Meet Malev Da Shinobi

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Malev Da Shinobi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Malev below.

Malev, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

I haven’t really. Imposter syndrome to me is not something that I feel instinctually. It’s something that has been learned, or imprinted. Not from other people who consider themselves imposters, but from a generational angle, a zeitgeist spirit that suggests people actually have mastered this life thing. Undoubtedly there are experts in many fields and crafts, whether they be recognized for it or not. Imposter syndrome for me is more about the learning, and the self-imposed restrictions we place on ourselves when we branch out and try new things. We don’t afford ourselves the grave we deserve sometimes, and not always on purpose. But by carrying the voice and thoughts of others in our minds. “What will so and so think?” “What if I fail and so and so calls me out?” There is a lot of things we have to unlearn in life, and being scared of being wrong, of getting it wrong shouldn’t be one of those things. I embrace feeling like an imposter by submerging myself in the empty space of my ignorance. Once I accept I am there, becoming a student of life and wanting nothing more but to fill that ignorant space with context and knowledge gives me the confidence needed to surpass. Being confident that I don’t know something is the first step changing the outcome.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

As I reflect now it’s no surprise that I have been really affected by my child hood. I have siblings, but they’re much older than me. That lead to a lot of time by myself with toys, and other things to explore my imagination. I’ve learned recently that not every one has a visual brain, and some can’t even visualize or see images in their head! Thinking back on my life, I am certainly not that way. I was diagnosed with OCD a few years ago, and it has put a lot of my childhood into perspective. My brain has been honed and sharpened in very particular ways that only now I am starting to use with effectiveness.

My imagination, my time spent alone, the way that I explore creativity. From early on I knew that I wanted to be a conceptual artist. Create cool characters, create cool things that inspire people. I didn’t realize then that I was being inspired. I just really liked those things. I really like games, really like game art, I really like fantasy worlds and exploration, I really like toys, action figures and little things that allow you to explore different worlds through just your hands. All of that creativity I absorbed. All of the things that I enjoy and like, I have never really let go of. I am still a little kid at heart, and in mind . During High school, I stopped drawing, and effectively replaced that craft with writing. I found that I was much better at painting a picture with words than I was with drawing. Trying to draw is a really good way to learn you don’t actually know what anything looks like. The progress at which I felt like I was improving at writing was really enticing. I remember my creative writing teacher said something in the early class days “There are something that you will be afraid to write.” And that bounced off my ignorant brain. “Scared to write? How can you be scared to write?”

Well I’ve written a lot since then. I started with effectively slam poetry, and my interest in hip hop growing up (thanks to ATCQ Midnight marauders album.) lead me to begun to write raps after finding free beats online. I then heard of a open mic that was allowing people 1 hour to record their material at a non-profit after school organization called ‘Spyhop’, that’s where I got my first bit of experience in a recording booth and since then it has been over a decade of song writing, collaborations and small stage performances. I also now had the pleasure of being a teacher for young aspiring artists at Spyhop itself. For a time I tried to make music my fulltime job, but ended up working at a few offices in different industries for a time. And while I think that I excel at certain task, working in an office environment isn’t one of them.

In 2015, I quit my corporate job and started to focus on my own craft again as a commission painter for private collectors. While doing everything else I just described, on the side I never stopped playing games and importantly collecting miniatures for games, that game primarily being Warhammer 40k, a Games Workshop IP.

Painting miniatures was something that I was getting good as a hobby. And unbeknownst to me at the time my OCD was serving me in hidden ways with my art and craft. In simple, my attention to detail, and the things that I even think to consider are not always present in my peers. I make connections, and design things with logics and understandings that I only understand and prescribe meaning too. After painting for a few private clients, and growing my Instagram page @Malev_minis I found my dear friend, mentor and creative partner Sean Sutter through his Relicblade project on Kickstarter.

I was so inspired that it changed the trajectory of my life. Being exposed to a single powerful artist unlocked a lot of desire in me to do similar. I now paint primarily for small companies. Painting the box art for their products, or the miniatures that they will use in photography. Since being introduced to Relicblade, I have been lucky enough to embed myself in it’s legacy and leave an indelible mark on it, and the many people that engage with it. By following my heart, I have been given much love.

Now I design my own miniatures games, and I quite literally cannot stop. I am doing so many things now the interconnectedness of every one of them is difficult to unravel. I am simultaneously submerged in several different worlds at once, and at any given moment of the day I am jumping from task to task that may appear completely unrelated. But it’s all part of something larger.

When I make music, my aim is to be with and among you during most personal and intimate moments. That is where I want our creative connection to meet, and for you to be inspired. When I realized I can spend so much more time with people with my games, than I could with my music a major shift occurred for me, and my aim is to have my art, have my creativity spend as much time with you and yours as possible. The interactions intertwining to create beautiful moments that only you get to experience, but you do so among my art and in that way my love can live in your memory.

That is all that I am here for.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I think my most important quality is that I am very introspective. At times it can be harmful, but in terms of providing me the foundation to understand things my ability to think about ‘how I would feel’ allows me borderline crippling powers of empathy. I really care.

Honesty is another that I focus on. There are times when I do not speak when later, I realize that I should. I make mistakes in communication a lot, but one thing I do not stray from is being honest about how I feel and think. And lately, I am not even lying to myself anymore.

My acceptance of my mistakes, and my willingness to correct wrongdoings. It is no lie for me to write that I know that I undertake no tasks with error, or ill intention in mind. When I hurt people, I am very sensitive to that and quickly try not only to make amends, but understand intrinsically how I made the mistake. If self determination can manifest anything, then I am determined to be a being of good, help, and love. That is why I am here.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

I think in a word, it would be ‘purpose’. Which I suppose isn’t really that original of an answer. But times are strange. And I make games, that people with only the luxury of time, space, comfort and space can really afford. This year has brought me the most painful lessons of my life thus far. Through loss, change, heartbreak, in addition to the endless storm of world events I am “quite shook”.

Through the pain, why and where it comes from I have tried to place myself there, to understand. “People think the warrior is brave, when in fact the warrior is intimate with their fear.” That quote is how I feel and think about these sort of things. If I am to feel pain, I understand that on a level, I am having the human experience, and my self opposed duty as an artist is to transform that which I go through and create with my hands, something that I can give to you. That is really the only thing that makes sense to me. I am an explorer of the soul, and I am to report what I find.

In the face of global wars, disasters and devastation I seek to find out how I can be a force for good. What can I give back, if I cannot do anything about those larger problems? I seek to find out.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Painting: https://www.instagram.com/malev_minis/ Music: https://www.instagram.com/malev_da_shinobi/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/malevminis/
• Twitter: https://x.com/MalevMinis
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/malevmc
• Other: My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/malev
  Where you can get my self published games: https://malev-da-shinobi.itch.io/
  Where you can get my published games: https://blacksitestudio.com/pages/demonship