31 January 2013

quote of today

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

"Sometimes we do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions not answers."

John Le Carre (1931 - ), Magnus Pym in "A Perfect Spy"

Musica

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Old Commander Shepard

posted by roman, jarhead, kong




 "You can fight like a Krogan, run like a leopard
 - but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard!"


Once I really fell in love with this bust, sculpted by Romain van den Bogeart.
It seems like I am falling in love with all of his sculpts. This guy is so amazing when it comes to skill and creativity. The bust I am talking about is Saergent Corwinn, distributed by the jungle friends over at Wonderlands Projects.

I had some lack of motivation during the process, back in 2012 when I started the bust. That is normal, I learned that and I learned not to put pressure on myself. I just had to wait for the right moment to come - they come once in a while and I learned to enjoy them too. Meanwhile, during this waiting time the work at the bust stood still, without any progress. I encountered many different experiences during the last year, some good, some bad, while the bust was waiting for its day to come.

I got inspired to work at the bust again while I enjoyed playing the computer game "Mass Effect 3". Honestly I did start with part 2 of the game, but was soon mad about the time consuming way to get ressources on different planets there and switched over to ME3. Dude, I enjoyed that game, the athomsphere and the story. There are not many games out there that have such an intense story that puts you as the player in a fully emotional movie (and I even heard that playing all 3 parts is much better!). Ok, talking about games wasn't my main intention of this blog post, so let's get to the point of no return with some explanation: The main character of the game is the ultimate hero of the universe and he saves earth and all species over and over again from darkness the galaxy throws at him. He is unique, brave, a great warrior and a foe you do not wish for if you are an evil alien species. Commander Shepard. My ultimate Science Fiction Hero. Do you know him too?

If you don't know about Commander Shepard let this song help you to get a picture of him:



Ok, now. Let's get to the point. In my vision/portrait of this bust you can see an old version of Commander Shepard. He has already saved the galaxy in twenty-seven additional wars and is growing older. In my portait he is at the age of 69, a worn out warrior, unstoppable in battle and bored if he is not in action. I hope you like him!


Old Commander Shepard
Wonderlands Projects
bust size 55 mm










I truly had to paint this bust, no matter what and I was very motivated in the start. I had no idea where it would take me but I started right away after recieving it, somehwhere back in 2012. I explained in the text above that I had some lack of motivation and I apologize for not being truly able to write an article on him. I just failed on this again.

Some weird WIP shots for you from the early progress:




And one photo how the bust looks in the cabinet,
done with lightning by the camera.

 
Let me know what you think about this old Warrior?
Thanks to Romain for such a great sculpt!  
Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

30 January 2013

BANANALICIOUS Painting Contest - Prize Pool Update!

posted by roman, jarhead, kong



Hello fellow painters,

the final date for your entry is closing in ... soon!
Beware the contest ends on February 15th 2013!!

The number of entries is daily increasing, right now we have 34 entries to all categories.
That means there are already a lot of figures, because of teh display rules of the Fantasy category and the Historical category. 34! We are looking forward to much more as we got 56 positions of prizes right now that will be handed out. 56 without the medals you can earn! So take your brush and all your energies and bring your entry on. Right now, we can garantue that every participant is able to win something!!

On the subject of winning something I got brand new bananalicious news for you out there!

A big thanks to Sockelmacher.de for two special prizes.
Some cool sockets for the "Best Fantasy Display" and the "Best Historical Display".



Two positions added also to the Random Prize Pool.
You might remember Wonderlands Projects succesful Indigogo campaign about "demons". We got 2 brand new Blood Demons for you out there! Thanks to Wonderlands Projects!


If these ain't good news, I never heard some other before!
Now grab your brush and some fine music - get it on!


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Many thanks for all the help of our sponsors:



GAU 54 mm Minis
Tuffskull Painting
Masquerade Mini 
North Star Models


Special thanks for support to:


Tim
  
 
UPDATE SOON!
 

Ebay - Skink Hero and Female Predator

posted by roman, jarhead, kong









Aye!

Two Miniatures are jumping ebay tonight. 
The latest painted Skink Hero and the Female Predator are on sale!

Take a look and make one of them yours!

29 January 2013

Kazan - Eye of the Tiger and Stickers!

Posted by Raffaele "Picster" Picca

Hey everyone,

finally I managed to finished another bust. The sculpt was finished quite some time ago, but somehow I couldn't manage to finish the promotional paintjob.



Kazan - Eye of the Tiger

A resin copy of this bust can now be purchased at Forged Monkey.

Now to the announcement of the winner of the Sticker Set!
Some days ago I asked for a name for my next bust. Thanks for the massive feedback! I read through all of them and I liked "Knucklehead" most. "FlavianFlint", please write your postal adress to "PICSTER (AT) MASSIVEVOODOO (DOT) COM" to receive the stickers! And here's the baked version of this bust:

Knucklehead

He will be released soon at Forged Monkey! Stay tuned for more sculpt coming soon!

Peace!
Raffa

WAMP Award - Banana Colour for the Monkeys!

Hi Di Ho!

Just a quick shout out through the whole Jungle:

Massive Voodoo has won the WAMP Award 2012 for the Best Blog!

Congratulations and many thanks also to our Friends Volomir and Arbal for their blogs...:)...
Edit by Roman: ... not to forget Ben's Best Painted Fantasy Banana colour!



Tribe Chief Morrow

Posted by Raffaele "Picster" Picca

Hey everyone,

another sculpt in progress, right from my table in the studio.
Sculpting is so much fun again at the moment! :)


And some nice tunes for this rainy day.

Peace!
Raffa

Tutorial - True Material Damage

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Another article jumps the jungle. 
We are slowly reaching 200 articles in our article section.
Massive Voodoo once was a place where articles, Work in Progress shots and helpful information for other figure lovers were provided. I know it still is, but somehow the last months of 2012 didn't feel right at all. Less articles, more music and even more music. I told you for 2013 that the blog will find a way back to its roots. So here you go!

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This article is about True Material Damage.
Great describtion, I think, but I have a smile on my face because of it. It sounds so ultra professional, but in the end it is just something simple and easy. I even guess many of you outthere already know it and did it for several time.

Let's start step by step. 
I did start a SciFi bust last year, Saergent Corwinn by Wonderlands Project, sculpted by ultratalented Romain van den Bogeart. A really awesome bust that I really enjoyed working on.
Right now I want to write something about its early preparation and my thoughts.

I wanted to create a really messed up character, one who has seen many fights on dark space ship hangars or worlds of the Outer Rim. I was aware already from the start that I want to make his armour damaged.

I had 2 options:

1) painting the damage freehand
2) damaging the resin of the figure before painting

I choose a mix of both, but in this article I only want to talk about option 2). This technique works great on plastic or resin figures. It works on white metal models too, but the material is not that soft so more muscle is needed. I took my drill to bring in damage to the resin of the bust while assembling it:

 I did not put the damage randomly. I thought about what has happened at the areas, for example a blast from a multi-las-shotgun, the character fell, scratched his armour while sliding into cover and so on ... imaginiation never ends here. I checked back on the armour and my plan was to bring most of the true material damage to the edges of the armour and only some at the areas themselves.


Next step was using the drill and a Hobby Knife to bring in the damage. Check for the Edges and do it carefully. I also recommend wearing protection glasses when doing it with white metal as sharp parts can fly into your eyes and damage them. I recommend doing so even you only work this way with resin.


I did this to all parts of the armour. 
Before I primed the figure I cleaned it from all the lints and primed it. Before I'll go further in the article I want to make a little trip to some light theory and why I did put the damage inside the material. I could have painted it all. Sometimes I see figures with damage painted on them, a lot of them are great but some are just ... uhm, snarly. On those you find damage painted like a black line with a white line beneath, somewhere in the middle of an area, like a cut and more of those cuts randomly placed just to paint damage. We described this kind of technique in our Weathering Overview too:

An overview about Weathering, including theory and practical use.

In the end it is important to know why you paint damage to a place. What caused that damage. After this is clear you should understand why to paint a dark area with a bright line under it. It's not just pure randomnes. You can understand it if you keep your eyes open in nature and you can train it by the use of true material damage. It goes hand in hand with the light situation you want to paint on your figure, for example the easiest one, zenithal light:

A guide that shows you how you can bring your miniature into a good light situation.

Recently I was at my local post office and there is a column that explains pretty well the theory behind the black and white line thing. If the light from above hits a hole or a crack it will change the area of the hole/crack. I show you the photo now, followed by words of explanation:


As you can see at this example mostly the lower parts of the edges of the cracks are hit strong by light. This we already know from many painting tutorials and we saw it already on many figures, but why is that so?
Imagine light wanders there from its source. It wanders the area of the column, suddenly there is a hole where the light goes inside before traveling on. I tried to show this in a graphic that makes my words hopefully more visible, check A right now:


 The lower edge will get most of the light. It is good to paint it as a sharp edge highlight. On B you can see the area in a different angle to the light. The light has more room to go inside, so a bigger area will be brighter. It even touches the upper edge of the crack. I hope this shows what I mean. You can already spot it when the figure is primed, some gentle shadows at the crack areas, some gentle lights on cracks bottom. It depends on how you prime. I did prime with black and white like described in this article and did put up one or two blast from white primer straight from above - to have a gentle sketch on my zenithal light:


 
In my eyes you can do the damage too with only painting it freehand, but it is easier to paint when it is done as true material damage. It is easier to understand when you can work with the material's volumes and if you do understand the "why" you will get the "how to" easily while painting. You will understand why all this theory goes hand in hand with other theory only by the act of painting.



If you try to question the painting you do you will grow. You will master difficult areas, difficult angles and difficult light situations. It is all about training. I hope my thoughts were easy to understand and be sure I still see some mistakes in my photos above when it comes to check back on my own theory.

By the way you can win one of these cool Wonderland Project busts in our Bananalicious Painting Contest - don't miss your chance!

Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

PS: Bust is not that big as you might think from the photos ...