Olis' works: September - Arena Rex

Hello again,

some months have passed since my last post. For those of you who do not remember me or are new to Massive Voodoo - here is my profile: Oli aka HonourGuard.

I have decided to start regular postings for every 1 or 2 months, to show you my latest finished figures and projects that are currently on my table. And beside that, I want to be a little part of the big Massive Voodoo wheel.

Today I will start with showing you my Arena Rex miniatures. I pledged in their kickstarter campaing about 2 years ago and 6 months ago I finally got my package. I am a big fan of their figures, because they are really on a very high level..on the highest level I guess in 32mm figures.

Let's start with the first one, Lupa:

The next one is the centurion:

I got a first picture, where you see the model without any colors. Sebastian Archer / Automaton did great job on the muscles, especially on the torso.

Small Tutorial:
Painting a shield with NMM Gold:

1. Preparation of the shield, sandpaper + knife and a primed with Tamiya Grey.
 
2. Basecoat with Model Color Carmine Red and bit of MC Chocolate brown. Shades to black and lights up with MC Vermillion. Painted the base of the Gold, using 2 parts MC Deep Yellow and one part MC Chocolate brown, than I added shadows with mixing more brown and later black in it. Also added some rough Blacklining now.
 
3. I started with the lights, adding more MC Deep Yellow to the gold base. 
 
4. Adding white to the yellow to paint final lights of the gold.
 
5. Added some very thin green washes in the shadow areas of the gold. And correct the gold mistakes with the red color of the shield.
 

And now the finished miniature:

I tried to create a realistic Gladiator atmosphere with the skin and the dirt and dust effects.

And now the last miniature and for today: Vargr

If you like small and very detailed miniatures you really should give these miniatures a try.
As I know they got their shop running now - link!

Let me know what you think about my last paintjobs.

Best regards
Oli

Review: Private Coaching with Andi

 

Hello Jungle Painters,

time for another review.
In August we had a private coaching with Andi from Austria.
Andi is not only a passionate painter, he is also a long time friend to the jungle inhabitants and it was our pleasure to welcome him for a two day private coaching in Augsburg.

To proof how long we already know Andi: 
He took part in Roman's first of Jar's Beginners Class back in 2009.

Andi, Raffa, Roman

We want to thank Andi for his trust in our teaching, for his friendship and his time he took to write down some words of his Massive Voodoo Private Coaching experience. Now we hand the mic to Andi ...

Private Coaching review by Andi
thoughts before the workshop

I was lucky enough to get a free slot on Raffa’s and Roman’s timetable in August for some private coaching. 

It’s not like I had never joined them for one of their awesome beginner workshops (I did that multiple times because I enjoyed them so much!) but understandably there is only so much time for personal training on those. 

Some creative ideas struck me on these courses but making out with inspiration doesn’t necessarily give you the skills to put those ideas on a miniature. So I grew a little frustrated after every workshop because my spirits were high but painting a miniature after a workshop somehow didn’t look as good as you thought it would, even though you were sure you improved every time you went to a workshop! 

Soon the realisation dawned on me that I had learned some nice tricks and basic understanding to make certain effects work out but my way of painting lacked … direction. Emphasising every part of a mini in the end means emphasising no part oft he mini. I stretched into so many ways at the same time that in the end I felt like I had arrived nowhere. Sometimes putting pieces of a puzzle together without knowing what’s supposed to come out changes the result drastically each time you try to assemble it. While that can be fun for a certain time, I felt like I wanted to go for achievable goals and planning so I can actually compare my progress. 

Roman: Andi brought some of his recent miniatures. In many mails we found out the main subject of the two day coaching: Wise Color Choice, Color and focus control on a miniature.

 
So I asked my former and hopefully future teachers if they would take care of me once more in a private coaching. I already knew about their teaching style and their personality, which made them the perfect choice and they agreed! 

So after telling Roman in a few messages what I needed, I was soon heading to Augsburg … the Workshop itself: It soon became obvious to my mentors what my problem was. Roman let me pick an unpainted mini from his Hasslefree stash and we talked about colors. The whole workshop I had a burning (more heat related puns because of immense August heat incoming. I’m not even sorry) desire to use colorful, bright colors potentially ruining my chosen miniature soldier’s camouflage. 

Theory of colors while choosing them!

 Prepared Hasslefrees for Andi - now choose!

 Color!

 
Raffa was surprised (to put it mildly) at my choice of pure Goblin green and we promptly went off to analysing and mixing colors in various degrees of saturation ourselves so I get a feeling of what colors consist of (and so that my minis get less saturated) So this was my main point: start desaturated after thinking up a color scheme. 

I was also really surprised how often I still tended to paint what I thought things looked like instead of actually looking at them and painting what I saw. So as a warm up exercise Roman and me quickly painted some Zombicide Zombies to get a feeling for how to create an atmosphere. 

Zombicide Color Test runs 

 
Raffa then used a toothpick to teach me how to apply consistent lighting to miniature painting but it was quite a lot, to be honest. I wasn’t used to paint 10 hours a day so focussing that much for extended hours burned through my energy reserves quite fast and the studio couch and me soon became good friends. Roman delivered some wet towels that we wrapped around our shoulders while Raffa cooled my flaming brush hand with some delicious ice cream to hold while on break. They really took good care of me. 

 Tired Painters!

Wet Towel-Painters!

Plan your color choice!

 
In those breaks he showed me how to cut out a nice mask where I can look at a color without being irritated by the colors next to it. Even though my main focus was just to paint with less saturated colors, those two painting madmen kept surprising me with new approaches to painting I haven’t thought of and were a refreshing new access for me.

So was it worth it? 
For me it was. I would have preferred it if the weather gods would have been a little bit cooler about me being in Augsburg but I loved it. I had a lot of fun while working and in the end having fun while painting is my biggest motivation.

Massive Voodoo's 6th Birthday & Studio Renovation

Aloa Jungle Painters,

the last weeks kept us pretty busy and we totally forgot about
Massive Voodoo's Birthday.

September 17th 2015 was the date, when the MV blog turned six years old.
Six years of daily miniature painting inspiration, tutorials, reviews, event reports, painting classes and happy painting spirits. Six years and we forget about it. This year we do not find proper time to celebrate the jungle's birthday.

For last years 5th birthday we presented you the BANANALICIOUS CONTEST 2 as our birthday gift to our readers and to fullfil this gift we took almost a year. This year we have nothing for you. Just plain nothing, BUT we have some future changes ahead concerning the Massive Voodoo Team.
Stay tuned for more updates!

 
Now it is up to you!
You know nice words about the work we do always make us feel more happy and keep us motivated.
We ask you to write down your own Massive Voodoo experience via comment to this post.




Now what is your Massive Voodoo experience?
Your story connected to Massive Voodoo?
Since when do you read Massive Voodoo?
What did you learn from Massive Voodoo's way of teaching miniature painting?
What made you really happy in the last years when you look back at you, your painting table and the experiences you made there connected to MV?

Why do we need your motivation right now?
Well, we told you we were busy and we still are. After Roman and Raffa returned from their trip to the US the directly dived into their studio renovation.

We are about to strip our studio bare naked and clean, paint and improve EVERYTHING!
Right now we are in the middle of process and it is more or less a professional miniature painter's mess ...

Day 1

Packing all our stuff ...

This is not bare naked yet ...

Bene under the table ...

Day 2

The studio itself gets more and more empty ...

All that stuff needs to get out! Nauw!

The room seems bigger than we thought, when all our stuff is gone ...

The hallway gets filled up!

Oh my gawd!

Day 3

 Problem?

Sanding the floor with big sanding machine to make the room a beauty!

Day 4

 Painting the walls - pure white again!

Fear the painters hands!

Day 5

The Retro-Corner is taking shape ...

 New stuff arrived and we are slowly bringing back stuff into the room!

 More stuff!

We will keep you updated about the next days progress and our plans.
We also hope to have the updated studio back in quite a short time as everyone of us wants to paint and sculpt and work on projects.

Well, not right now!
First this has to be done!

More soon and well ... happy birthday Massive Voodoo Jungle!
Keep on happy painting everyone!
Your  MV-Team

Review: Private Coaching with Sebastian

 

 Good Morning Jungle Painters,

it's been a while and it took as a while to finally bring you the review of a cool private coaching we had in early 2015 with Sebastian. Why it took us so long? Well, we can not say and in the end it doesn't matter as here it is :D

Find more private coaching reviews here!

Sebastian is well known to the jungle teachers, as he took part in several of Jar's Beginners classes, a BÄM class and Jar's Basing class. He is such a learning force that Roman always tells him how proud he is as a teacher. Sebastian improved so much in the last two years and even helped Roman as a co-teacher during one of his seminars. Now Sebastian wanted to take the extra step forward and sit together with Raffa and Roman in a private coaching.

Sebastian will talk about his experience he made while taking his two day private coaching in Augsburg, in the MV HQ. We want to thank Sebastian for his kind words and the time he took to write down his experiences.

________________________________________________________________________________

Sebastian in full learning mode.

Sebastian says:
"Arriving in the Massive Voodoo headquarters I was welcomed by Raffa and Roman as we haven’t seen in five years. 

After I made comfortable at my working spot we spoke and repeated the topics we wanted to tackle in the coaching that were important to me. And those were quite a lot. So we decided to treat some topics a bit less as the time just won’t be enough. And there was another important rule I had to follow while being in the studio: “feel like you’re home”.

Then we started right away. Raffa showed me how different a color can look by just changing the colors next to it. At this point I realized how well the two prepared for my coaching. After this first lesson we started by base coating the mini. Right after that we started painting … with desaturated colors. 

 
Here Roman took over again and explained it with his mini (Both painted their own projects that were matched with my topics). It was a little bit like in the beginner class. Just that there weren’t spirit-lifting and motivated words waiting for me but carrot and stick. This really gave me a lot of motivation to go on and keep improving. In the twinkling of an eye we continued with the next topic: fur. Now it was Raffas turn again. He explained the topic to me in a very easy understandable, experienced and confident way. In between there were always some miniatures to look at for demonstration purposes. It felt like the fur topic was covered very quickly, but this was just my feeling as the first day was already slowly drawing to a close. 

Sebastian brought some of his projects...

After a good night of sleep the second day was there. 
The first topic to cover was ‘metal’. I was already expecting a funny and exciting day. Roman took over again and we started with the day. The more we talked about metal and covered the topic the more my jaw hit the floor. I never could imagine that you can do so much when painting metals. Raffa did a painting demonstration on a dwarfen shield on how to paint freehanded three dimensional shapes by using metallic colors. From this I was at a point that I had the last time on a beginner workshop: rien ne va plus – end of the line. The shower with information was so enormous that my brain went into stand-by. 

Ahh... to much information!

Roman's explanation minis ...

Raffa and Roman quickly recognized this and continued a little slower. Raffa continued by explaining OSL effects on finished projects and we already arrived at the end of the second day. 

At the end of the private coaching we had a talk about how my experience was, what could be done better, etc. I can just advice on anyone thinking about a private class the following: choose no more than two topics. Everything else is too much! I just want to say that those topics were the most important ones, we covered much more. If I would write down all we did in those two days I need to write a book. I can just recommend the private coaching to anyone that wants to improve his painting skills. 

Not an easy bust for two days ...

Use the chance to strive forward! 
Both of them were really well prepared and quickly adjusted to my needs when needed. Both took care for my well-being as a grandma takes care when their grandchild comes for a visit … just milk and cookies were missing (comment by Raffa: we will work on this issue ;-) 

It was a great and very rewarding experience and I will return for sure! 

Best regards 
Sebastian