Painting Class Review: Forchheim, Germany

Hey you all,

it took Roman a while to sit down with a cup of coffee and write this up properly.
Massive Voodoo had another miniature painting class weekend about two weeks ago in Forchheim, Germany. With big thanks to Mathias and Peter who organised the class this review is about to drop in.


Mathias helped Massive Voodoo to hold the class in the place where he works as a teacher himself, a tendance vocational school in Forchheim. The location is a great place to hold a class in as everything is like in a real school. Mathias prepared everything already as we arrived on Friday and during Friday afternoon the students dropped in, even it was not the easiest place to find via navigation systems. Thank you Mathias for the effort, the help, your hospitality and the great place you provided for the weekend. During this weekend there were even Snakes involved, but just found this blurry photo, sorry.

Massive Voodoo wants to thank every participant who took part in the class.
Those who travelled far distances and those who travelled short distances. Roman and Peter were happy to see many new faces on the class, some painting their first miniature ever during the class. It was also cool to see many "repeaters of the class" who took the class for the second or third time. Thanks to Sebastian for his help and advice to his neighbours during the class. Thanks to Oliver and Peter for providing many photos of the class. Big thanks to Peter for his help during the class.


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

PK-Pro
Sockelmacher
Juweela
Modelmates
and Kellerkind Miniatures.

Thanks to Peter who wrote his own review of the class experience over on his blog (german language) - click here!

Thanks to Kedohan who did the same over on GW-fanworld forums.
You can find his experience if you click here!

We started on Friday late afternoon and jumped into the schedule of the painting class: Introduction, theory, preparing the figures, more theory, basing and even more theory. Students who took the class the first time had to paint a GW's demonette in order to get the full amount of provided information to be painted to this figure, while repeaters brought their own project decisions to focus on.

Classroom.

 Before the storm.

Saturday arrived and still we were not at the point to take out colours and paint. We still got detail work to do on our bases, paint colour circles, prepare everything for the priming session outside in a back alley and pedestrians looked at this gang of sprayers pretty suspicious.

Pfft! Pfft!

After lunch it was time to sit down and talk about brushes, paints and the proper use of our wetplaettes. Luckily the school was placed with sorrounding stores so some students were able to get go and buy a proper wetpalette for small coins in just minutes. Next step was the introduction in Roman's wet and wet technique which helps to get a good sketch on your bases. The next hours were filled with working further on that sketch, improving the early rough basework to detail level.

After the initial work on the base was done Saturday evening granted us some dinner and a start on the figures themselves. It was time to make experience with new techniques again and while most of the painting work on the bases was fun the smaller surfaces on the figures helped to let struggle and frustration appear here and there. This is very important. If you get to know something new you might fail in the beginning. The frustration that appears is a good sign. In this moment you learn and if you go on you will conquer by gaining more experience. Train your painting muscles by painting. That is what we did Saturday night.

Next morning arrived and we strictly jumped into high concentration painting mode again. Bringing our figures closer to a final picture by adding details like skin variations, maximizing the contrast, cleaning up blendings, painting leather, painting metal parts and much more.

It was a pleasure to see everyone's project grow, see frustration fading away as the overall picture appeared more and more due the time which was put into the figures. Roman and Peter were proud to see the figures grow constantly, both always there if questions appeared wether it was our nice couple who painted their first figures or some veteran painters. Midday on Sunday had a quick lunch and then we closed in for final works on the figures. The theory and practical parts from Saturday and Friday were closing in to one piece, the figure and the base. It is always such a joy to see how everything comes together and that every painter, no matter what their level of painting is at the moment are growing in their experience level. Thanks to all the students in this class for painting such a big amount of time, for spending a full weekend thinking and planning on their own project, being brace enough to find their own colour choices and for the fun we all had together.

Let me show you the results of this weekend
- thanks to Oliver again for the photos. Keep in mind that a lot of different experience leveled painters took part in the class so you will find the photos with explanations:

Main focus of this class repeater was to work on his gaming army scheme but with more quality of the paintjob.

 Main focus of this class repeater was building up a big base idea and paint OSL to it.

Main focus of this class repeater were finishing this figure, improving his army themed bases and much more.

 This student took the class for the first time and this was his demonette.

This repeater of the class painted Forged Monkey's Brekk and focused mainly on the face.

 This student took the class for the first time and his demonette vision looked like this:

Again a first timers demonette and his vision to it. Brutal basework going on here, eh?

This student took the class for the first time and this was his demonette.

 Another repeater of the class going fro reds and OSL here.

 A class is incomplete with at least one lava base.

This was the class of blue demonettes.

 This class repeater had to leave during Saturday afternoon for a birthday party, but finished his base.

 The focus of this class repeater was also skintone and improving the quality of his paintwork.

Another blue demonette  plus an owl on that base here ...

Blue again, walking the path of destiny.

Well, a blue lady again. I kid you not if I say this was the class of the blue demonettes.

Hah! Another blue one ...

This demonette burns her sorroundings while roaming through spring.

This class repeater went for a orange beard and dwarf power.

Proudly Massive Voodoo can tell that this was one of the demonettes 

who have been painted as the student's first figure ever. Well done in our eyes, eh?

Not a blue one here, but blue included.

And another lava basa and a duck. 

Well, this was the second student who painted his first figure ever during the class.

I hope you liked the review and enjoyed that we did put the focus a little more on the results of the class. Massive Voodoo is proud of this class students. You did well and we want to thank all of you again for the great time we enjoyed together. Thanks to everybody involved as we all together made this possible.

Keep on happy painting and take care that your brushes stay wet!
Massive Voodoo is looking forward to see you again in the future!