy seal bob ross in the site chat right now okay so if you ever haven't just decided to just have social media we're like good morning everybody it's uh we're going to just experiment with some little trees over here okay that's right see how they work out oh look at that right yeah i'm about it i

might have to pick it up sometime if uh npr or whatever wants to i'm telling you thursday nights paintings um there's 101 wig um no no no no wig but i'm just saying there is there is a million

dollars in free marketing on tiktok for you and selling your prints bro i'm telling you it's wild what opens up new markets and nick let's talk about that let's talk about new markets right because let's cut to the chase here it probably isn't a very cheap process to go hey justin can Can you spend four months painting my massive face on a massive camera? So the, I mean, I imagine the Navy SEAL stuff, the prints will fly off the shelves. Like I imagine the market there for guys going, hey, it must be a point there where people are collecting the Justin prints and things like this. But what's it like trying to find new markets? or have you found things have sustained themselves well and how does it balance up between creating art for people and art for yourself and selling prints where's the the balance with all

ron that's such a challenge for me man i'll tell you right now what like one i don't like social media like like many people it's like a necessary evil that we all seem to be stuck and dealing with and even coming out of the teams i didn't want to do one i was like oh blake blakely my wife like how about you just do it and i'll just like paint in my dungeon and you can grow this whole thing and do whatever you want and so it kind of started out as that and uh and i didn't really know what being out in the public would look like or or how to start my own business or how to sell you know like i said my buddy told me how to make prints um and sell them to to the guys around me and so it's been very organic and uh even going on to sean ryan show it i did the first painting for him and he was like dude did you come on my show i said not really for me man it's not really my thing he's like you're coming on the show and you're doing another painting for me and so you know it's just been very organic just like one thing happens and then another thing and now i'm on your show and there's a canon plus documentary being made and so it's just been very organic it's been really it's actually been a joy to kind of uh experience this and just the support that people have have had either buying prints or commissioning uh custom work um there is always that balance right where it's like i want to paint something because i feel like i have to paint this thing right sometimes you get that thing in you that you're like dude i gotta do this um and then there's also i have to pay the bills right i have three kids i have a wife i have a house mortgage and so you sometimes you got to take the commission or the bigger bigger project to uh to pay the

bills um for sure something else in the future yep for sure how pleased with yourself were you when you figured out that's what your signature was going to be in your art oh dude i was messing

around with that all the time i didn't know how i was going to do it the little trident the signature trying to dial it in and i was like oh don't give me that crap you stood back

from that and went yes this is the one baby this is the one sick that very like runic script

Yeah, I know. You don't have to explain it to me. I can see it. It's freaking badass, okay? Really impressed with that. Thanks, man.

I appreciate it.

Really impressed with that.

I'm not a designer or anything like that. I usually actually struggle with, like, comedy. Not a designer, no.

You're not a highly successful fine artist, okay? Highly successful fine... Don't give us... I'm not a designer, crap, okay? You're a highly, highly successful fine artist, okay? That is so sick. Yeah, thanks, man. It's so sick. and it's it's it's so fits the vibe the warrior the vikinginess the runiness and then you've got the trident in there and it's just it's just so good because it's so again it is so and do you know what it's it's completely your mindset can't just write my name mate can't just write my name and then i can't just have a signature no no it has to encapsulate the entire embodiment of you and it does it's sick dude thanks ron i appreciate it so sick like i i really think it's amazing and i i got it i had to mention it like it's if you've ever designed logos or anything like that for anyone and know how incredible a logo that hits somebody like it's just so on point for them especially as an artist or a crafter it is just it's a beautiful thing

so 10 out of 10 there bro i appreciate it man that's very kind of you i really okay let's let's

let's talk about some shenanigans that you've come up against has there been any moments where you have had the mad artist where you've just like put your fist through the canvas and been like no this i must start again i have failed i have failed yes i've okay this is actually really

crazy um one of the the most simple commissions i've ever gotten okay ron this is like kind of crack maybe even crack you up google the image the pale blue dot is anybody familiar with this this image this telescope went out in space right and it was like a million miles away and the last command they they gave it was like turn around and look at earth and take a picture okay and it's like yeah it's a dot that's earth it's a little dot in this beam of light

that's the kind of oil painting i would be comfortable with starting out i'm not gonna

lie this one right here that painting so somebody wanted me to paint that they made it was a it was a um actually like a satellite dish like a legit company like a space company they wanted to put

it in the in their like did they want all the satellite fuzz and stuff in it did they want it

No, no, no. It was like cool. There's like, they like want to color. It was like, you know, it was a lot cooler. My, my, in my head, in my head. Okay. And, um, and man, so I painted this thing and I started, I was like, I'm going to do the smallest glazes and I'm just going to let these things dry over time and just do one layer after another layer. And I did like 30 or 40 layers, man. And this thing would not dry. It would like, it was impossible to deal with. and it was it was literally a hole in the canvas right throw it in the trash and it took me like three or four months just because it took so long to dry and i had to completely restart and i know it's very simple it's a very simple painting but it was actually the hardest thing that i ever had to do ever so many sticking layers i was trying to do you know it's a very simple picture and i wanted it to be unique and cool and i'll post it on instagram or something yeah for people to see

but like do you ever actually turned out really cool do you ever like have quiet moments with the canvas where you go like full navy seal with it where you're like listen i'm trying to get this painting to work okay and clearly it's your fucking fault canvas all right and i'm just saying you can go from canvas to insurgent real fast canvas okay that's right you're right ron

yeah i have a bullhorn back here and instructor hughes is in my ear like i said quinacronome magenta you know like yelling at myself right do it again totally yeah there's all the time that's too funny in my head constantly too funny um i'm just constantly berating myself and telling myself how bad i am and uh you know yeah well put the push those intrusive thoughts to the back

here keep keep carrying on man like the like the the tooling up scene in commando with arnie but it's just you and a canvas that's it man yeah gotta be done you gotta you gotta let that note go let that medium know so what's what would you say is next for you right do you feel like are you i mean you're doing your kids book right i understand that right but in the grand scheme of justin in the mad dungeon right okay yeah what is the next big nightmare that you know you've got to accomplish in the art world that is niggling away at you man i feel like you want to like take God.

like a block of marble and just use an m4 and just carve it out carve carve it out with an m50 right exactly immaculate go from like a 50 cal all the way down to a 2.2 as you're refining stuff brilliant brilliant but yeah no what's what's the next big like learning curve like thing you want to do within the art world because and again you don't you can you can put like 10 likelihood you're going to do it but is there is there anything that you've always wanted to get your teeth into

man i would love you know marvel marvel sculpture would be really really cool like legit we joke about it but i would love to go to italy and like just study it for a year you know yeah okay um also you know doing like it would be really awesome to get into plein air plein air which is like painting outside you know it's really challenging as well because the light's always changing you're trying to find a competition right there you're subject to the weather and whatever happens is happening around you um so it's almost like you know it's like a dance you're trying to figure out um the the best painting that you can possibly make within that hour or whatever um doing something uh where i can travel and and paint around the world would be freaking so cool nice but at the same time man you know i love painting in my studio i love kind of i have these moments where just this dot comes to me and and i love that and exploring and kind of going onto my computer and researching composition and and drawing out sketches of different characters and trying to create this thing that's in my mind that i have to get out um i love those moments and just trying to create an environment where i can kind of like

you know continue to do that would be fantastic scotland's quite has adopted a rich culture a street art i'm not gonna lie yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna show you one just now this is maybe i need

to make a trip man this is through in glasgow oh yeah that's so cool man how wild is that

and they done i think they done ones for the commonwealth games one year where it was a road wall as you went down a street and then round a corner and it was an illuminated tunnel and as you went into the tunnel it was the side view of all the people swimming and it just looked okay unreal uh but this stuff's incredible and i imagine i imagine this is the crazy equations

just scaled right i don't i don't understand that too because i've i know some guys that do some amazing mural work you know that's the coolest thing about social media man it's like you can find your audience you can find your people really fast it's freaking awesome and i've talked to some of these guys and it is just a different game man things on that scale and look at the detail on that that's what i'm saying you know it's insane um doing a mural would be really really cool too uh at some point yeah of course i feel like you got to have like a team or or right friends there with you that are like hey we're gonna do this together and uh and hope it turns out but oh i

don't know i think the right call could come into you and you could be sat for nine nine to 12

months by yourself i figured it out man i'd figure it out for sure it would just tiny little brush

and you're just like i've got to get the thumb looking right i'm looking right uh it's true though i i get it do you worry right that when you scale up the art you scale up the madness as the as the artist in the obsessive detail and all of it because now i'm realizing that painting behind you massive now i'm imagining your brain and the maths on the side of a building right i

like i want to see it i think we need to see it happen this goes to run this goes to that like idea of abstraction too right like when we stand back this far you see the whole picture right but if you got really close to that right you know and you're standing right there at the where shirt the ripples in the shirt are yep you got a white a grayish blue yeah black you know there's a lot and it's just blended together there's a lot more abstraction right yeah you see the brush strokes and the and the mushiness of the paint mixing together there's a lot more abstraction in that i love that you and i are you gotta be okay with that you gotta be okay with that to a certain

extent i love that you and i are discussing this being done with oil painting oh yeah as if it's not being done with a freaking airbrush do you know what i'm saying probably done with like spray cans for sure we should we shouldn't we should have just let you cost that whole job up yeah yeah right yeah so just do the math right you know how many tubes of oil paint right for a

freaking 90 foot building bro yeah i would probably have to adapt like yeah have you ever make some different paint companies get buck for sure for sure but here's the thing right it could be done in either medium this is the thing i'm just making a you know just making a joke but yeah you know when you do scale up the job and you you scale up the the attention for detail i mean do you feel there's a limit you could go with your oil painting before it's just you're you know either it's too large or the or is it more about the subject matter really in the painting i imagine it's a toss-up between the two right yeah i think

a lot of it is also like what's the best way to tell the story you know what what story are you trying to tell in the piece i wanted these guys to look like they're about to walk out of the you know like they're giving you the cup you know like this is your cup what are you going to do

with it yeah oh bro some of them are freaking freaky that you've done yeah you want somebody

to be right there handy i wanted somebody to be like they're about to take it right and uh and a lot of stories you don't need that right like this like the little body armor you know the kit and stuff i wanted that to be floating um this guy that was a commission right there that's kind of like the response the dude had a he was a company owner he wanted like the leadership role like i'm gonna pour out the cup like i recognize that there are people that i'm an authority over other people and i i'm not the type of dude that wants to just take whatever they give me or their talents and their abilities and just take it for myself you know he's like i want to be uh a humble

servant to those that that is this essentially as leader is this is this the navy seals version

of pouring one out for my homies that's right brother that's right i like it i like it it

should have been a brew right i like it but here's the thing right this painting has got magical moments in it right where you've got the background which looks like a painting it looks like an oil painting or whatever and you slowly come forward into the center and then the freaking cup and the cup and the hand and the arm and this hand are basically 8k photographic like it's really jarring like when you start exploring and you're like whoa the closest point to me is like the closest point to reality and it's just it's a beautiful transition into the high detail into just the incredible oil and then what looks like a big water painting in the background it's like this cascade of the oh it's just a beautiful

abstract you know just trying to that's not the detail that you need to focus on freaking awesome who's the hero in the painting what am I trying to what are you trying to get attention to yeah well that's

another good point what are you trying to get attention

to that's really interesting you got tattoos you collect art you know right well here's the thing i never thought about

what you're trying to bring attention to actually as from the artist and why we've chosen this part here and that part there that's really opened my eyes a little bit more to that because that was the central focus that i imagine inspired the art piece and it is right yeah that's sick

because i mean that is that is freak of nature boring is the important part of it yeah well i

mean that is freaking scary 8k madness right thanks man you should see it in person what

sucks is we're all looking at it on these like tiny screens and stuff you know yeah i hear you world that we live in unfortunately but you know it's also great because you can share with people that otherwise wouldn't get the story you know i feel like we could take three months

of your life here right yeah that's right and do you know like just rolling with my homies like memes right where we just put text on the bottom of them right where it's just like average day in

the south or something like that right you know what i'm saying uh-huh too good too good three

boys heading back from the beard barber do you know what i mean it's it's but it's so good like it's so good and like again there's moments where i just feel like i'm looking into that moment like i feel like i'm some like up here i'm like oh this is a really intricate painting and then i get down here and i'm like right am i about to walk into this grass like yeah yeah

right right thanks it's just amazing bro thanks run hey man if you're ever in charleston south carolina look me reach out and i'll show you the the thing in person that would be sick bro come on over man come over yeah let's do some bob ross work together we'll we'll do some paintings

i could i honestly i'll get a perm right and then i'll have the hair for the two of us let's do it yeah let's do it oh yeah oh yeah i like it we're going for some barbecue is what we're doing the first thing we're doing bro i'll tell you that right now we got okay so here we go oil on copper right now obviously the fact that this is a badass scene where i imagine a lot of copper was used in shields right and the fact that it's on copper it makes it feel doubly badass to me for some reason

it's like the shield you know there's like fields the the painting itself is on copper yeah this one's like super imaginative this was like the first time that i the guy said i want the peloponnesian battle i want the athenians and kind of like the spartans and i want like this pressure i want to feel the pressure he was kind of talking about this period in his life where everybody's trying to get him to quit and and so he really resonated with like you know the spartan culture of the discipline but also the luxury of athenians and so he's like i want to feel that pressure um in the painting and and so i was like i got you man and so i started drawing it and it kind of came it came together really well but i it was my first painting of like really exploring imaginative realism you know trying to like do something that doesn't exist and paint it to look like like somebody snapped a shot from from the

war i like i i resonate with this guy who was smart enough to bring like a milk crate with him to stand on and just like launch his spear and he's like aha this guy's actually five foot two

right that's right he's doing the he's doing the hop he's getting the milk crate out bro he's he's

got two big roman milk crates just duct taped to his feet not roman but spartan milk crates just duct taped on his sandals bro do you remember do you remember a short ride from uh indiana jones with the little boxes on his shoes. That's this guy. Nobody knows. Nobody knows that's what's painted behind here, Justin. That's right. Not until today. I had to paint that out. It's so sick. It's so sick. Do you know what I feel like? I feel like you could encapsulate that moment. You know the moment in the movie 300 where all the arrows are coming in?

That's right, yeah.

I feel like you could lose your mind painting all those arrows. I'm just telling you now, bro.

I'm painting those arrows.

I like to think you're going to pause the movie and count them beforehand, right?

It ain't happening anymore.

oh it's gonna for me not for me you just wait now i've got more reasons to become a eccentric

millionaire right just so i can there's some crazy others out there though that are painting like tigers and lions and painting every stinking hair on the thing you know i i don't have i don't

have the patience for it we need we need to talk about this one too this do you know what this looks like this looks like a slightly it looks like a like a like a still from like an up and upcoming call of duty game right where they've got the hyper realism nailed but then there's like this red light in and where you've got his face it's kind of like just as the title sequence about to come in and it's going a little like glitchy or whatever it's so sick so i've been doing all

these dark paintings and i was so tired of painting with red and black you know i just got if you get like zoomed in you can see there's a ton of color in this painting like almost like that chromatic abbreviation they call it you know what i'm talking about where it's like blue on the yeah yeah that's what if that's what i'm saying non-colors in this that's what i'm saying close

it's pretty dope i do to be honest i can't stop looking at this this tiny shoulder of yeah dude

when i painted the the camo pattern like nailed it oh and the stitching in the belt oh yeah you've

you've you've got a special kind of tism that just hasn't been discovered yet bro what kind of autism do you have the type where i just oil realism ron are you like me where like you can

get locked in with something like in charleston dude we have like shark teeth you know and i'll like i call it like sharktism man i just get locked in on finding shark teeth i'm like can't

can't check out yeah that is another sick one he looks like he is full of himself and having the

bestie i just want to point out do you know what i'm saying this one was inspired by so i i was liking the statue stuff right yeah one of the statues that i really liked was the statue of david by uh bernini this artist the sculptor named bernini and he painted he sculpted this uh statue of david and he's like twisting you know yeah like has this really cool posture and it's sure and in the bible he says david ran towards goliath and i that was kind of like the thought behind this piece it's like i wanted to capture that moment before a guy goes through a door you know it's that confidence like you have eventually you have all the things that you need

you just need to make entry you got you got all the i could argue this is exactly how every man who is in the service who's just been told that he's got extra days of leave he can take now but has to maintain a professional posture and walk away from that officer would look exactly like

this also i need you to write the captions for me i'm just saying he is he's having the best day

okay i don't care what i mean it might be a door he's going through but it's got some whatever is on the other side he is good he's ready so good it's such a good energy but yeah okay okay yeah also badass going through a door i would take that too now yeah yeah thanks man yeah i'm all like

i'm all like philosophical and like so good like no this dude just needs to oh i've got

I've got another question. question for you what part of the like looking at this what part do you that guy's got tattoos like what do you dread most about the human like is it the hands is it the beards like what's the

big the hands the hands is the face i can do the face no problem i think now like any portrait i've gotten the point well i've gotten the point in my craft where i feel like i can do pretty much anything but every time i have to paint hands i'm like dude i'm gonna mess your knuckles up you think they're going to look wonky and that comes back to that whole thing you know again trust oh yeah go through the motions just stick to it it'll work itself out

do you feel like you should just have to paint this camel once and then get a paint that just

come like applies itself because this looks brain rot you know mindless like i'm so sick

and tired of painting tiny square it's so good though it's so good well thank you we have these

t-shirts that we wear you know and they're not camouflage patterns so any chance i get to paint something where i was gonna ask camo i try not to make a camo yeah that's so sick

oh yeah i mean i would have cut this guy off way up at the top of his head like he didn't i don't

need to see these legs i mean maybe maybe i'm showing off a little bit i don't know oh no this

is this is you're proving a point two legs you could have them stood with like one leg right that's right yeah you've got to prove a point man it's so good i enjoy the thing man so this this i imagine right is something that rests in all of the navy seals hearts right yeah right what do you

call that a fun weekend with the boys is that called man chilling on the surf with the homies just six of my best homies and our favorite tree i was just going to say rolling some trees with

the boys down at the beach right 100 100 so what do they call it hell week i mean it's there's there's a lot of names for it right but yeah take take us through your connection with what we're

seeing okay so this is log pt is one of those brutal things that get a lot of guys to quit i'd say probably like log pt and uh boats on heads it's where you run around with these big old inflatable heads you know and hell week is just a solid week of this type of activity and believe it or not this is actually like one of the easier things to do i think they're doing like sit-ups you know but is that because it's on your stomach is that because of how many points there

is in the equation of what you're doing sat in the water holding a log don't drown well yeah i mean the water is shallow oh no i'm not saying it's easy but in the mind of a warrior are you just going well this this is this task's only got three things i just gotta stay afloat hold log

don't drown yeah that's it man and the waves kind of push you forward so when you sit up it's like

i get a little boost you get so you're getting in a time and no and it's so and then we're not in no way are we trivializing this but it's interesting when people say you know i breathed through this part but this is the part that took out 90 percent of the people and i often wonder if it's accepting the algorithm of your situation and then making it work for you like you say the waves pushing you forward using that and you lock into that repetition right that's right yeah that's

right and you're and you know you're not seeing the hour and a half of these guys carrying this log up and down berms or pushing it over their head for you know 20 minutes straight before this this is this is when the when the dude's arms are so smoked that they can't lift the log up anymore like they'll lay down in the ocean with it and roll up and down till they can't do that anymore so you know this is actually an interesting reprieve from the the torture that was happening earlier um but then you got a nice cold uh pacific ocean the splash in water is bonkers thanks dude i got so tired of this one um i don't even at least with a face you can go right

nose i understand that yeah where do you like were you you must have just been doing some stupid stuff to try and capture some splashes like what do you google like artist google rendition of

splash no man so all i try we can nerd out on the little bit so i try to find like the local color like what is the main color that i'm looking at so like let's take this big wave that's coming off this guy's shoulder for instance like i'll just paint that in right so like maybe that's a neutral like gray blue chunk right yeah i'll paint in the chunk that's right yeah okay what's the darkest color that i see and i'll find that and i'll be like where do i see it i'll just paint i'll find that color paint that color in in all the places and i'm like okay now what's the you know next brightest color and so i just kind of build the layer and layer and then at the very end the the tasty treat the cherry that i

for is like the whitest whites you know when you put those white drops on the on the like the chef's kids i have to save that for myself like at the very end i was going to say

there's a it's like i remember being like seven years old right and making sure that like there was an order to eat in my mcdonald's right you gotta have the fries in the burger right

so you're saving your little i've just saved the sauce just enough for the last chicken nugget you

just so you know i like to think that in the more and in my head this was a photograph right and you've painted the photograph so moments before this luckily you didn't see the guy at the end throwing up gang signs and luckily the wave covered that right he was later if he was evicted he was there for tiktok or something like that but luckily your photograph was covered by the wave that's right it's so good and i tell you what this this is this this this section here is like freak of nature stuff like what and again and again it's one thing because obviously when you're like i'm going to paint the i'm going to paint the sea you're just like i'm i'm an eight-year-old when it's painted so i'm just thinking blues but there's it's so much gray and then you've got the reflections it's awesome i mean it's just awesome appreciate

it man and that this is sean ryan yeah man the man he's a good guy yeah one of the joys of doing this and like with my background is i've gotten to paint uh portraits and and stuff guys have you know deployment photos or whatever from different squadrons and so good and they and they want something that they can pass down to their kids and so having having stuff of course is real and and is important and handmade by a fellow teammate um it's been awesome man to paint some of these these warriors and yeah for sure but yeah this is so this one says it's on belgian linen right yeah that's a that's a fancy word for canvas okay like a specific kind of canvas you know to doll it up you know but it's so good i mean they're they're they're they're all amazing right oh thanks man yeah he's a sean is a great guy i mean one of the first dudes that you know uh trusted me to to paint this this big and um they're still in the studio every episode you watch they're right behind him yeah you know he calls me he calls me and he's like man every time there's a tornado i'm just like freak out and i run down to the studio because i want to protect you want to make sure yeah make sure the paintings are everything else can go but the paintings have to survive you know yeah yeah he's a great guy that's wicked man yeah these cool

photos yeah man the sniper this guy's having the best time that's it man like he he is having the

best time yeah we were trying to decide what to name it and it was like it should be grab assery you know because this is just dudes this is what happens in the sniper ride when you've been up there too long you know it's just start it's like one of those memes where it's like day one of the

sniper den and it's like cuts to day 200 and everyone's dressed as clowns and sticks together it's too good but i mean but here's the thing right your inside knowledge of these moments is what makes it so wonderful right because if if this was somebody who'd never served who was trying to create an artist rendition or something they'd heard it loses the respectful magic that comes with you probably knowing smiley at some point here do you know what i'm saying or him being inspired by someone do you know what i'm saying right yeah and that's what those moments that are respectfully emulated right by someone like yourself is why this is just so magical

right right it's like it's amazing knowing the thing about the thing right right being involved in that part of your life right if i write a story about you know whaling um and i've never been whaling like who right it doesn't have the gravitas yeah but yeah yeah but he would have

but you get that extra layer because it's armed forces do you see what i'm saying that's right you get that extra layer of it because like you probably yeah it's just it's just great like it's just and i'm not somebody that steers at a lot of art but this is another one that's That's freaking awesome, too. Oh, thank you.

The old UDT guys, that's an explosive pack. Back in the inception of the SEALs, the old guys, they'd swim, you know, on the beaches and then blow up these big obstacles so that people could storm the beaches. That's kind of how the SEAL teams got there.

So this is the throwback to...

Yeah, this is like an old throwback.

That is so sick.

Thanks, man.

So this is the history of where it all began with the SEALs.

that's right yeah i was actually gonna do a bunch of these you should definitely do a but because

that no i'm never gonna see that anywhere i'm not gonna see any of that anywhere that is super interesting oh man if only it didn't take four months to do one of these bro like if you could just whip up a bunch of these these would be it's they're so sick i will i will how about that i'll

i'll do a couple more i i fully intended do i did this like a couple years ago and i did it for a charity event um for you know auction and um i was like oh i love doing this i'm gonna do this again it's so cool i got busy well you gotta remember as well showing the public

things we're not meant to or we could never see right right in in an artistic form that's magic

in itself too oh that's an interesting point yeah ron do you know what i'm saying because

you've got to understand how desensitized to how fucking cool it is to be a Navy SEAL. You and all the other Navy SEALs are like, oh, it's just a normal job. Shut up. Driving an Uber is a normal job. That's a normal job, mate. I'm just saying. So desensitized to how cool it is.

It's funny because I was talking to somebody the other day about their father was like, or their grandfather was uh fought in world war ii and they're like yeah he never really talked about it i'm like of course because all of his friends were also in world war ii yeah you know everybody was in world war ii nobody cared you know well that's another thing it's kind of one of the things like yeah my friends are team guys so i don't i don't you know it's not plus i mean who really wants and

i'm not that cool one you know i'm just another one yeah oh here we go listen listen but i'm painting cool pictures i i know i it's but you gotta understand seeing moments like that having like there's going to be stories that no one can know about right right but encapsulate in moments where everyone knows what they're looking at but nobody can talk about it but you're not breaking any ndas there's something in there bro there's there's like a lend there's a legendary collection for you to create that only can you how marketable that would be is your wife watching she'd owe your marketing like market that at all of the global special services okay like the the elite forces as things that only they'd get right there's something in there bro yeah like there's definitely something in there but what fascinating work what fascinating career and life bro i mean it really is just amazing also that skull where we all agreed in the side chat that that's again appreciate it man 8k madness well look what's next for you what can people expect we know your

website we've got your instagram all your links yeah man uh i'm just painting man and i'm grinding that grinding at paintings dude i'm loving every day that i can do it man so uh you know it's like you you're telling stories you're having great conversations and loving it you know and and i'm just grateful to be where i'm at i started this five six years ago and i still feel like i'm a guy and and dude i'm just getting into it i'm just starting and i'm excited to see where it goes hey

man like like i just want to know you know if your signature was a car i would be trying to figure

out how i could steal that car dude all right that's very cool like it's so cool it's so have

you wear something someday it might be worse oh nah it's so sick like of all the art you've done like people put so little attention into the legacy that is their stamp brand right well i wanted

people to be able to collect you know i want i want people when they buy my paintings to see that signature and be like that's it you know this is the proof and so you got to kind of like

there's some branding it's so good you nailed it and it just oh everything you've done it just work everything just works so well you you've nailed it thanks ron i appreciate it man well listen it's been a pleasure man it's been really fun talking to you ron i appreciate you having me

we could honestly nerd out over i would honestly yeah talk shop i know we were talking about some music and stuff earlier for sure and talk again that would be great brother it really would and

listen anyone that's interested i'm live over on my channel in about 20 minutes we're going to listen to some of ron's new music we're going to talk about the album that's coming out at the end of this week i will put the link in the into the side chat just now feel free to come and join us it's always a good time on a friday over on ron's channel so thank you justin honestly and all the best to you and your family and for whatever you guys have got coming up next i just i wish you nothing but success bro it's just amazing thank you i appreciate it well listen thank you and thank you to the mod thank you to the adams the sean atwood channel we'll see you in the next one Peace.