Review: Jar's Beginners Class in Karlsruhe, Germany

Aloa-Yay!

It is time for another class review.
It drops in with a little delay as MV is pretty busy these days but nonetheless it drops in :)

As we told you we are at the early start of MV's year of the painter.
A year that will focus on the roots of Massive Voodoo: Helping other painters to grow on their experience level by sharing our thoughts and own experiences at the workbench more often. Like we used to do. Like we always do, but this year with more focus on it. This year will be filled with articles, tutorials and more but also our focus is on painting classes and private coaching to teach and help other painters to grow. And it is always a pleasure to be able to help and enjoy a weekend of happy painting together.

For me this class was a little anniversary as it was number 40 of the so far hold Jar's Beginners Classes.

The class gang with a serious look on their faces ...

This time "Jar's Beginners Class" went to Karlsruhe in Germany to a really cool location, in the halls of a movie production company, called Südwest Film. Andreas, who is the owner of this company already took part in one of my early classes back in 2009 in Cologne. He asked me if I would be interested in doing another class in his location. Thanks to Peter and Andreas the organisation went smooth and the time was ready to hit the train with a lot of class material, direction: Karlsruhe.

If you are interested in what Südwest Film does, check the following Showreel of Andreas. This guy is an ace at the camera and really knows what he does.



I want to thank Andreas for his help and kind hospitality during the whole weekend.

We did meet up on Friday late afternoon in a very cool area, called "Alter Schlachthof" (old butchery) where the halls of Südwest Film are located. An old industry area with lots of inspiration around. Thanks to Erik, who helped to fill this article with photos.

Well, so far from the inspirational surroundings.

Thanks to the sponsors of the class, who helped with material sponsoring:

PK-Pro, Sockelmacher, Juweela, Forged Monkey and Kellerkind Miniatures.

I was really happy to welcome two french painters to the class who travelled all the way and rescued us on Sunday when they brought a new coffee machine. Thank you so much! This class was filled with really cool participants, eager to learn and eager to grow. On Friday I was confronted with my youngest student ever, Hendrik, thirteen years old, arriving with his dad. I was really happy to see him as the youth is what keeps our hobby running when we all grow old, blind and beardy, unable to paint anymore. There was one student painting his first miniature ever on the class, again a real privileg for me as the teacher to plant a tree of happy painting on this virgin seashore. Also, Stephan Rath was attending the class to gather some new input and inspiration. We had some interesting talks during the weekend. Beside four repeaters of the class. who all set their own focus of being thaught it was filled with painters who were up to do it for the first time. Mentioning all of you here is just my way of saying a deep thank you for taking part in the class, again!

Welcome to Südwest Film

You can also call this class the class of ultrasuper-Daylight-Lamps ...
When I arrived Andreas already prepared the place with some of his superprofessional lamps and after everybody settled in on Friday we did not recognize night arriving as the room was flooded with daylight. That's the way a Miniature Painter likes it! That's the way, aha aha! :D

 Too many lamps!!

We went through the class content during Friday and Saturday and Sunday - we really went to bed too late every night, but we enjoyed every minute working on our projects. I really enjoyed how the different projects of every student grew until Sunday. I really enjoyed to help Florian, one of the repeaters of the class to reach his goal of finding a way to paint nice characters in his army scheme and enjoyed to see Erik's technical frustration level decrease very fast. I was not sure about my youngster in the class, Hendrik as nights really went pretty long and sleep was just a dream away, but he did very well and was always interested and working like the big guys! So cool! My coloured thumb is up to everybody of you for the strength you showed during this weekend!

We also had two visitors to the class, good friends of mine, Sebastian (Saturday) and MV-gang-member Peter himself (Sunday) as they live close. Both took the chance to sit and paint with us and help the group with their additional experience. Thanks bros, it's always nice to see you around.

Some more impressions ...

 No graffiti-artists at work, just miniature painters priming their passion ...

 My own explanation demonette during the progress ...

 Well, inspiration again ...

 Father and Son ...

 Florian, the walking example of complementary colours ...

 A little touch of that colour and it'll work fine ... trust me!

 mmh?

My explanation lady grew too ...

Well, you can see on the photos how concentrated we worked and I am realyl proud of the results the participants took home from the class. Everybody was starting from his own level at his own speed and everybody made big steps ... Results on Sunday afternoon:

There will be fire ...

 To be or not to be?

Blue flowers were the right decision here!

To the left: Hendrik's achievement during the class, you remember, the youngest student ever in my class!

Again a big thank you to everybody involved in this class ... it was my pleasure and honor to have spent this cool weekend with you.

May happy painting always guide your hobby joy!
Best Wishes
Roman