Good Morning Jungle Painters,

today there is another Material Unpacked for you.
This time we are at number 67 of our reviews.

This review is definatly connected to one of our articles named "Room for Freshness".

Roman got pretty annoyed by having to fight some bottles of colour to give a drop of good mixed colour. Maybe you know the problem: If you are too lazy to shake the bottle like a madman you might first just recive a big drop of the colour binder on your wetpalette. Not a good mixed colour.
We encountered these problems extremly with Scale75 colours (find a review here), but nonetheless there are also many other brands that you might be confronted with this issue. It often happens if you do not use a specific colour to often.

Well, what can you do?
Not much, honestly. Shake it like a madman, BUT make your shaking more relaxing with
stainless steel agitating balls. 

Roman was sick of not having them and took an afternoon to put one in every single bottle of his.



Prepare yourself with a tissue, a blade and a nipper. - tools every miniature painter should have in his collection of tools. It might get dirty as this is also a good moment to do the rare work of cleaning up the top of your paintbottles- just in case they are as messed up as Romans.


Roman started by using the nipper to remove the head of the bottle. If it is a little stuck go back to your black and carefully try to pry open it and then get back to the nipper again. Well, lesson learned, try to wear an old shirt or a Massive Voodoo Workskirt to not get your clothes messed up with flying colour.

When the pot is open feel free to dump one agigator ball inside. It is important that you use stainless steel ones. If you use others they might rust and mess up your colours.
You can get the stainless steel ones in huge numbers at PK-Pro for a fair price.

Blubb!


Recently during Roman's painting class in the Netherlands he found also Agigator Balls made out of glass by Scenery Workshop. They are not as heavy as the stainless steel ones, but work too.


Well, if your bottles look like this sometimes you might want to take some time to clean them up.



It took a little while but painting is more fun when you shake your colours with agigator balls and cleaned up paint bottles. Believe us!

Hello Ladies and Gentleman, 

it is about time to announce the next painting class for 2015.
Check the roadmap of classes here!

Many asked for it and now - after two and a half years we'll be back with
MV Jar's beginners class in Hamburg, Germany.
 
Find all information here!



The word 'beginner' might be confusing to many first time participants of this class.
It is not a class for 'only' beginners. In fact it is a class for every person, at every age interested in figure painting, whatever their experience level is.

'Beginners class' means here that Roman aka jarhead gives an introduction into his way of thinking while painting, in detail a lot of important theory is explained while doing a walk through Art History and is used in practical exercises. During the weekend you will not only learn to improve your painting skills, you will also learn the 'Why?' behind everything explained well and with that you will be able to teach yourself in your own hobby future by just recognizing what nature has to offer.

The class is not only interesting for first timers, also repeaters are welcome and will be guided through their own individual focus.


The theory parts contain:

- Learn to see your world with different eyes
- Introduction into basing composition
- Learn how to feel harmony in different aspects
- Important contrasts for figure painting
- Explanation about how to paint a light situation on your figure
- Understand colour theory and learn how to use it properly
- Learn about different materials, their unique properties and learn to paint them
- Learn to lose fear of doing something wrong
- much more!

See you there!

Well, the year 2015 takes its proper time to bring me back to happy painting. After my winter holiday ... well, let's not talk too much about the past. Let me just say I was not in the best condition. Somehow really in a very bad mood and so on. I was truely struggling. Is it over? Well, I do not know but I am working on it. I worry about the important things I can change and be happy about every day. So far so good.

As I was away from the brush for a while it ain't too easy to get back. Sure I can sit down and paint but the painting does not flow and I have to get into it again. I have learned in the past that it is truely helpful to check what is on my table. Let's see, shall we?


Meanwhile I see some of them primed, others at a gentle start of colour. First one is another Ilyad Games Miniature for my private collection of this brand - primed at the moment:



A cool model by Kaha Miniatures, just basic work done, but I do not find into the paintjob right now and before I struggle I put him aside for now:


A very cool and interesting sculpt by Origin-Art, sculpted by Pedro Fernandez Ramos. He gave it to me as a gift in Monte San Savino last year and I am working on her to find connection. I know I am too shy right now - gotta go harder and further, but well at least I started.


Last year I took some time to dust off Dschingis Cow, a conversion of Figone's Minotaure and did some paintwork here and there. I'd like to finish him sooner or later, but right now I do not feel the force to do so:


I decided to start with a small comission. I recieved a miniature from a german miniature collector. He bought it - as far as I remember, from a spanish painter, but the model arrived totally broken and one arm was missing or got lost. After the painter did not respond, he asked me if I could restore her.
Well, that's a challenge but I am on it and already put her together. I also got the missing arm in white metal and now I will be up to bring it all together.


Am I sick and tired of painting? 
No I do not think so, but yeah sometimes these days. I just need to go down to the studio and sit down there more. Find good music to work with again. Paint. Make. Create. That gives me the most and I am missing it, so I have to follow my inner voice and paint :)

My workspace is really cleaned up these days as everytime I am in the studio I clean it more and more. Maybe it is time to make it dirty again, eh?


And now I am off for the studio ...


Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

A little late but still in January we'd like to thank everybody who supported Massive Voodoo and what we do in last years December with his/her jungle donation:

01.12.2014 Grosswangen, Switzerland, 5,00 $
14.12.2014 Vallentuna, Sweden, 20,00 $ 
28.12.2014 Balwyn, Australia, 10,00 $

Many thanks to you!

Hello guys and girls,

today I want to show you another miniature I already finished a while back, but haven´t posted it yet.

It´s the Caravan Guardian by Forged Monkey.
Well, In my case guardian doesn´t describe this character properly, as I decided to make him chief of a raiding party which attacks caravans instead of protecting them. So there he´s standing on a cliff watching out for the next caravan to trap into an ambush planned by him.
I chose a pretty simple color scheme, based on colors real desert tribes wear. So nothing very exclusive, but in my opinion it works fairly good.

So here are some pictures of that fella:







I would be happy if you leave a vote over at Putty and Paint, just follow this link!



Cheers
Bene

Hello,

I call these Demo-nettes.

You know I am doing classes since several years now and there is one class I did very often:
MV Jar's Beginners class, a weekend class that gives an introduction in my way of thinking while painting. About theory behind it and technical aspects. Students of different skill levels are enjoying this class, if you like you can find some reviews of them on MV.

Well, these demo-nettes are the models I paint for explanation via the class and I never manage to finish them. I just take them out of the class up to this big plinth to have them with me in the class as inspiration and examples for the students. Yesterday I had to make a new plinth, because the old one was too small. Now there is new space for some more! Really need to paint a yellow one soon, but I hate to paint yellow :D

Funny story about the third one from the left can be found here:
You see she is damaged. While I was packing for the trip to France for the latest painting class I was sitting on our studio couch and felt something under my feet. As I looked closed it was her. A painted demo-nette grinded off from colour by too many feet. Ridicilous and weird, but well, as she was broken in different parts I just repaired her ... kind of :)






I think it is really beautiful to see them in such a colour variety, but well some specific colour schemes are still missing.

Hope you like them too!
Keep on happy painting!
Roman

More News about the running MV Contest:
BANANALICIOUS EPISODE 2

The Random Prize Pool is growing again.
Much more to come in the future days. We hope you are already painting and preparing your models.

Random Prize #16:
A drunk dwarf and a drunk Barbarian. Two beautiful and very loud companions, directly out of the bar by Imbrian Arts.


Random Prize #17:
Morland Studios hands out tons of miniature- and hobby candy. This is the second set of their sponsoring. A great mix of different sized, beautiful miniatures, some basing material and a plinth.


Random Prize #18:
Lasercut Rocking horses and a cool postapocalyptic model in 54 mm by Kellerkind-Miniatures is our random prize number 18.


More to come soon!
 
Many thanks to the BANANALICIOUS SPONSORS: