28 February 2013

Musica

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Old Memories - Part 1!

Posted by Matt Cexwish

Hi Di Ho!

So, after a long time I finally found some peace to sit down with Ben, Mikkel and Tue (who are visiting the Northern Part of the Jungle known as Berlin after coming back from the Painting Crusade in Brussels...^-^...) and practice  sculpting on my "Old Memories" Project... 

Luckily, Tue Kaae is one talented Sculptor who has brought some of his favourite Stuff with him: URO! URO is like that ancient, biblical Putty that combines a lot of incredibly useful attributes... It is both soft and flexible (not crumbling as easily as plain FIMO or Super Sculpey...), comes in all kinds of colours (the green putty is a Green URO, not Green Stuff...) AND cures in hot water! This means, that it can even be applied to plastic, which is absolutely amazing and very, very fast if needed... Tue uses a 1:3 mixtures of Super Sculpey : URO... It is pretty sticky, so it will hold even to a plain metal armature... Read more about URO here... 

It can be smoothened using at least 90% Isopropyl Aclohol (70% will not deliver the same result...), maybe also White Spirit (not tested out...)...



The Head and Expression Char you see in these Pictures have been give to my by Allan some time ago... You can find this and more illustrations in the Hogarth and Burne Books... We can also strongly recommend this book...



The back section is far from being finished and I will have to work on all muscles and tendons...




Did you know that Noses and Ears Continue to Grow as We Age...? Amazing! :D





Hope you like the sculpt so far... I will go for a older, wrinklier and somewhat cuter look as soon as I figure out what facial expression I will set on... but that´s the great thing about those non self curing putties: You have time to change anything you want... Once you are satisfied or if you need a firm base, you can cook everything (kinda like saving a computer game...:)...) and work on from there... Can´t wait to work on the Textures of his skin and add all those little Details that will make this come to life...

27 February 2013

BANANALICIOUS Painting Contest Update!!

posted by roman, jarhead, kong


Hello bananalicious people,

 here are the actual news around this contest that you - yeah, you - filled up with so many great entries. The gallery is updated with all entries (727 photos), you can have a view here!

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
I recieved some entries to the category "diorama" who are in fact more single figures than dioramas. We did say dioramas, duels, big monsters, vehicles and units. Single Figures not. So we made a decision. They will be judged in this category but they are not allowed to take part in the random prize pool to keep it fair to others who made a display of single figures or a diorama entry that we asked for ...

Next step for us is doing the lottery of the random prize pool and I got bad and good news about this task. First the bad news: I won't make it this week. We just got home from Brussels and will head out for a painting class on Friday again. Additional to this fact I am having a cold that makes me weak and I got to get well before the class weekend. So I got to ask for your patience in this case!


Second the good news: the random prize pool is updated again as Red Box Games Sponsoring has arrived. Thanks to Red Box Games - you are making some people really happy with your latest releases, straight from the Kickstarter Campaign. You can now find these added to the random prize pool:



2x




This said I want again thank


for their help in sending all that stuff out to you soon!!

__________________________________________________________________________________


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
  Sebastian

Painting Crusade X on Corvus Miniatures

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Just found this great video about some Impressions on this years Painting Crusade X - done by Corvus Miniatures - great video, Gerrie!

25 February 2013

Painting Crusade X - Jungle Report

Posted by Raffaele "Picster" Picca


Hey everyone!

Phew, just returned from the Painting Crusade X in Brussels and I can tell you, this was a fantastic weekend! A great experience, meeting old friends and new faces and just having a great time in this small but excellent event.

Before the jungle report really starts, I want to thank everyone of the Painting Crusade Staff for this great event, especially Quentin for his great hospitality and making such a warm and familiar weekend for everyone possible, THANKS!

But let's start at the very beginning. The photos were taken by Philip Prinz.

Day 1 - Travel

Roman and I started our travel on friday. At 13:30 we left home with the car and continued our travel at around 17:00 with a plane to Zurich, Switzerland (there was no direct flight) waiting for our next plane leaving at 21:45. Around 22:35 we finally arrived in Brussels, where Quentin De Meuter and Rafael "Volomir" García Marín where already waiting to pick us up.
After some waiting time, another plane landed and Ana Shestakova from Moskow joined the party and we were leaving to reach our sleeping place.

... And then we reached the destination...

The old house of Quentins parents was a very important place this weekend and a looooot of painters were able to sleep there. The house was almost completely empty and so every room was stuffed full of sleeping bags, painters, figures and fun :)

Arriving at this place was overwhelming, so many friendly faces, so much good talks. Even if we were totally wrecked, we somehow made it to have some nice hours before finally falling into our bed :)

Day 2 - Arrival

The next morning was very relaxed, some nice coffee and breakfast and we started the day with driving to the event ambiance. The Painting Crusade is now beeing held for the third time in this place and so I noticed that the organisation gets more and more professional each year.
Signing up my figures for competition was fast and easy, all the organisation members speak english so it's very easy to get along as a foreigner. I started to put my miniatures into display even if the competition starts on sunday.

As the organisation of the Painting Crusade is doing the best to make the figures very easy to see by having a black background and bright daylight tubes. If you ever visited other events you may know that it can be very hard to look at the miniatures due bad lighted display space.

On the upper floor of the ambience you could see all the competition pieces and check out a one of a kind miniature flea market. I really love this market as you sometimes really find true treasures for a small amount of money.

On the lower floor, there is a big working table to spent some time chatting to other painters and sculpters, exchange tricks and techniques and just have a good time. You'll also find some smaller stores and what I especially love: A store for small miniature companies. The owner can give their stock to the organisation of the painting crusade and they will handle all the sales. This is very nice as you're able to buy some often hard-to-find miniatures there.

Beeing there and talking to people the whole day, time just flies and the quiz beeing held in the middle of the day brought some happy memories to old Painting Crusades for many visitors.

At 18:00 the doors of the event close and everyone goes home alone to sleep.... haha, NOT!
The Painting Crusade X was the 10th edition of the contest uniting painters from 10 countries.
This had to be celebrated! This year there was no official big party and I was very dissappointed hearing this before we traveled to Brusseles. But Quentin for sure found a solution and so everyone was invited to come to the old house of his parents to have a big party and most of the people could sleep there.

Imagine a house with 3 floors full of painters... yes it was this awesome.
I didn't have such a good time for quite a while :) So many good talks, so much fun... incredible!
My arsch was literally in flammen! (sorry for all people not beeing there not getting this joke, you can change that next year ;-)

Now I won't get into to much details of this night ... but just a big THANKS to all of you beeing as awesome as you are.



Day 3 - Sunday: Main Event

The next morning, for some reason it was not very easy to get up and enjoy the morning sun as it was snowing for the whole night. Arriving at the ambience, it was getting better fast, recovering after a coffee and seeing some nice faces and great miniatures.


The number of figures in the competition was quickly increasing as more painters arrived and the judging started. I really have to say that the painting and sculpting level this year was really amazing!
A big leap from last years overall quality. Especially the sculpting displays were deeply impressing me.


The time until the awards show was passing fast by looking at the miniature displays, having some nice talk and sculpting experiments ;)


Finally, the judges ( Roman "Jarhead" Lappat / Cyril Abati / Rafael "Volomir" García Marín) did finish their work and the organisation could start to do the awards show which started with a nice presentation with photos of past Painting Crusades.
After this, the show continued with a very unusual social experiment... the whole event did a Harlem Shake video which will for sure be shown here when it is officially released!


After this crazy break, the show continued and it was cool seeing many happy faces and a massive applause for everyone!


The competition was very rewarding for me as I got a gold award in the Painting Master category and a silver award in the sculpting category which really suprised me! I also received a bronze 'Golden Edmon' for my 'Untold Honor' piece.


After the ceremony, the ambience was emptying pretty fast as many people had huge travels confronting them. We stayed for some time and left the place to head to a very nice and familial dinner at Quentin's parents. This was the perfect finish for a perfect weekend. Everyone was quite exhausted while enjoying the great pasta of Quentin's mom! After this nice dinner, it was time for some friends to leave :(
Sad, sad as always, but in the safety of seeing everyone again in one year :)

Day 4 - Travel again...

Roman and I took a cab to the airport to catch our flight, which was late as always. Traveling is sometimes quite nice to let all the impressions settle inside and get back to "normal life"... knowing to see all the nice faces again in a year makes the trip a lot easier ;)

I hope you liked this report and if you were there, enjoyed your weekend! Thanks again to EVERYONE, especially Quentin, Roman, Andi, Philip, David, Rafael, Ben, Valerie, Tue, Manu, David, Mikkel, Gautier, Ana, Olivier and so many, many, many others!

You can find more photos in our facebook gallery:
LINK

Best wishes,
Raffa


PS: You can find more Event reports by MV here:

Musica

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Home again.
This time from a truly beautiful weekend in Belgium, the Painting Crusade X in Brussels ...

For now - as the plane just touched down some hours ago - I can only say ...
No, I can only link to Volomir's massive blog ... he just finds the right words I would search for now. And he was faster than the jungle ;)

I am in need for some fine musica now to upload the last entries of the Bananalicious Painting Contest and here it is ...

23 February 2013

quote of today

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."
   Confucius



21 February 2013

GNARGL!!! - Ghoul Bust by JMD

Posted by Raffaele "Picster" Picca

Hey everyone,

while Carl was here for a visit - our $500 Indiegogo backer - I painted this bust to show him different techniques. A very fast paintjob as the bust is pretty small :)

GNARGL!!!

Hope you like it, more photos will be posted after the weekend in Brussels. See you there!

Best wishes,
Raffa

Musica

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

BANANALICIOUS Painting Contest Update!!

posted by roman, jarhead, kong




Hiho bananalicious people, 

it is time for another update on the contest gallery. I've added the historic standard and historic master categories to it. You can browse the entries here - enjoy browsing!

I will start to add the biggest category - fantasy standard - tomorrow. I say "start" because I won't be able to post them all at once before we prepare and travel to Brussels, Belgium to enjoy the Painting Crusade X.

You will see addition to the gallery on Tuesday next week again ... I told you this might take a while.

 __________________________________________________________________________________


Many thanks for all the help of our sponsors:












GAU 54 mm Minis 

Masquerade Mini 
North Star Models

Special thanks for support to:

Tim
  Sebastian

Preview: Carl's visit

posted by roman, jarhead, kong


Good morning jungle,

I told you about Carl from the UK, who has visited us early this week for private practice.
Carl wrote his thoughts up front these days - you can read them here!

Carl was the one guy who did pledge 500,00 $ to our book campaign and while he was with us we filled up those days with a lot of learning, full of fun and even more.

Be sure to read his impression, the "aftermath" and to find a little photo series in the jungle soon.

20 February 2013

BANANALICIOUS Painting Contest Update!!!

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

 

Hiho jungle travellers, 

again it is time for a little update on the Contest's judging progress.
If you want to know what happens soon, check this link for a small roadmap.

The last days I solved small image problems with some participants and now everything is ready to be uploaded to the gallery. An overview at the number of entries you can find here!

BUT...

before I will tell you about the gallery there is one thing I have to mention. I lately packed all the prizes we will ship out (thanks to our sponsors) and was kind of overwhelmed by the amount of parcels that will go out in the upcoming weeks ...


... and those ain't all yet. This is just the random prize pool, not the winner's medals, not the special prizes. Pretty much and as this goes out by lottery shipping might be worldwide.

I deeply want to thank ...


click me!


... for financial support with the shipping costs. Really you got to check the idea behind paintingbuddha.com and get hold of their great products. They sell to help the community like they did our case (check the idea!) - support the PAINTING BUDDHA - help him support everybody! Many, many thanks! I additional want to say a big thanks to Sebastian, who donated the last week for this cause! Many thanks to you too!!


Ok, back to the gallery ... I did start to upload the first 2 categories of the contest to facebook. I did start with "Sculpting" and the "Banana!!!" categories.  



I will upload more categories in the following days, so everybody has time to look and enjoy it step by step.

So far, 
we hope you enjoy!!


__________________________________________________________________________________



Many thanks for all the help of our sponsors:












GAU 54 mm Minis 

Masquerade Mini 
North Star Models

Special thanks for support to:

Tim
  Sebastian