30 September 2014

Massive Voodoo's year of the painter 2014


Hi Jungle Painters,

while it is becoming a weekly routine already we want to say some more words about  
MV's year of the painter.

Right now many weeks have passed with weekly Tutorial votings and weekly articles. For us it is great fun to see how far we can reach with our inspiration and our helpful articles, packed with hints and tips about miniature painting. MV's year of the painter helped the jungle's article section to grow to 268 free articles.

We are thankful to all of you who take part in the weekly votings, who spread the word about it and who enjoy what happened so far since the announcement of the year of the painter, back in the end of January with the first tutorial voting.

What happened so far via 
Massive Voodoo's year of the painter?

February 2014
Tutorial: Working with 1:72 Figures, Samurais
Tutorial: Using superglue for structure
Step by Step: The Arkvenger, Pegaso Models
Tutorial: Quick High Elf display base
Step by Step: Zombicide Gaming Miniatures
Tutorial: Stamp your Milliput

March 2014
Step by Step: Quick display figure
Step by Step: Tale of Revenge (by guest author Felix)
Basing Composition: Introduction
Tutorial: How to create bowstrings
Tutorial: Sculpting a Werewolf - part A

April 2014
Tutorial: Never fear your gaming bases
Tutorial: How to find good roots?
Step by Step: The Nightwatch
Tutorial: Building up a Wasteland Display Base
Step by Step: The First One
Step by Step: Pirate Buccaneer
Mu47/Tutorial: Modelmates' Rust Effect

May 2014
Tutorial: How to create Newspapers
Airbrush: Masking Options
Tutorial: How to create stalagmites/stalagtites
Tutorial: Painting the colour "BLACK"
Mu47/Tutorial: Modelmates' Verdigris Effect

June 2014
Step by Step: Dragon Priest
Tutorial: Primitivo Base
Tutorial: How to create candles
Step by Step: Sha'un - Ram Tribe Warrior
Step by Step: What about a quick Slayer?
Tutorial: Curved Plaster Wall Piece

July 2014
Inspiration: Project Motivation
Tutorial: Cleaning your Airbrush
Step by Step:  WHF Chaos Lord
Step by Step: Repainting X-Wing's Imperial Shuttle
Step by Step: Juva, 1883

August 2014
Tutorial: Rider on the Styx
Tutorial: Postapocalyptic Toad King
Step by Step: Drakery's Orc Shaman
Tutorial: 5 colours, 2 hours,1 Mini

September 2014
Step by Step: Sha'un Ram Tribe Warrior
Inspiration: Visual Studying - Learning to see
Tutorial: Col. Straken
Mu 60/ Tutorial: Scale75 Metal and Alchemy Steel Series + Inkensity Set
Step by Step - Male Galaxy Defender

October 2014
Step by Step: Inuit Fisherman
Step by Step: Theseus' Destiny
Step by Step: Arthur, by Matt Di Pietro
Step by Step: Jessica

November 2014
Step by Step: Painting the Toad King
Step by Step: Funkmaster J
Tutorial: Advanced Transport Box
Step by Step: The Aquila - Hero of Rome 41 A.D. 
Step by Step: Virago, Barbarian Beauty

December 2014
Step by Step: After the SMC is before the SMC
Magic effects on Miniatures

...

 More to come - stay tuned!











29 September 2014

MV's Jar's Basing Class - Review Preview

Augsburg's MV's HQ is still a little exhausted, yet happy as we had a great time on Roman's second and also for this year last Basing Class this past weekend. Thanks to everyone who attented and made the weekend what it was: very cool! We hope everyone had a safe trip home and a good start in the new week ... here are some first impressions:





More soon!

28 September 2014

quote of today

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."
                                                                Lao Tzu 



26 September 2014

The Aquila - Hero of Rome 41 A.D.

 
41 A.D.

In the dark lands of the Chauchi Tribe,
deep in the winter forest of Germanica,
a hero of Rome was born as he returned
one of the lost eagle home to mother Rome.


Great model by Nuts Planet
You can find a Miniatures Unpacked with a detailed look on the sculpt here.

A lot of fun for me as I am still reading tons of Ancient Roman novels. My brain, soul and mind is totally stuck in the ancient world. Usually I have such reading phases about a specific topic for some months, but this one now goes on for over eight months now. You can not imagine how many books I have read so far. And even the novels are fiction they are always presented in a historical correct background. There is truely a lot to learn from that big picture. Really my joy since some months.

I decided to give this bust a go to let out some of the impressions I gained from reading all of these books. Sometimes this has to be done. Thank you, Nuts Planet and Benny Sa :)

Last photo shows the bust in my cabinet.
Strange light there as the yellow lamp from above makes it all a bit weird.


The Aquila - Hero of Rome 41 A.D.
Nuts Planet, 1/9











If you want to see more angles of this bust, please feel free to check it in my gallery on Putty&Paint.

You can be aware of a future step by step about this bust. It is in preparation for you already. Interesting might be where this journey started. I really started with fun on it and the early WIP looks even crazy to me as I just was throwing colour on it in pure joy of painting:

Early WIP - after the first hour of colour throwing:


 














Hope you like him!
Keep on happy painting! 
Best Wishes,
Roman

Tutorial Voting: A giant butt in a box that smells like fish?

Heyho Jungle Painters,

time for this week's tutorial voting strikes and
Massive Voodoo's year of the painter is proud to bring you this weeks choices.

You can put a vote via comment to decide which article you want to see up early next week.Voting ends Monday next week!
Bring it on!


#01
In this article Raffa is explaining to you with some cool tips and tricks on how you can sculpt a loincloth on a giant's butt from Games Workshop. It gives insight in tools and material.

For this article vote "Giant butt" in your comment!



#02
A step by step on Roman's latest bust, the Inuit Fisherman. A colourful journey through a truely big bust. Talking about painting the fish, the skin, the leather and doing the snow.

 For this article vote "Inuit Fisherman" in your comment!

 
#03
Some projects need their own transport box and Roman's "Last Light" is definatly one of that kind due its pure size. Find out how Roman build a truely sturdy transport box for this diorama and learn about the material and the steps you need to find and take.

For this article vote "Carry Box" in your comment!

24 September 2014

Banshee again ...

Recently MV linked you to a video from Banshee aka Alfonso Giraldes where he explained some of his painting thoughts and answered questions. Sadly the video turned to full spaniard mode after a little moment and everyone not able to speak spanish was lost in translation...

Now Alfonso wrote us that he did subtitles. Spanish ones when he talks english, english ones when he talks spanish. That is worth to show again we'd say - do not forget to switch on the subtitles in the right corner of the youtube frame ;)


And a little interview that MV captured of him during the Monte San Savino Show 2011 - good memories, loud sunny day and good talk about "Soul in miniatures":

Step by Step - Male Galaxy Defender


Good Morning Jungle,

this week is a bit special as there are two articles up for you due past MV's year of the painter's special Birthday Tutorial Voting Edition (wow, what a describtion). Six articles have been up for your vote and MV decided to bring you two articles from it.

We hope this is a good thing and there is another change of plan on the horizon. The so called "SciFi base" on Northstar Models Male Galaxy Defender will not only take you on a trip through the basework, but will also bring you a walk through Roman's painting process.

We hope you enjoy!

_____________________________________________________________________________

FOREWORD
As a true Mass Effect fan I one day had to paint the Male Galaxy Defender by Northstar Models in 54mm. I could not skipped that one, after I have done the female version already.




On a day while the sky was burning and the galaxy was aflame I started this model just beside some other projects. Call it preparation and a simple start, but unfortanetly I did not worked further on him after this initial start.

A very bright greyish/blueish armour, a brown face and a simple base build on top of a beautiful unique wood plinth by Sockelmacher.de and a little orange/brown/yellow colour sketch to the base. I did not went further for about a year.


PAINTING PROCESS
Usually my inspiration and muse plays tricks on me and I often thought about this model in my WIP cabinet. My guess was, if I one day play Mass Effect again or get in contact with it I finish him up due the sucked up inspiration. It did not happen at all, but one day without a proper inspirational butt kick I sat down and tasked myself with finishing him up.

I searched the endless Internet for some inspiration and printed them to take them to my workplace. I don't like to sit down with my smartphone or tablet (that I do not have) while I paint. I look in such daily life tools too often and painting needs no combination of this multimedial thing, at least in my oppinion. I still read books as I like them better than ebooks, see?


I quickly realized that there is work ahead.
First thing I did was using my airbrush to spray that bright blueish armour darker with some thinned Scale75 Inktensity black. After this I used some VMC grey, London Grey (very neutral grey) to spray from above on the models armour, added a drop of VMC Ivory and a drop of GW's ice blue in that airbrush mix and gave the first sprayed highlights a more cold appeareance. Sorry for the lack of photos in this step.

 For the next steps we have photo results. I took some more of the Ivory to the mix and took the brush to glaze my way into stronger, brighter areas on the armour. Adding more of the Ivory to it I also head for the edge highlights on that armour alreay with a first sketch.

The face recieved a basic tone with gentle lights while I did my first experiments with the Scale75 Skin Set. The weapon recieved a basic tone with some sandish VMC tone and also some gentle brighter areas by addition of a tiny drop of Ivory. I used some yellow/sand/orange colour drops on that base to mix them together in there, just to find my direction. His, well yeah "hair" have been painted with a basic tone of London Grey but with a little tourquise in it to keep it cool. You might also recognize the little purple touch in that armour's shadows. Well, Inktensity again, but really well thinned 1/20 (colour/water) and gently sprayed from a low angle into that armour sketch. You can see it everywhere if you look close: armour, face, weapon, base, etc. ...

Why purple? I have no idea ...

Next step was working on stronger edge highlights and shiny armour dots here and there. I did so by using more and more Ivory in my armour colour mix and some of those white dots have been done with pure Ivory. I do enjoy paint these when it comes to such models. The Artwork in the back really helped me a lot for inspiration on how the light falls and spreads on that armour and on helped me how I wanted to tackle the armour too. The Computer Game Mass Effect Series has a special look (light, shadow, materials, athmosphere) on it and I am looking forward to one day play Mass Effect 4.

I used some pigments on the base, but I'll tell you later on the basework itself. Just check that I gently used these pigments also on the armour of the lower body parts. A little reflecting light from the groundwork to the armour going on.



During the next steps I took care of the weapons damage by using a dark brown mixed from VMC Chocolate Brown and black and did some initial weathering to the weapon. Again, the artwork helped me here to guide me as an inspiration.

The amour recieved its "warpaint" by first creating a very bright line to his right arm with a mix from Ivory and a tiny drop of ice blue in it. With the same colour I went for making stronger highlights here and there at the armour once again. Now I used some Army Painter Dragon Red for to add the red stripe on the "warpaint". After this I took the first Ivory/ice blue tone again and added scratches and ripped of colour to the red part of the "warpaint". The "N7" logo has also been painted with these colours.


During the next step I masked his face and sprayed a thinned mix of blue and black Inktensity by Scale75 to the whole armour to bring it all together and make it look more as one. Via Airbrush.


I repeated the steps of highlighting the armour with bright greyish Ivory (brushwork) and again after this step took the airbrush with thinned Sclae75 Inktensity black and used it on the lower parts of the armour.


Sprayed some gentle very thinned blue on top of the whole model as I really wanted to catch the athmosphere of the artwork. Painted a some more stronger highlights on the basic skintones and with his scar on his hair slowly found the character I was aiming at. Slowly. Before I went further on the model it is time to talk of the basework now.


BASEWORK
I decided to do something simple but with great effect. I wanted to achieve small amounts of pigments here and there to create a marsian look of the base. Therefore I used Gravel & Sand Fixer by Ak-Interactive, which you can get at Big Panda V or PK-Pro. A lot of companies have similar products, for example Secret Weapon. Pigments by MIG in this case, but you can find the pigments you prefer from many different companies.


A gentle test on the base with some shy drops of pigments there. 


Using a brush and let a drop of the liquid fall down on top of it, or put close beside.
It will suck in to the pigments and fix 'em.

More pigments now.

After many more pigments and the repeated procedure the base looked like this, still wet from the liquid, but with the pigments fixed. Yay!


FINAL PAINTWORK
The final paintwork included brushwork only. I took care of some more edge highlights and detail lights here and there. Used pigments again on his feet to get back that orange reflection from the base, used an orange/brown glaze at the weapon, added gentle scratches to the armour here and there and went for the final detail lights with pure Ivory, plus did some final work on the prominet face areas and added some fighting wounds to the one and only galaxy defender: Shepard.

For sure I did paint the plinth black as a final step and took proper photos, not from the WIP-table:







If you want to see more angles on the model check Putty&Paint.

CLOSURE
Well, I had my fun finishing this fella up. Here and there I could have spent more time invested in the cleanness of the blendings but frankly, I wanted him to look a little messed up after a fight and enjoyed finished him the way he turned out.

I hope you enjoyed this walk with the Male Galaxy Defender.
Shot questions, ideas or other thoughts via comment if you like!

Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman


Mu 60/Tutorial - Scale75 Metal and Alchemy Steel Series + Inktensity



Good Morning Jungle Painters,

it's about time to bring up your choice from last weeks tutorial voting. Most of you voted for a closer look on Scale75 Metal colours. The MV-Team are using the Scale75's for a while now and Raffa and Roman will now bring you some thoughts about these high praised colours.

This article is mainly about the Scale75 Metal and Alchemy Steel Set, but also takes a little look on the Inkensity Set in the end of the write up. You can also spot the Flesh Paint Set in some photos, but this will be a different article one day as more tests are to be done.

This article is a bit a Material Unpacked as far as you can unpack colours without a big mess and gives tutorial guides here and there. Article is written by Roman, but thoughts of Raffa and him are to be found in this article.

Enjoy!
______________________________________________________________________________


Okay, let's get it on with the article. I told you I'd explain the colours on the recent model I have painted from Terrible Kids Stuff and I will do, but later on. First things first and I think it is important to look at the colours first.

I had my first encounter with the Scale75 metal colours back on my painting class in Blumberg-Achdorf, but before I dig deeper in my first expression let's say that the jungle is doing mucho experiments with metal colours as you can see in Raffa's article:

Metallic Colour Comparision Chart
A collection of the results by different metal colour brands! Huge!

Unfortanetely the Scale75 colours were published a good while after this article, so you won't find them on that colour chart, but I think you get the point I'd like to explain: We are no noobies when it comes to metal colours.

Ok, back to Blumberg-class where I did put a drop of the Scale 75's Black Metal on my wetpalette for the first time to test them right in the class. If you do not want to feel like an idiot in front of a full class prepare a toothpick as these colours will be delivered sealed and you have to break them open with your tool of choice.

My first impression was: Well, I'd call it a colour orgasm. From the first look on I was in love with this metal tone, its high number of fine pigments and its brilliance.

Pfffrrddd!

Since then we are doing tests and use them more frequently in the jungle HQ as we really like these colours. The metal tones are great and really well chosen, as a painter who paints eight hours a day since years I can say that you really feel that these colours have been developed with great thoughts and painting wisdom by the choice of the tones you find in the set (sorry, forgot the purple Alchemy in the photo!!):


The basic metal tones from left Black Metal to Speed Metal work really well if you work your true metallic metals from dark to bright. The White Alchemy is great for some shiny dots or edge highlights while you can use the Alchemy metal tones to bring some colour play in your metals.

An introduction into the theme of painting with real metal colours.
 

... but there is one big problem all Scale75 colours have: Their mix. It does not matter if it is the metal set or the skin or leather set. Their mix provides the colours - beside the metals - with a really matte finish when painted. And often if you used them not daily these Scale75 colours change in their bottles. The pigments descent to the bottom of the bottle while their binder is staying up, often all colour by Scale75 look like this:


This colour is in no state to paint with it as it is not mixed properly. Now it is shaking time and I wished that Scale75 thought about this problem and would have added Agigator Metal balls to their bottles for example those by PK-Pro. There are non and so shaking becomes a hard task to get these colours ready.

Raffa went straight forward and used the drill machine with a bend wire piece for this task:


Open carefully ... sorry, for the blurry focus:

 Dsccchhhhh!!!


Following you can see how a proper mixed Scale75 colour should look like (middle) compared to an umixed one (left):

Well, this is truely annoying, but unavoidable, if you want to use these colours right and with the power they got. We used some of the steel set and some of the gold set for example for the awards of the Forged Hope Program.


Well, ok. The matte dry some of the regular sets have is great as the colours really dry beautifully matte on your model and it is great to work on top of them. A quick jump away from the metals to show you another problem you might encounter with all paint sets by Scale75 (which also appears with the metal tones btw): They dry fast, even if you put them on your wetpalette. This comes from their mixture again. Something in it, that makes them so matte makes them fade away in about three hours on your palette and there is only dusty dry colour left:


This problem is solved easily: Paint them :)

And that is what we do right away. Let's have a look back on the metals. Black Metal is Roman's favourite colour, why? It is a great start for metals, dark and so fine pigmented that it leaves a great surfaces to work on top of it - have a look at this early WIP to see the effect Black Metal has on black prepared armour parts:



Now adding a little bit of Heavy Metal to it to get these first light situtation sketches up to the your basic metal tone:




Well, really cool for some minutes of work. Now let's head over to the "Vampire guy" from Terrible Kids Stuff. The base was build rather simple with the provided resin part and some wood parts I broke out of the plinth.


After this the model was primed grey with Vallejoy primer as there was no black one at hand - I prepared the head for painting on its own - why? You will see in the next step:


As that guy is full of armour I decided to spray some Heavy Metal on top of him with my airbrush. The Scale75 colours are thinned well with Scale75 thinner and so I did in my airbrush - everything silver now!!!!


Next was cleaning the airbrush properly and heading for black metal to spray shadows with it to the model - still looks like a silver trophy!


Next I decided to test the Inktensity black in my - again - cleaned airbrush. Make sure to really clean your gun well if you spray metal tones. And wow, first impression on the Inktensity Colours are: Damn, they are intense!! Have to take more care or thin them more...


I now went for some Vallejo Colours to bring in a little bit seperation in the project before I worked further. Fabric, base, skin and leather parts recieved their basic colours:


Now I went for the Inktensity again with the brush to give the metals interesting tones, really testing the Inks was my goal here and well, yeah they have power. If you want to achieve gentle effects with them use them thinned down with water properly. I did not in the initial start of my tests, but learned from it ...


I had to rework some of the metals again where the inks took too much focus, for example his leg armour:


Last steps included an overall general clean up, detail work and some blood splatters. It is definatly fun to work with the metal steel set and the Inketensity Set. Highly recommended if you avoid awkward painting moments by mixing them properly before use.


Let us know your experiences with the Scale75 colours?
Your thoughts on our explanations here?

Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman and Raffa