Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Scott Cherry. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Scott , thanks for joining us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

Being an artist is a “regular job.” You still have to sweep up and take out the trash. You have to handle shipping and receiving, keep records, maintain a website, do marketing, and answer emails—you get the picture.

It’s not all about flitting around the studio in a smock, working on your latest abstract masterpiece.

I’ve worked dozens of “regular jobs.”

You see, I quit community college because I hated the art program there.

Well… that, and I got three D’s and an F on my report card—my worst ever.

The new plan was to work a regular job while teaching myself art at night.

I always came home to do some sort of art every night and on weekends.

I was sure I’d become a famous artist with this plan.

But instead of becoming a famous artist, I just drifted from job to job, working at night on artwork that I never even showed anyone.

There weren’t a lot of opportunities for a “fine artist” in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Over time, I eventually learned to leverage my artwork into a living.

But, am I happy being an artist?

That is the question…

Well, it’s a good question, and I ask myself the same thing all the time.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Scott Cherry. My chosen medium of art is action figures and toys.

Barbarian Rage is my line of dark fantasy toys.

Through years of experience as a toy maker, I have created thousands of toys of different scales, themes, and materials.

Now, I have developed my own line of toys—something new with a nostalgic feel.

Evil wizards, ghouls, demons, and barbarians, of course.

Barbarian Rage is sort of like a death metal version of He-Man.

The toys are hand-sculpted by me, cast into soft vinyl, and hand-painted. I also create the packaging art and even the soft goods. Everything is made by me.

You can see this in my last release, “NecroVenger.” I designed it, sculpted it, and developed the paint applications. I even painted a portrait of him for the packaging.

This was my most involved project to date, and I am proud to share the oblivion of designer toy collecting with you.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I was a lowlife drunk.

During a week-long bender, one afternoon I woke up three hours late for my job as an artist at a fishing reel factory.

You see, my search for a meaningful art job had landed me in this disgusting factory.

I worked out of a small storage closet.

This is where I hand-painted scales on fishing reels for 10 hours a day.

It would have been a nice place to work if it weren’t for all the dreadful reptilians who worked there and the long line of white-collar criminals who had previously owned the place.

I hate fishing. I hated painting fish scales. I hated fishing reels.

But hey, they loved me! And they would never fire me. I was their #1 Fish Scaler!

So, I arrived three hours late one day—just in time for my lunch break. I was still drunk.

But I didn’t get in trouble. No one even said anything to me. They just let me do whatever I wanted. Like I said, they loved me.

I thought to myself, *This is no life as an artist. If I am to do something with my life, I have to be accountable for it.*

It seems easy enough to come to that conclusion, but for a lousy drunk, it takes a while to connect the dots.

My first thought was: *Okay then, how do I free myself from the shackles of this goddamned job? How can I break out of this storage closet?*

I decided that the previous night was my last drink.

Making toys seemed to follow my newfound sobriety pretty quickly.

After I made my first toy, I knew that was my calling in life.

A series of events unfolded—what seemed like divine intervention.

A year later, I had left that dingy factory to make toys full-time.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I used to work with this guy.

He was always slacking off on his phone.

The guy never got much done. He put more effort into slacking off than into the job itself.

He was a professional slacker.

After getting caught on Instagram one too many times on the clock, he was fired.

Soon after, I left that job to make toys.

We had become friends over the years, and one day we were out walking our dogs.

I told him that I had sold some stuff over Facebook, but I wasn’t satisfied.

He was like,

“Dude, I’ve been telling you to get on Instagram! If I can get 10,000 followers for my dog, we can get 10,000 followers for your toys!”

He went on to tell me how he turned his dog’s Instagram page into a paying gig.

When I asked him how he knew how to do this, he said he learned it by slacking off at our last job.

He would come over, and we would be on Instagram for hours a day. He taught me everything he knew.

Now it had become my full-time job to get followers on Instagram.

After my first 3,000 followers, I thought I was unstoppable.

But then we met this Russian kid who sold yoga pants on Instagram.

He showed us an entire network of yoga accounts and how they all funneled back to his Yoga Pants website.

Then he took us inside and showed us this secret robot from an offshore server that automated all the yoga accounts—massive accounts, too, with real followers and real sales.

This was some next-level shit. It was like the Batcomputer of Yoga Pants.

The Russian kid was tight-lipped on a lot of his secrets, but we employed some of his tactics.

Some of it worked. I think some of it was a red herring.

Then one day, he just vanished.

Instagram was still in its infancy back then, so it was a completely different strategy.

What worked then won’t work now.

So my advice would be: *Slack off at your job as hard as possible.*

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.barbarianrage.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbarian_rage/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-cherry-toy-artist
• Other: Join my Designer Toy Newsletter Mailing List Here:
  https://www.barbarianrage.com