Jungle Calling - Everything happens for a reason

Hey jungle !

I was introduced into the jungle quite a while ago already, and I came ONLY ONE TIME shouting in the jungle all by myself.

And it was in june to present myself !

What a pity, don’t you think ?!!

In between I have to tell you, jungle, that I faced what we could call… well a quite  fucking big shit storm (in French: “une putain de grosse avalanche d’emmerdes”). Yeah… :D see what I mean ? One of those you have to swim through to reach the other side. And when you finally manage to more or less get out of here, well you are all dirty and all full of bruises. ^^

But here I am!

Time for shit storm, time for painting, and time to show what I’ve done :-)

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I am happy to present you this mini, because it’s a special one for me.

First, this mini, that many of you already know of course, was sculpted by Allan Carrasco. Allan is not only one of the most gifted mini sculptor worldwide, but he is also a wonderful person, smart, nice, funny and with strong humanistic values :-) I like him a lot. :-)

And here is just the best mini I ever had to paint on so far. I took A LOT of pleasure working on it.

…I called this post “everything happens for a reason”, did you notice?

Well, I have to confess right away, it’s a sentence I stole to our beloved Jungle Kong, Roman. He loves to use this quote, he repeated it to me many times, and he will discover at the same time than you that I “stole” it from him. ;P

This quote really has a sense in here.

Indeed, I prepared this mini for the contest of the Ducs of Bavaria’13 in Ingolstadt, in May.

I was then with my monkey brothers in their painting studio for the lasts finishing, just before the contest, with in one hand my mini, and in the other hand my base.

I’ve planned first to arrange my mini in a quite classical pause, with the tree at the left of the mini, getting out of the deep jungle like a warrior, everything was fitting really perfectly nice...

Here is an i-phone WIP pic taken while working on it:

That’s when it stroked me.

Duh…

Jaja.. There was a big problem in there. Indeed, how to explain that his back is enlighten from behind the right shoulder, through the big tree behind, hmm…?? Magic effect? Nah…

O.Kaay. -.-

Repaint the light source? …too bad for all the great work I’ve done before on the skin taking in account the light position, and too much, too late.

First step: lets’ agree on the term “stupid mistake”, right? :D it happens.

It took me quite a lot of time accepting to change it, as I was SO ready for the first option. Like turning both parts, Rock AND Roll style, like a dumby chimpanzee trying to have 2 wood cubes make babies. yeah...

Until the moment I finally had to accept it. :D

The only option, if I wanted to be able to present it to the contest, and keep the painting work I've done. Quite alienistic, but… once you get used to it… hmm… interesting in the end. Second step. And also a solution allowing some new nice ideas to pop up. Third step. :) and here came out the little monkey at the treetop. Eating bananas of course :D Well, wasn't this diorama called "Jungle calling"?! So, it fits.

I really really ...really :D REALLY liked the first option. If I could have kept it, I would have. Really. (:P)
But I’ve made a way more original mini thanks to that mistake. And I am happy of the result I obtained in here. I like this little dude ^^

It’s what life is made about, right? :-) And why we all go on being better persons everyday if we are able to see all those mistakes we do like opportunities to grab… ... ok, blablablaa... :D but still true. ;-)

Yeah… ok… Everything happens for a reason. I GUESS. :P

Or not. :P
...I would really like to agree 100% fully to that :-) I'm trying, tryyying... ahahah! But I also know myself. When I had a look again at the first option while writing this article, I thought: ok, I really it, and it would be a lot of work changing it now, and let's agree on: "pure madness" in here btw, but who knows? maybe one day I will have a second version of this mini, just the way I wanted it! ^^ 

OR I will never have the time or feel like really doing it in the end, as I have thousands of amaaazing projects I'm working on at the moment (YEAH, THOUSANDS, true story :P ) so life will choose for me and it will just stay like that :) (that's what will happen in the end, I already know it. ^^ )

 

...This little dude finally won a bronze medal in the Ducs of Bavaria, in the master category.

He also made his road to the great painting contest of Monte San Savino, and he came back home also rewarded with a bronze medal in master painting.

For those who'd wonder, I FUCKING DON'T KNOW where to find one more time such an handsome "tree".
Sorry. Goddess Nature will guide you path... :D


And concerning the base, which is a really really nice one, don't hesitate to have a look in here if you like it:
http://mustangfigurine.e-monsite.com/pages/socles-pour-figurine.html
Philippe, the man behind "Mustang figurines", has the most amazing natural bases, and I could say without exaggerating too much that he is my "official supplier of bases", I really like what he does.



Stéphane, of Figurine TV, a french website which does some reportages on mini events here and there and many other things (have a look: http://kws.figurines-tv.com/), also kindly shooted a video of my little hairy “star”.

There’s even some music going along, jungle drums style. So prepare to shake your booties!

I am happy to finally show what he’s done, as this video is ready for mooonthsss... :P
Merci Stéphane!

(look at the end, there's a little greetings distribution)

Val