Review: Jar's Beginner Workshop, Augsburg, Germany

by Roman aka jar




"Als erstes noch mal ein riesen Lob für den tollen Workshop. War und bin immer noch total begeistert und wieder Feuer und Flamme fürs malen." - Thomas


"Nochmals vielen Dank für diesen genialen Workshop - es war super zu sehen was wir als Anfänger alles erreichen konnte, wenn man die richtigen Tipps und Kniffe lernt. Vielen Dank dafür. Grade durch die Schwemme an YouTube-Videos wo viele 'ihre' Techniken zeigen ist es besser einen Lehrer zu haben der einem zeigt wie's geht. Tatsächlich haben die Videos und all der Input in der Vergangenheit zum Gegenteil geführt - alles probiert, nichts richtig gemacht. Ganz zum Kontrast was ich/wir in deinem Kurs geschafft habe. Super!" - Ben

"Zunächst noch einmal vielen Dank für den erstklassigen Kurs am vergangenen Wochenende. Ich "kannte" dich bisher nur über deinen Blog und war sehr gespannt, ob dieser drei Tage. Jetzt kann ich sagen: Es war nicht nur sehr lehrreich, du bist auch noch ein irre sympathischer Typ und es wird garantiert nicht das letzte Mal gewesen sein, dass ich nach Augsburg für #happypainting gefahren bin. :)"- Stephan

"Nochmals ein ganz liebes Danke für die Geduld und dafür einem den Mut zu geben einfach mal was zu versuchen und sich zu trauen."- Nadine



Thanks to all of you for a beautiful happy painting weekend!
Thanks for all the help during the class and afterwards.Thank you for joining up for the class and your joy to learn painting wisdom and philosophy :)


@Kilian
I was not able to add your photos to this review. It somehow was very complicated to get them from the word document to this entry. I could have gone with screenshots and such, but I just do not find enough time right now. I am very sorry and hope you are fine if I just use the ones I did during the class. I am really busy these days with teaching and resting in between.



"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."
- Lao Tzu
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Welcome,

this time the review will not be written by myself.
Killian, one of my students in this class will take over. When? Now. :)

This above is Killian ... 


in action during our toothpick-spear-far-throw-contest ...


This is his review ...

Let’s imagine your vision about painting.
It is a place full of creativity.

Some might imagine green, calm woods, others wild, blue rivers, and still others red fearsome places burning in fire. No matter where you draw you creativity from, it is a place where you thoughts roam free and everything is possible. You feel save and you head thrives on all kinds of ideas.
Now imagine an ogre, tall, enormous, bald with a black beard and a gigantic club in his hands. He tells you he doesn’t drive much because he is too easily distracted. This ogre will smash your place of creativity. An afterwards he will rebuilt it with you and your hands. Then he will smash it and rebuilt it with you again. He does this over and over and over again. Until in the end you don’t recognize this place of beauty any longer. You cannot tell what has become of it. The only thing you can tell, is that it is more than before.

This is the story of the beginner class of Roman aka Jarhead. And yes, the similarity to the ogre is intentional, but Roman is far more kind. What remains true is that, over the course of two and a half days, (33 hours), you will become someone very different with respect to you painting and the understanding of the world that surrounds you.
Be open-minded. Welcome change, strive for something more than you are now and you will not be disappointed in what Roman has to teach you.


The first few hours of the workshop start out pretty normal. A bunch of guys and girls setting up their tables, brushes, colors, wet-palettes, chatting and getting to know each other. The first task is to create a base which resembles the feel you want for your miniature. Roman presents various different materials. Some so simple, you think you’re dumb never having thought of that before. And others, you never thought could be used to resemble a specific material
“Just use dried potting soil if you want soil on your base. Nothing will look more real, than real soil” Yes thanks, Captain Roman Obvious, but damn it worked so well!

When your base is done you will get some pretty intense lectures about contrast, color theory and light and shadow. Some really interesting stuff and how you carry what you see over to painting and to you miniature eventually.



After a jam packed first few hours, Saturday starts not too early and is all about color theory in the morning. Mixing colors, creating various tones, and how to get the effect and the exact color you are looking for. SMASH the ogre has done it for the first time. Some parts of your world now make so much more sense and you suddenly think outside the pots of your chosen brands.








After priming the bases and figures using zenithal pre-shading,  it is time to paint your base. A very delicate step you might think, especially because you invested so much time and effort in your very first scenic base. Everyone gathers around Romans table and he tells us to choose a mood, feel and main color for our base and he chooses one for his. As he is mixing the paint on his wet-palette, he pulls out his club, tells you to use the largest brush you own, and just slaps that paint on. SMASH your world will crumble as you see how someone can slap on paint, all over the place, not caring for details, material etc. so carelessly on something it took you hours to build. He then tells you to slap on some shadows and he is done. Unfortunately it looks gorgeous, so you guess you will have to try that yourself.




And then comes the rebuilding part.
As you move along, brush stroke for brushstroke, everything makes sense, falls into place and looks and feels just right, natural. After painting the various colors and some larger details on your base it is time to put on some wash to make the details pop. And like you would imagine: choose a wash, and pour it over your base straight out of the bottle. Exactly! No one with a sane mind would to that! Would you? SMASH It can be so easy, and “time is  precious”. You will soon discover that this also works great. You don’t have to be so careful. You are not painting some fragile, thin paper





After the base is done its time to paint your Demonette.

Roman will teach you how to paint the skin, shadow, light, contrast using different techniques. It is the applied theory of Friday and you can again tell that everything fits together perfectly. Roman encourages you to be bold. More contrast, more color, different color. He will teach you how far you can go and how courageous you can be. The result is no less then astonishing.









:)











The last day is all about how various materials look like, and how they can be painted to look realistic. Have you ever seen someone paint a leather saddle in two minutes, using at least 3 colors and two different washes basically messing it all up over the piece? And guess what? Yes it will be the best looking leather saddle you have seen. Just because it looks realistic and not painted. The same holds true for metal and doing color transitions on the miniature. I am not gonna lie, it is a lot of input for one day and you surely cannot master those techniques in the short amount of time. But Roman will teach you everything you need to know, so that you can train at home for yourself. Ever fancied some wet blending? You will learn how to do a color transition in two minutes. It is way easier than you might think.

After two and a half days the workshops ends and everybody is exhausted. But the results speak for themselves and are so diverse. Everybody is very proud about the beautiful piece they have created









Roman, the fearsome, bald, yet so nice and sensitive ogre, wants to show you how he sees the world. He wants to bring out the best of you and encourages you to do things you only thought a mad men would do. At the end of the day you will not only be a better painter, but you will be more open minded, and you place of creativity will be swirling because there is so much you have learned. You can be sure, every time you paint from now one, there will always be a little ogre, lurking in the shadows of your creativity, reminding you to open your mind.

- Killian













Thank you for the nice review, Killian!
Again - thanks for an amazing happy painting weekend!
Already happy to know to see some of you again on future classes:
http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.de/2017/11/mv-workshop-roadmap-2018.html


Happy painting to all of you!
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.
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Musica

by Roman aka jar

Weekend Seminar ahead!

by Roman aka jar

Hi!

Today I am  is starting to teach
Jar's Beginner Class in Augsburg, Germany.
This weekend in english language and a small group of students travelling from all over Europe and even statewise will be arriving tonight. I am truely thankful for your trust in my teaching skills.
Check the roadmap 2018 for details.

Here is a little info on the class via my curriculum
and if you want to check back with reviews on this seminar you can find them here!




Instructor: Roman Lappat
Duration: Friday/Saturday/Sunday (2.5 days)

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 that I give an introduction into my way of thinking while painting; in detail a lot of in depth theory is explained while extracting art concepts from art history lessons and putting this knowledge in practical exercises on miniature canvas. During the weekend you will not only learn to improve your painting skills, you will also learn to understand the 'Why?' behind everything. With that you will be able to teach yourself in your own hobby future by just recognizing what nature has to offer.


Main topics:- 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
- Wide range of painting techniques explained and used
- Learn to lose fear of doing something wrong
- much more!

My experience level in doing this specific class is high as I have done over 60+ hands on seminars over the last decades. Many of my students visit this class several times to manifest the massive amount of knowledge presented in one weekend.

Student level: All

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Recent Reviews:
Jar's Beginner Class in Augsburg, english language
Jar's Beginner Class in Augsburg, german language
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If you want to know more about upcoming Massive Voodoo Seminars,
check the Seminar roadmap  for 2018 and do not hesitate to join up!

Happy Painting awaits!
Roman

Great explanations here!

by Roman aka jar

Hi Jungle,



this evening we put a spotlight on a really cool video by Vince Venturella, who gives great insight on how he creates smooth blends. Vince is also teaching a seminar at the upcoming NOVA Open 2018 in Washington D.C.

We hope you enjoy it and many thanks to Vince for the effort and work!







Keep on happy painting!

MV Zombie Community Project - Update #08

by Roman aka jar

Hi Jungle, 

what I personally enjoy when it comes to Zombies is that everyone thinks they are dead.
... but what if they have feelings?

Well, deep philoshopy here.

Raising the dead once more in Update #08 on this project after
MV Zombie Community Project - Update #07

 I am proud to say that the project is not dead even the jungle went a little more silent on it in the last couple of months. That is because of you all who help us make this project real!

If you don´t know what we are talking about you are welcome to check the link below, where the idea behind the project is explained. You will also find there a link to all the updates and names on people who are supporting us in this:


 

Update #01
Update #02
Update #03
Update #04
Update #05

Update #06 

Update #07

_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________

In the meantime we recieved tons of painted Zombies from you ...
A beautiful thing that shows us how far we went already. Many thanks to all of you who support this crazy idea and I can promise you one thing: You will see it finished one day :)

Ok, time for updates

- as 2018 started crazy for me on private life changes I was not able to update you earlier. I am sorry for this fact. This was what I had to deal with to unpack and roll it out and glue to the already existing Zombie masses:





This looks so epic already:

Let's start:
Erik provided us with this little fella. He looks like that Zombie who has feelings, right?
Playing the party role in the hordes. Thanks a lot, Erik!


I am getting old it seems :)
Unfortanetely I wrote down all names from people who supported us recently on a piece of paper. I lost it. Now I am sitting in front of Zombie photos that I'll show you and do not know your names to it anymore. This makes me feel very responsible ... not. I am sorry. Postmen brought Zombies, Painters I saw on seminars and events handed me over theirs and students from my Speedpainting Seminar left a Zombie or several as well - I was just to distracted with life issues inside myself that I lost track ... :/


Please drop a comment below to point out yours and the post and list will be updated with your names.

#01 *place your name here*

#02 *place your name here*

#03 *place your name here*

Christian came up with this beauty.
Thank you!

We got the Joker and a Homer Simpson Zombie. Amazing!
but ... #04 *place your name here*

#05 Donal! These cops are so cool!

#06 *place your name here*

#07 *place your name here*


#08 *place your name here*

Thanks to Aurelie,
who left all her beautiful Speedpainting Seminar results for the good cause of this project - the ones with the black bases:


You will not believe it,
but in them meantime more Zombies arrived and I am already working on the next update. Holy moly, this year is racing along ...



Thanks for the support to:

Luis, Spain
Pigment Pirates Gang, Germany
Ole, Sweden
The whole group of students of Roman's Speedpainting Masterclass I
The whole group of students of Roman's Speedpainting Masterclass II (review soon)
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
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
Erik
Christian, Germany
*place your name here*
**if you miss yours, please comment**



Keep on happy gnaarrggllll!
Best Wishes
Roman

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If you missed it, the new Massive Voodoo challenge for 2018 is on ...