Hello ladies and gentlemen,

or shall we say: "Braaiiinnss!!".
It's about time for the results of the latest tutorial voting.

MV's year of the painter 2 is proud to present to you the next article in line.
Many thanks to everyone who voted since last Tuesday. It was a very close run between the lady and the Zombies. Thanks to all 44 of you who voted.

We had 23 votes for "Zombies" and 21 for "Boudica". 
Close, but well, the winner is:



Roman will now take care of the article. We hope you enjoy!

You want to support us?
If you like to support the monkeys of Massive Voodoo in what they do, please feel invited to drop a jungle donation in their direction via paypal or check their miniatures they got on sale.

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Updates on this so far:

Update #01
Update #02
Update #03
Update #04
Update #05
Update #06 
Update #07
Update #08
 


Ok, 

how to start with this one?

INTRODUCTION
You all might know my love of mass dioramas and maybe the love I find for painting up Zombies.
There is this one idea I had for a long time now and I see that it is mucho work. I was making plans and collecting ideas for about a year before I really wanted to start. These ideas were mainly happening in my brain, no drawing or else happened.

With this article I want to show you all how such a project grows from the early start and most important this will also be our first community project, so prepare as ...


INITIAL IDEA
The idea came to my mind when I was having a cigarette on my balcony back in those days in my old flat. It was night, dark and I could see a truck from a bakery standing under a street light. Perfect zenithal light there. I imagined a gang of survivors on top of it and a huge mass of Zombies around it.
Simple as that.

SECOND THOUGHT
It is good to not completly start ideas in form of a project so I waited and while playing GTA V - a computer game - I had the idea to make this happen on a leisure park on a pier, just like the one in Santa Monica, California.

THIRD THOUGHT /  FINAL CONCEPT
Well, ideas grow and over some months, talks with friends and brainsssssstorming the picture of the scene turned to a bigger bridge with a dramatic showdown on top. A highway bridge/road with masses of Zombies under it. So many that you can hear them while you just look at it. Still with a truck and many more cars and a wonderful, tragic story being told on top. I will not tell it here. Let's keep that as a surprise for now.

I did not start yet. 
As I knew the project needs upfront plans, project stages and material and all planned for a smooth and exhausting workflow. I checked for some cars in the right scale, checked for some Zombies here and there and slowly the stuff gathered to be used.

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BENE JUMPS THE TRAIN
While I sat down with my buddy Bene from the MV-Team in our studio and we talked about miniature painting we realized that it is very sad that there is no bigger project from Bene so far, like a diorama or else. He had some ideas, but never finished or even started these. Sad.

I asked him if he would be interested to be part of this project. 
To make this project our project, not completly mine. He agreed and I was happy to see his glowing eyes, but on the other hand I told him that I already got a pretty nice concept for it all. I also told him that I am open for his fresh input, feedback and ideas to the project and we both talked on our ideas on this one cool painting night.


PROTOTYPING
We made our first real prototype on a beautiful plinth from Sockelmacher.de with just stuff to see what we were talking about:




We decided to work in Scale 28 mm.

Allright, as we opened up all my Zombicide Zombies for this test we quickly saw that we are in need of many more. Especially as we decided to use them without their attached bases to pack them to a horrible mass no one will understand.

We decided to make it the biggest Zombie Diorama that has ever been, without a helicopter :)

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TIME FRAME AND PROJECT STAGES
With such a big project you definatly need a plan. First we said the time frame would be two years.
Of course we would not work on it for two years. We also have other stuff to do, but we decided to set this time frame as a basic thought.

We made our thoughts on project stages. Useful ones. We are now in stage #01 and the project's working title is "Gnnarrgglll!" or something like it.

STAGE#01
Painting as much Zombies as possible. Many, in a good quality, but not too high as we need masses.

STAGE#02
As soon as we got a good amount of painted Zombies we will start working on the lower area of the base and the bridge. Build, paint and then we can already add the first painted Zombies to see how many more we need. This is good for motivation.

STAGE#03
Frankly, more Zombies.

STAGE#04
As soon as the ground is packed and painted we will start working on the upper area of the highway. Prepare the road, looted cars and the dramatic moment that is happening on top.

STAGE#05
We guess more Zombies again and finalizing the epic scene on top which will still be a surprise for you. Final paintwork, final sculpting and conversion work and finalizing everything.

STAGE#06 
Of course there will be a stage 6, but we do not know it yet.




COMMUNITY PROJECT INFO
Allright, as we are in STAGE#01 now we need your help.

Roman and Bene are already painting Zombies like crazy, but they rise slowly.
Both of them agreed on doing small conversions here and there, for example, cutting off a head or arm here and adding it to another body to make the Zombies unique. Heavier conversion are in progress.


As mentioned we use the Zombies from Zombicide so far. We cut off their plastic bases and put them together on some black plastic plinths we use to collect the first batches.






- Paint up a Zombie in 28 mm and sent it to us!
Your Zombie will be added to the project and your paintwork will be a part of this superepic diorama.
You can use all brands as long as they are in 28 mm. If you like you can do conversions to make your Zombie stand out and make him unique. Of course you can support us with more than one painted Zombie!

- Donate Zombie Miniatures for the cause!
We are in desperate need of hundreds of numbers of Zombies. Check your bitzboxes and if there are some Zombie Miniatures you do not need donate them to the biggest Zombie Diorama ever build.

If you like to do so please contact: Bene(at)massivevoodoo.com 
for further details on the shipping. Also if you got any questions.
He will get back to you as soon as possible.

- Share it with your painting friends 
and have a cool Zombie Painting night for this cause together.

- Where to get Zombie Miniatures in 28 mm?
Terrormizu suggested via comment we should do a link collection of where to get 28mm Zombiemodels. Well, so far we use the ones from Zombicide, which is easy to find by just typing it to google. Please feel free to add links via comments:

Mantic Games, Undead Zombies, 28 mm
Victory Force - Zombies, 28 mm
Studio Miniatures - Zombie Mobs, 28 mm
Minisocles - Zombie Kids, 28 mm
Minisocles - Zombie Punk
wargames factory zombie vixens and hordes
http://www.zombiesmith.com/pages/parts
http://cold-war.co.uk/
http://hfminis.co.uk
http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/zombies
http://www.cpmodelsminiatures.co.uk
http://elementgames.co.uk


WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF IT?
Your support will help to make this Diorama come true. Your painted Zombie will be a part of the diorama that will write history. We will write updates on the project stages as soon as they happen. If you support us in this you will be listed in the supporters list, like Jannick, who got a Zombie on one of Roman's recent painting classes and sent it back in an instant:


We have one plinth for Roman's painted Zombies, one for Bene's Zombies and one for the Community project Zombies. This looks like this and we will keep you updated about the progress regularly:


SIDENOTE:
In the end, when we will put all Zombies together to the base we allow ourselves to use the airbrush or washes here and there to bring them all together. We are not aiming to change your paintjob here, we are just aiming for having a proper mass that looks like a crazy mass, fitting from the athmosphere and such.

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We all love to paint Zombies, are you with us?

Thanks for the support to:

Luis, Spain
Pigment Pirates Gang, Germany
Ole, Sweden
The whole group of students of Roman's Speedpainting Masterclass
Erik, Germany
Jannick, Germany
Matthias, Austria
Sergio, Spain
Chris, Germany
David, Germany
Sebastian, Germany
Martin, Germany
Andy, Germany
Kevin, USA
David, Germany
Nicolas, France
Yannick, France
Désiré, France
Nassim, France
Dimitri, France
Sebastian, Germany
Christoph, (where are you from?)
Fabian, Germany
Bryan, USA
Josua, Switzerland
Lucky, Germany
Mads, Denmark
Matty, UK
Martin, Germany
Klaus, Germany
Sebastian, Germany
Anthony, USA
David, Germany
David, Australia
Mathias, Austria
Frederik, France
Raffaele, Germany
Donal, Ireland
Christian, Germany
Students of this Speedpainting Seminar
Hansrainer and friends, Germaany
*place your name here*


Keep on happy gnaarrggllll!
Best Wishes
Roman & Bene

Hihio,

time for another finished miniature, even it is thursday.

You might ask: What about the Tutorial Voting from this week?
Well, you will find the article tomorrow - so it is still time to vote your choice!


This time the model is done by Roman. It is a workshop miniature that he has started during a painting class with the jungle's good friend Alfonso Giraldes.

The class itself was awesome and a lot of new painting influance and spirit got Roman. Well, as the model here was a subject of learning, studying and testing Roman thought of never finishing it, but finally he did.

Roman likes to call the project a study in color, light/shadow and contrast. He is officially saying to not care about blending quality and other technichal aspects in this project. Just color. Hope you like him!










... and a little history lesson with Roman again, shall we?



"Ronin" is the name of Samurais without a master or lord.
Usually a Samurai was bound to a lord by oath for the rest of his life. Sometimes, when the lord died, or the Shogun sentenced his lord out of office the Samurai was without a home, without land, without honor. Sometimes the Samurai became a Ronin because he lost the favour of his master.

Ronin literally means "waveman", you can also translate this with the "wandering man". A homeless samurai with nowhere to go. Travelling, offering their service as henchman, mercenary or bodyguards. Often the population made fun and jokes of Ronins and the people threw salad or potatoes at them. Free you can say but some would say with less honor than a samurai bound to his master. Why? Usually the code of honor of a Samurai says if he lost his master he has to do Seppuku (traditional suicide). Those who did not follow the code of honor often became Ronin. Well, the others with honor obviously died by their own hand. Tschuukk!! Gnarrrrrggglll! SWWWIIISSHHH! Tok!

Hey everyone in the Jungle!

We have some information about a fantastic class in Barcelona to share with you.
Normally we don't post about all the classes available, that would just be too much. But this time it is a real one of a kind opportunity with master painters from Korea, the famous Sang-Eon-Lee and Myeong Ha Hwang.

So if you have the chance to take part, make it happen!



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Hi all!

Maybe you have heard about the painting seminar that Nut's Planet, Life Miniatures and FeR Miniatures organized on last November at Seoul, Korea. It was such an awesome experience that we have decided to do it again but, this time in Europe and bringing our Korean partners as teachers!

We are hosting a figure painting class in Barcelona, with Sang-Eon-Lee and Myeong Ha Hwang. As you know, among other impressive achievements, they are the box-art painters of the amazing products by Life Miniatures and Nuts Planet respectively. Besides that, they work professionally for collectors, have painted for several other miniatures companies and have won numerous awards on international competitions.

This course is intended to demonstrate an incredibly cool and particular way of painting, which is starting to be known as the “Korean School”, through the best possible teachers brought straight away for that purpose from Asia. We are offering the possibility of participating in what could be a unique experience for the European figure painters.

As Barcelona is reasonably near to many parts of Europe by car, and even more by a quick flight, we consider it is the perfect location for such an event. Also, we have here the FeR miniatures support, the weather is quite friendly and the touristic offer is simply immense (lots of options for sightseeing, lodging, eating, shopping, things to do, etc…). For that reason, the seminar will be hosted in English and Spanish, as our aim is to open it for a European audience.

The method of instruction will be personal enough to adapt to anyone's level, but we recommend that you at least know the basics about acrylic paints and figure painting. We count on both teachers and four additional assistant teachers, fluent in both Spanish and English, in order to ensure that everybody is reasonably taken care of.

The assistant teachers are the renowned painters Dani Serrano, Marc Masclans, Jaume Ortiz and Fernando Ruiz, so we think that the pupils are in good hands.

This workshop will consist of two intensive sessions over two days (a full weekend). The seminar will be centered in showing the teachers’ approach on painting a bust face with acrylics and maybe other areas if time allows. We will use two different busts, both future releases from each one of their companies.

The teachers will bring along the sample busts previously painted from Korea and will paint on another copy live, in order to demonstrate the techniques, and then will assist the pupils in turns with their own versions. Each teacher will use a different bust; one will do the teaching on Saturday and the other one will do it on Sunday. Also, we will count with the aid of video tutorials, with both English and Spanish subtitles, that will be used to help explain any possible doubt.

Included in the cost of the seminar will be both busts, the use of the sponsored paints and materials and the complimentary lunch for both days. Also, at the end of the seminar we will make available all the video tutorials used for each step.

The premises have room enough to host a small exhibition with works made by the teachers and the pupils, so you can have the chance to comment and get explaining of further techniques and doubts with in-hand examples.

Also we plan to do some other general activities in order to relax from the class hours and get the pupils to know each other in a good atmosphere of friendship and comradeship, like a pre-seminar party on Friday and a special dinner event for Saturday.

Barcelona Painting Seminar: The Koreans Strike Back

Instructors: Sang-Eon-Lee and Myeong Ha Hwang
Assistant Instructors: Dani Serrano, Marc Masclans, Jaume Ortiz and Fernando Ruiz
When: March 26th-27th, 2016 (Saturday and Sunday)
Where: Kaburi Rol & Games. Passeig de Sant Joan 11. Barcelona, Spain
Duration: 16 hours
Schedule: From 9:30 to 13:30 and from 14:00 to 18:00, with 30 minutes for lunch in the middle. We end up at 18:00 in order to make easier for some of the pupils returning home a bit earlier on Sunday, and having a bit more time to relax on Saturday.
Work Piece: a future bust release from Life Miniatures yet to be announced, and the new Major of British Cavalry in WW1 from Nuts Planet, both in 1/10 scale.
Inscription fee: 250€
Class size: 40 people

Sponsors:
Acrylicos Vallejo
Scale 75
Nut's Planet
Life Miniatures
FeR Miniatures

Registrations will end when seats are fully covered or the March 15th.
Send us an e-mail at chendalerenda@gmail.com to get a full detailed dossier about the seminar, with instructions for joining in and all additional information.

Hello Jungle painters,

it's Tuesday and time again for tutorial voting via MV's year of the painter 2.
If you want to keep track with an overview on what has happened so far, please check this link!

You want to support us?
If you like to support the monkeys of Massive Voodoo in what they do, please feel invited to drop a jungle donation in their direction via paypal or check their miniatures they got on sale.


What is Tutorial Voting?
2016 will bring you excitment every tuesday via Tutorial Voting and knowledge and wisdom every Thursday/Friday via the article you ladies and gentlemen voted. Your vote counts and can make the difference!
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Rules of Tutorial Voting are simple:
Post your choice, your vote under this posting and we count on Thursday/Friday before the article appears. One person, one vote. Your vote counts! Bring 'em in! Of course you can write why you want to see an article so bad or why not or what you expect of an article or what you wish for next year's Christmas and so on ...

#01
Community Project / SBS - Big MV Zombie-Project
Roman and Bene of the MV-Team are creating a massive diorama with over 500 Zombies over the next two years. If you want to learn more about their plans, how to start such a project, how do organise such a project, learn to create a project plan and see the first behind the scenes vote for this article. Included in this is also the announcement of including the MV community of readers and painters: In fact you!


#02
Step by Step - Boudica
Roman takes you on a ride through his work on this bust by Origen Art.
This article is about his thoughts while painting from the early start, techniques through the painting process, how to catch athmosphere and how to catch a moment.



Happy Voting!

From the official Campaign at Indigogo: 

Hey Jungle,

some news about miniatures that are on sale right now via Massive Voodoo.
Roman updated his models that are for sae - here are the news:

New Available 28 mm:
- Haydn, double pack
- Borax
- Fox
- Lunatic
- Dynamic Lenore

New Available Busts:
- Brognir Stonebridge
- Boudica, Battle of Watling Street
- Athenian Hoplite, Maraton 490 B. C.

Recently sold - thank you for your support!
- Motorcycle Club Ass Kicker SOLD!
- Handsome Jack, Vault 23 SOLD!
- Hac Tao SOLD!

Check more of all the miniatures that are on sale right now and if you are interested in making one of these yours please follow the instructions provided:

Source.

Are you already working on your miniature Mad Max Car for Massive Voodoo's actual contest.
It is running as we speak and crazy wasteland people are preparing their entry for the contest as we speak!

Get your gear together and click here for the contest rules!



If you show you up to the contest, you'll have a good time, promised!

Good Morning ladies and gentlemen,

time for the results of the latest tutorial voting.

MV's year of the painter 2 is proud to present to you the next article in line.
Many thanks to everyone who voted since last Tuesday and sorry for those who did not want to hear anything more about snow, winter and cold.

We had nineteen votes for "Winter Visualisation" and fourteen for "Boudica".
The winner is:


Roman will now take care of the article, which in fact is a really important milestone when it comes to MV articles and tutorials. It is number 300!
We hope you enjoy!

_______________________________________________________________________________
You want to support Massive Voodoo? 
If you like to support or say thanks the monkeys of Massive Voodoo in what they do, please feel invited to drop a jungle donation in their direction via paypal or check their miniatures they got on sale here.

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Winter is coming. Foreword.
Everyone did expect this introduction, but I will not go any further I suppose.
Please keep in mind that this article is a follow up to the following ones:

Visual Studying - Learning to see and paint
Roman takes you on a journey on how to use your eyes to study the act of painting.

Visualizing: Autumn
Roman explains how real autumn handles leaves on your bases.

Please make sure - if you did not read the other ones so far - do it before digging deeper into this one.

Ok, feel invited to a walk in winter now. Finding "rules" of nature, ideas that autumn already gives us at hand. We learn to see them and use them on our miniature projects.

Preparing Thoughts.
Important when we talk/think about Winter in our projects and visualizing the rules of winter is to know where we are coming from. Autumn.


Dead leaves still on the ground and winter just wants to lay his blanket on top of it. This year winter came late to my hometown, Augsburg, Germany. I do not have any problems with that as I am not the biggest winter fan since I quit winter sports.

This example shows weak efforts of winter to lay down on autumn. Still this can be a miniature projects athmosphere and setup for your seasonal time. Winter is not only snow.
My Point of View
In this article I can only speak of my personal snow experience. I mean I have friends in Russia or Canada or Sweden who - I might guess - can tell completly different stories of their winters.

During December 2015 we had one or two days were snow fell. Powerful and less powerful plants were not impressed. They seem to did not care and were still standing strong, even green here and there. This can also be the moment for your Winter-Project. Winter is not only snow.

I really enjoyed the view on such fragile snow constructions ...


... but they were gone rather quick.

Some days after Christmas it started to get really cold over here, but still no snow.
I was able to observe frozen spiderwebs, packed with early morning frost. This could also be your moment for your project to transport your cold athmosphere. Winter is not only snow.

If anyone is asking you why you got some pure white spider webs on your base you can now explain it, eh?





Frost in fact is something most people do not think about in their miniature projects. In fact it is not easy to illustrate with the tools we got on hand. Sometimes frost looks like a white filter, maybe we can achieve this by the use of the airbrush after we finished painting on that area.


As a sum up you can say: 
If you decide for an early winter base with less snow, make sure to know the stuff that might look through from beneath. Make proper thoughts.

Painting Athmospheric Winter Colors
If you are up to create a winter base, there is one golden rule if you say so. It is about color temperate in your paintwork on your base or miniature. In fact you can also observe this in nature, when it is getting colder and you already can smell winter and taste him on your tongue.

Before you apply any snow - while you are painting up your base for example - make sure that you use some cold colors like dark blue in your shadow areas. This will transport your base into the cold athmosphere and your overall snow base will be more convincing in the end.

I told you can see this already in nature. See the blue in the shadows? Keep that in mind for the following explanations.

More Snow
Allright. Winter is coming. Again.
Last weekend during my Beginner's Class in Augsburg Winter decided to answer the call and snow started to fall. Let's see if we can get some more information from this for our miniature work.



Snow falls, lands and stays if it's cold enough.
It is obvious that it stays in flat surfaces, but it also places itself to the smallest areas. Makes them look interesting, adds detail to them and this can be of great use for a miniature base.

Big mountains of snow and even some small snow areas on the metal bar here. Endless detail.

Funny shapes, depending on the wind direction of the falling snow flakes.

The wind direction also allows snow to stick to places where it shouldn't stick by the rules of gravity.
Cool, so snow will not only be on the top of something if you decide to go with a wind direction in your work.

Wherever snow can land it lands and forms beautiful shapes.

Even on the most fragile areas.

Adding snow to a base 
will always result in one thing: You use one of the most important contrasts in painting, called "Dark/Bright Contrast". Which draws a lot of attention to your work. A high contrast between white and black if you have a look on it in black and white.



This results in the thought:
If you go too bright with your basework, for example painting it in bright blue cold tones, adding snow afterwards it might not look like groundwork, more like ice.

Adding snow to your base will always draw attention to it. So people will be interested to have close look on it and because of this it is important that you make proper thoughts about your snowbases instead of throwing a truckload of snow on top of it.

For example: If you start building up a base you can already plan interesting snow areas, like a root standing out of the ground, some brances, a brick wall with some bricks standing out to catch a small tiny amount of snow. We will have a look on some miniature examples later on.


Deep Winter
Well this time of winter can be a time were mostly everything is covered with snow. Everything seems cold and sleeping. Thick layers of snow on top of eachother. Again look at the color temperature of the shadows - see that? Snow is not white all the time if you would paint this photo. Oh crazy ...



Heavy snowfall covers the stuff beneath in a different way.
Much thicker, more like a paste of white nutella - it hides more than it shows:




Snow glitters, 
but not everywhere. It depends in which moment you want to show your snow on your base.

- Is it a tiny amount of snow
- Is it heavy snow
- Is it melting already on the edges
- Is it dirty snow, mixed with mud
- and more

I mainly use glittering snow stuff on top of other stuff to create a contrast between non-glitter and glitter. Makes it much more realistic. Check these three articles to see how I work with snow:






Footprints
are a common sight if you have a walk during winter, which is very healthy by the way. Dress up warm and go out. Breathe cold, fresh and return to drink warm tea.

Do not forget about them. If you have a Barbarian running through a winter base there should be some footprints, maybe even some of his prey to tell the full story, eh?

Footprints in detail. Check the shadows!!

Footpr ... no this was something bigger, looks like a giant snake or a group of dwarfs who searched their way through thick snow. 

Ice & Icicles
Cold makes water become ice.
Oh have a look here, there are some leaves inside the ice, now that is the beauty and detail I speak of.


Speaking about icicles.

Huge and small ones ...

... and too many to be counted.

Important while creating or using icicles that you have bought is: Think about where they might appear, do not just glue them somewhere. Very often - depending on which winter moment you choose for your base - they appear in areas where water runs down via gravity. Take care to think of it.

Early Winter - no icicles, it is just not cold enough.
Winter with snow that stays - some tiny icicles here and there
Deep Winter - see photo above
Ice Age - imagine!

For the creation of icicles I can recommend the following article:




Miniature Examples and Thoughts
Allright, now we put it to a test if we can visualise winter also in miniatures. Let's start simple with some gaming models. 

Simple Snow base with muddy painted underground. Some snow on the model's shoes and jacket to show that some snowing just happened the moment before.


Snow in an area where many people pass or where it slowly starts to melt. More groundwork is visible. Nice detail on the rusty construction. 

Simple but a little more compley gaming base with a branch who is touched by snow.





 In this example I wanted to create a frozen lake's surface with some snowflakes on top. I just painted the plastic base in cold tones with some variety in dark and bright added thick gloss varnish on top (ice) and added glittering snowflakes.

Walking through a snowfall.
This is obviously no snowstorm, but I imagined this guy walking through wind and snowflakes.
Check the temperature of the shadows in the color. Do you remember?

If you want to read a step by step of this guy click here!
 

Snow and wind directions.
Snow blazing through an open door. Step by step of this base can be found here.


Wind directions.
Already sculpted to the models fur  collar. Also used for the way on how to place snow on this travelling Inuit.

Dirty Snow.
Imagine and observe once in a while how a base can look if snow is melting. What happens if it melts. Water. Water makes areas wet. Earth will become mud, mud makes snow brown in the areas where it connects.


This one was a test if it is possible to use the airbrush for the cold temperature shadows in the snow itself. I sprayed a glaze of blue/tourqouise in this snow base, from below.

And icicles. Many if you want to go crazy, but think on where to place them.




AFTERWORD
Well, winter is not only meaning snow. Many things play together to create a convincing snow base, but the best thing is: You can observe them in nature. You just have to scale them down and think while you are planning and working on your winter themed miniature project.

Thank you for your time reading the article. I am looking forward to your comments, ideas and thoughts on this topic.

Be inspired and keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

_______________________________________________________________________________
You want to support Massive Voodoo? 
If you like to support or say thanks the monkeys of Massive Voodoo in what they do, please feel invited to drop a jungle donation in their direction via paypal or check their miniatures they got on sale here.