MV-Team: Raffa

Name: Raffaele Picca

Nickname: “Picster” or just Raffa

Job: Phew, hard question actually. Full time miniature nerd? Being Co-Funder of Massive Voodoo I'm pulling a lot of strings in the background of Massive Voodoo, I give some classes (but not enough :D), I'm the founder and head behind Forged Monkey where I try to give my sculpts a way to reach other painters.

Years of Painting: I started painting when I was 14 years old but then paused again after a year or so.
Restarted painting in 2009... so 5 years of painting

Media: Mostly acrylics, sometimes oil, water color, pigments ...

Brushes: Windsor & Newton Series 7 - Mostly size 1 with long bristles.

Airbrush: I love the airbrush, it's a mighty tool!

Miniatures: Mostly Fantasy and SciFi the most but from time to time I also paint historical minis.

Scales: I prefer busts and large scale stuff, but I also paint smaller scales.

Speed: pfff... ranging from very fast to "normal" depending on the project and what I am aiming for.

Average Painting Hours per day: It used to be 8+ hours but at the moment I am mostly sculpting.

Sculpting: I learn to love it at the moment. It gives me much more freedom and possibilities in expressing my ideas and thoughts.

 

My name is Raffaele aka Raffa or Picster. I live in the lovely Augsburg in Germany.

I moved here in 2006 to start working as an Art Director for computer games and quickly fell in love with this town. In this town, some years ago I started miniature painting again and visited a painters meeting that was organized in a German painting forum.

There were a lot of nice people there and I quickly realized how much you can do with these small "canvases". Roman and Peter introduced me to showcase painting which made things even better, having cool people around to show you some tricks, hang out and have a great time.
Today, Roman and I share a friendship, a studio and we oftentimes work together on projects.

I really learned to enjoy miniature painting, the people around this hobby and the challenge to get better and better.

Today, 5 years later, a lot of things changed. I quit my old job and now I am working as a self employed miniature painter and sculpter which is a real passion.

Sha'un - Ram Tribe Warrior - Sculpted and painted by myself.

Giu's Robot Repairs

I think I learned a lot about life and myself with this hobby.
Accepting and mastering challenges, chewing through hard tasks and also accepting failure.
This sounds very tough but I think I am a person that needs constant challenge and hard tasks to grow and learn. I love to experiment with different media and ideas, this form of expression is great because of the freedom you have.

 Shadow of Nether photograped under UV-light.

And I love to have a task that looks impossible at first. I can really bite into such a problem like a crocodile and find a solution to transport my idea.

 Visions of Hatred

And the best part of the hobby are the people. There are SO many nice and great people and friends I met with this shared passion. Open minded, friendly, funny and unique persons. It's so more than just painting miniatures and going to competitions.

You will know what I am talking about if you are a miniature painter ;-)