Hello Jungle friends,

our apefriends over on Cursed Monkeys have a great Indigogo campaign running, called


This book is definatly worth to back in my eyes as it looks like it will contain a lot of knowledge and experience by the cursed monkey team (photo taken from their campaign):


There is also a video that shows a preview.
This was just a test print and is not the final version of the book:
 
I am going to back now!
What about you?

"Modeling. Stories in Miniature". 

The actual MV Quest is slowly coming to an end.
Like a snowflake falling to the ground.

Right now I got 20 entries.
Looking forward to revieve some more til Sunday this weekend! 
Sunday/Monday night (europe time) accepting your entries will come to an end.

If you are not yet - make this Saturday count!


Many thanks to Dragonlord Games which is supporting not only the Article section with their banner, but also sponsoring a big load of figure candy to this Quest, for you to win!


 

"Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm."                                                                   Robert Louis Stevenson


... well yes I have been a little more quiet as usual the last week.

Last week I just got tired of running all the time, having the foot on the gas pedal ... not really tired but I needed a little change as I felt my mind was playing tricks on me all the time in reminding me on what I still got to do on my lists.

So it was time to slow down and find a little time for my own. Slowing down the pace and I really enjoyed it. I also know it was very important. Funny thing for me was reading Meg Maple's cool article about burnout on Arcane Paintworks last week and while reading those lines I knew it is about time to slow down a little bit. No pushing through Emails everyday, heading for the studio, sitting there, knowing I still should do more office work. Office work really played some mindfuck games with me lately - so that is where I mostly slowed down. I am sorry to those who are still waiting for an email right now. I am on it again, but with a more healthy pace now. I was not burnout from figure painting at all like Meg describes, just from too much thinking of important things during the time available for painting. The pace I found made me happy again ... thanks for the little break :)






During the last week I managed to finally ship all the parcel that have to been shipped.
Taking that breath was really a good choice. Well as I said I did also spent some days in the studio, painting. Two days ago Güni arrived for private coaching and he brought a great figure with him to learn on: King Maulg from Figone. One of the best figures you can learn about light situation and volumes on (in my eyes!). There will be a little report about Güni's private choaching, here is just a little preview of his figure:


At the moment we have many emails about private coaching. Be sure we do not miss yours, we are on it, but with a healthy pace as Raffa and I got many emails a day :)

Well, I got no WIPs to show. Already finished some fun projects during the last weeks and why bore you with too much WIP stuff? What makes me really see how far some personal goals still are is one of CMON statistics, it says: "You have 520 images, out of a maximum of 1300" ... well, I am on the brush! :D

Hey!

The second version I did from this figure, but I did not paint it all on my own. Now this sounds strange, huh?

Once I have been to a painting class by Stephan "derwish" Rath and one of the students, Markus gave me his class figure afterwards, unfinished. He did not like the sculpt at all so he said maybe I will paint it to finish someday. He was right ... I did so. It is by far not perfect, but was a lot of fun.




Hope you like him! For more photos you can see him on CMON! Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

In this area of Massive Voodoo you can find official MV interviews we did with different persons and interviews that were done with us. We hope you enjoy! ...

KONG FU: 
Roman's strongest influances in Miniature Painting 
Artist Portrait: Alfonso Giraldes aka Banshee

SPECIAL
Interview with John Rosengrant, Legacy Effects, Hollywood

MASSIVE VOODOO INTERVIEWS
Patrick Masson  Interview by Daniele
Alfonso Giraldes - Interview by Daniele
Romain van den Bogeart - Interview by Daniele  
Allan Carrasco - Interview by Daniele  
Pedro Fernandez Ramos - Interview by Daniele
Tim Bruckner - Master Sculptor (Interview by Daniele)
Pigment Pirates, Hamburg
TJ Kleens - Wood Spirits Marcel Ackle, a diorama genius
Luis Méndez Juanola - MV Most Creative Award MSS 2015
Ho Hon / Marrow Productions, Journey
David "Dust" Stegmann
Pierre-Jean Chabert
Sergey Popovichenko
Spencer Davis, Booty Babe Art
Jürgen "Crackpot" Wagner
Scale Model Challenge 2013 - 18 questions, 14 painters
Phil, the man behind Putty&Paint

Interviews with Massive Voodoo
Miniac on Roman Lappat  
Trovarion interviews Roman Lappat  
Figure Mentors - The Illustrated Fantasy Artist  Issue 8 - Roman Lappat
Galaktischer Beobachter interviews Roman Lappat
Trovarion interviews Roman Lappat

Nova Open interviews Roman & Raffa
Roman Lappat Interview in Hobby Hangouts
Roman Lappat Q&A on Noobs and their paintbrush, part 1
Roman Lappat Q&A on Noobs and their paintbrush, part2
Roman Lappat interviewed by Tuffskull
Roman Lappat in Figure Painter Magazine
Volomir's Blog: Painting with Roman Lappat
Sunshine and Moonbeam: Interview with Raffaele Picca
Sunshine and Moonbeam: Interview with Roman Lappat

Figurines-TV: Massive Voodoo Interview with Raffa and Roman
Pinselwut: Ask the Pros - Jarhead and Picster
Roman Lappat in the spotlight at Putty&Paint
Julien Casses interviews Roman Lappat
Interview with Robert Blaha aka Muhani on WAMP

INSPIRING
Alfonso Giraldes at Monte San Savino Show 2011


More to come soon!

"Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life."

Lately, I am switching on this tune sometimes and always feel the happiness ... 24 hours music video by Pharrell, cool people dancing and having fun all around the clock ... really enjoyable and full of surprises:

http://24hoursofhappy.com/

Thanks to Pharrell happiness is the truth, now clap along ...

Keep on happy painting!

Hello all,

some news from my table!
I finished Orome from ShadowCrafter Miniatures, some months ago. The sculpt is really great, I like especially the proportions and the concept of the figure. If you didn't know this company before, you can check out their sculpts here, maybe some other painter would like to give this figures some color, too.


I decided to give her a waterfall base, it was really a lot of fun creating all this single waterfalls. Some people asked me about the waterfalls before, just check out the tutorial from Roman right here on Massive Voodoo.
I must say I am really a fan of this technique I use it really often on my last works, I think this is a nice little detail on every base.

So here is my result:


 Here is the link to cmon and P&P, if someone want to vote :)


Best regards Oli

I hope you have enjoyed the first part of my Step by Step. Here is the second part in which I will share some thoughts about "basing" with you.

Basing in my opinion is the most enjoyful part of our hobby. The mini is nearly finished and now there are only few things left which could go wrong. By having a good base the atmosphere of your paintjob will be supported and the "story" you want to tell will come "alive". So it´s important to have a lot of good material you can use. You can use almost everything, for example tobacco (for tree fungi), clear plastic (for icicles or waterfalls), Pelikan stuff (for spider webs)... there are only few limitations and the only thing you have to do is to test new materials. Always be openminded and try new ways! :-)


In this second part i´d like to show you two examples of how you could create a jungle-like atmosphere. The already known DáoFêi and the Predator (by PredaStore).

The DáoFêi (Link to Gallery)

The Predator (Link to Gallery)

I used these materials:

• Mini Natur

• Gras from Faller

• Pigments (made out of "pastel chalk")

• Green-Line Paper Plants by Fredericus Rex

How to use Mini Natur

• A package of Mini Natur often consists of many "pieces" (from small to large), placed on a tape for easy removal. Just use your tweezers to pull them off the tape and cut them into the right size. (picture 1)
• After glueing them on the base you have to decide: does the colour of the plants fit to your base? If not just paint them. As you can see on the pictures I painted them in different colours (green to green-blue), to make them suit more to my jungle-theme. Unfortunatly I just took a picture of the wip-status and the paint was still wet. After the paint dried I used some more layers to get the final colour (not shown). (pictures 2 & 3)

1) Mini Natur often consists of many small pieces

3) ... and painted them

2) I just glued the pieces on my base...

How to use Grass form Faller / creating moss

• It´s very easy to use the Grass-Powder. Just mix some of the powder with matt varnish and mix it. You´ll get some cloddish material. (picture 4 & 5)
• Just fix the material on the base. (picture 6)
• Paint the "moss" to get the best effect for you base. (picture 7)
• Here an additional approach by Raffa.

4) mix the powder with matt varnish

5) mix it and you´ll get some strange cloddish material

6) fix the material on the base and let it dry

7) paint it to get the best effect

How to use pigments

• I used "pastel chalk" (don´t know if it´s called this in English) for creating my own pigments. I like using this material as I can mix different colours to create my own, perfect fitting colour. Here I mixed a dark brown and orange to meet the base of the DáoFêi. (pictures 8)
• Unfortunatly I did not take any pictures while using the pigments. But Roman has written a nice tutorial about it. There are many nice effects you can create with pigments. I used them here to get a dry, dirty trail throught the jungle. You can see the difference slightly on the pictures. Pigments are also perfect to "connect" the mini with the base by making the feet a bit dirty (pictures 9 & 10)

8) by mixing different colours you can create the perfect tone for your base

9) the base without pigments

10) the finished base with pigements (e.g. the feet)

How to use Paper Plants

• I use the Paper Plants always at the end, when everything else is finished. It much easier to do it this way as you´ll have handle a lot of problems if the plants are already in place and you´d like to add some more stuff...
• At first I decided which plants I want to use for my minis. As you see on the picture above, there are two kinds of "basic" versions of the paper plants: a white and a green one. I used both and both have their sense. If you like to have brighter plants, use the white ones, if you´d like more greenish plants I´d recommend the green ones as a basis.
• I tried two ways of painting the plants. At first I cut the plants out of the papers and painted them via airbrush (not the best idea as they will fly anywhere). If you cut them out I´d recommend to use your brush for painting them. The second attempt was much better: painting the plants while they are still in the paper. By doing so you´ll have much more control! (pictures 11 & 12) 
• Hint: If you paint the plants in green I recommend to paint the downside a little brownish.
• After painting the plants, cut them out and bring them into a nice position. There is nothing more boring and "unrealistic" than flat plants. I recommend to use the backside of you brush to bow them. Just use some pressure and move the brush... the plants will bow automatically. Just use you fingers or tweezers to do the details work (pictures 13 & 14)
• Hint: before fixing the plants on the base, place them on it to see if the colour/choice of plants/positions was right (picture 15)
• Use super glue to fix the plants on the base. I always paint some details (light and shadow) afterwards to get the best effect.

11) cutting the paper plants out of the paper. not the best idea!

12) much easier: paint the plants in the paper

13) use the backside of your brush to bring the plants in the right position

14) Paper Plants ready to use

15) just place the plants on the base before you fix it and see if everything works out fine

16) the finished miniature

I hope you enjoyed this detailed Step by Step and some of you could get some new ideas :) if you have any questions just feel free to ask here via placing a comment or send me an email:

baphomet[at]massivevoodoo[dot]com


Regards,
Peter