25 December 2019

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Hello Jungle readers,

we wish you all a merry Christmas with your loved ones,
a time to calm down and relax and cherish time together.

We want to thank
you for enjoying the massive jungle, reading in here, commenting, visiting our tutorial section or reviews and for linking us up. Thank you!

First, we can prepare you for something big, coming at you in the new year:



Secondly, there is Music that fits perfectly to the holiday season ...



May your holidays filled with joy in your hearts!
Warm greetings from the jungle!

Roman,
in the name of the MV-Team


18 December 2019

SBS: Batman Fan-Art on Canvas

Hello Jungle, 

another step by step
 - and something alternative to miniature painting.

In 2019 I rediscovered my joy in painting on canvas once in a while as a pure hobby.
As I am a big Batman fan I really had the urge to paint a fan art for myself. Here are the steps to it - I hope you enjoy!


1. Basic Sketch in blue, second serious sketch in red (both markers)



2. Using black marker on top to really get serious now.



3. Slapping in acrylic color ...


4. Gotham City is burning ...


5. More definition in blue areas ...


6. Fire burns and lights up from below ... a very common miniature painting technique too.



7. Needed Highlights, used a white marker to bring them back ...



8. Everywhere, also starting with the Bat himself ... already saw that his legs would be too long if I make him stand on that roof.


Added gargoyles to the black area with pure white ...


Now it works ...


9. Tinted everything that was white in blue and placed more oranges ... not the fruits.


10. Using black to work out the dark areas again ...


11. Started to add bat swarms ...



12. Finalized black and dark areas, reworked oranges here and there and called it done after about 30 hours of painting work.

The Dark Knight
90x70 Canvas
Mixed Media





I hope you like it!
It now is part of my living room. Really happy about it!
What do you think?

_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________

16 December 2019

Review: Private Coaching with Oliver

Good Morning Jungle,

as I was teaching quite a lot in the last couple of months I got some reviews for you incoming through the next couple of weeks. This one is about a cool two day private coaching I did with Oliver, who visited me in the Massive Voodoo Studio ...



Thank you, Oliver for two beautiful days and your interesting topic. Thank you for your trust in my teachings since such a long time!

Let's hear Oliver's perspective on the Coaching:

"Dear readers,
I had the pleasure to visit a two day private Coaching with Roman and would like to give you a little insight into this great time and Romans talents not only as an artist but also as a human beeing.

But first let me give a brief introduction of myself.
My name is Oliver and I have visited my first class with Roman more than 5 years ago. Since then my life changed a lot. In my career I took over more and more responsibilities and at the same time I got married and now have a little daughter. As a consequence I had not held a brush for nearly two years. I booked this coaching in late spring and now was exactly the right time to enjoy it. I felt I was close to breaking down to the jobs stress, having been on the road more than 70 nights this year. But during this two days I got the chance to calm down and come back to inner peace.

For my project I had two ideas prepared.
The first one would have been fairly common with putting a great miniature into a dark forest with an intense light source on her. The other idea was a bit more special and I was very pleased that Roman agreed to guide me through the process in spite of the fact that he has never done or seen anything similar before.

In 2017 my wife and myself visited Sweden and we especially enjoyed our days in Visby on the island of Gotland. During this time I took a nice picture with an overview of parts of the town, contrasting the mideval structures, buildings from the 19th century as well as some 20th century houses.


This picture has been on my mind since this vacation. I wanted to convert it into something special, using lessons I learned at Romans classes and create something purely unique. My idea was to put into a modern relief by building the structures and physically place them in front of each other.

As a first stept Roman helped me getting into a planning phase. How can we create the feeling of three dimensions in a flatter environment. He showed me theory about focal points and how 90° angles appear into projections. With this idea in mind he asked me to create a scetch on paper to identify which are the important parts of the picture and which can be simplified. In the end I found 4 layers I wanted to bring into the picture.

Before the class I scouted my old materials and found a nice little box that had roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper. This was the perfect frame for the idea and determined the size of the creation.

The next step was to convert the scetch from paper to a first 3D image by using cork and cutting out the shapes of the buildings I wanted to use. This was followed by cutting the shapes out of thin wood in a more precise way to get a better painting base.




This is basically the level I had envisioned before we started working on that. But Roman had an idea to push me further. Why just paint the different angles if you have the freedom to build them up? And to emphasize the perspective even further use different levels of elevation for the different layers.




As a next step some help for the paint job later was applied. Windows and doors were glued onto the buildings and some putty was applied to create a rough surface was applied. For the building of the front layer also rain drains and roof tiles were added.



Now on the second day at roughly lunch time it was time to start applying color and bring life into the diorama. As usual I started with black and white priming



The following hours were used to apply more base colors and scetch the overall impression. As a final touch a lot of green flock was added to support the 3d feeling and cover up parts were I did not want to go into too much detail.



Some additional painting sessions at home followed were I enjoyed Romans quick support that comes with the coaching. As a last detail I added a little flag of Gotland and proudly present to you: 

Visby



In a retrospective
I cannot describe how happy I am that I was able to get this coaching. 
I was in a very dark spot and Roman did not only find some good advice to let me think about what is currently going on but also had a perfect feeling how much guidance I needed. I was unsecure and often asked what he thinks and on many occasions he just replied "you don't need me, trust your gut". I am already looking forward to the next opportunity to spend time with Roman to create something special, be it a private coaching or a work shop."

- Oliver




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If you want to learn from me
in your very own private coaching session, do not hesitate to contact me for further details via
jarhead---at---massivevoodoo---dot---com


2019 is closed in terms of private coaching and fully booked, plans for sessions in the first half of 2020 are in the making. I will be there for you and your personal growth as a painter!




You can find more information
about upcoming group workshops via this banner



_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________

13 December 2019

Info: Workshop Updates!

Hi Jungle people,

the roadmap for 2020 fills up and I am all excited about it! Thank you all for signing in!
Really looking forward to meet you for your personal hands on miniature painting level up with me!


Update on all seminars in this list and ...
one new workshop is now ready to be announced:



Augsburg, Germany 
// 25th - 26th April 2020  2 day Skintone & Faces Masterclass
german language - 0/16 - Information PDF


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Roadmap 2020 overview   

- here are the dates and topics for 2020. Red are upcoming seminars,
green
are the ones in the past. Check for the reviews on the green ones.

You can find so far enrolled student numbers behind the seminars.
All seminars in Augsburg will take place as soon as we got up to six students!


Actual planning on seminars in Augsburg, Madrid and New York for the first or seond half of 2020.
As soon as information is available it will be linked in here.

First half of 2020___________________________________


Bern, Switzerland - Info Mail soon!
// 31st January - 2nd February 2020  3 day Beginner Workshop
german language - 28/18 - Information PDF 
IMPORTANT: The price per student is not the one mentioned in the PDF,
due this is an international class with travel cost, room rent, etc.
Check back with the official announcement here!

Madrid, Spain - Signing up possible until 20th December
// 29th February 2020 1 day Speedpainting Masterclass

english language - 12/2 - Information PDF
more information!

Madrid, Spain - Signing up possible until 20th December
// 1st March 2020 1 day OSL Masterclass

english language - 12/3 - Information PDF

more information!


Augsburg, Germany
// 13rd March - 15th March 2020  3 day Beginner Workshop
german language - 24/26 - Information PDF

Augsburg, Germany
// 18th April 2020  1 day Speedpainting Masterclass
german language - 0/20 - Information PDF

Augsburg, Germany
// 19th April 2020  1 day Object Source Light Masterclass
german language - 1/16 - Information PDF

Augsburg, Germany

 // 25th - 26th April 2020  2 day Skintone & Faces Masterclass
german language - 0/20 - Information PDF

St. Albans, UK
// 15th - 17th May 2020 3 day Advanced Workshop
english language - 18/0 - Information PDF (fee will vary due international seminar)
to sign up, write an email to: journeymanminiatures---at---gmail---dot---com


If you have any questions or want to sign up please send a mail to Roman:
jarhead---at---massivevoodoo---dot---com


You can find this roadmap linked up
to the right navigation bar of Massive Voodoo :)


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02 December 2019

Review: Skintone & Faces Masterclass, Augsburg





My fourth workshop with Roman as a teacher was another complete success.
Although there were no tears (as anticipated by Roman) the Skintone workshop was as intensive and instructive as the beginner workshop for me. Roman described his way to realistic skin tones in astounding detail and gave every student the opportunity to unfold her or his potential. I especially loved the fact that Roman was always available for questions and short bursts of personal teaching. I am definitely looking forward to the next workshop! #Batman anyone?


- Stephan



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Vorab, vielen Dank für den tollen Kurs und die daraus neu entstandende Motivation. Der Kurs hat mir sehr gut gefallen, auch die vielen Tipps haben mich in meiner persönlichen Entwicklung weitergebracht.
Eine kurze Übersicht:

- Das Malen mit "Untermalungen" hat mir eine völlig neue Perspektive geöffnet. Ich kannte diese Technik nur in Zusammenhang mit Kleidung (Leder, Uniform etc.).
- Die Abwechslung zwischen Praxis und Theory war sehr ausgeglichen, trotz der 10 Stunden am Samstag war ich kein bisschen müde (und das von einem Ex-Informatikstudent).
- Übungen waren gut organisiert, lediglich der Kopf der GW Miniature war mir ein wenig zu klein (liegt wohl aber auch daran das ich die Untermalung zum ersten Mal an einem so kleinen Kopf gemacht habe)
- Vorträge allesamt super, sehr gut rübergebracht
- Mitgebrachtes Material (Bücher, ich liebe Velázquez:-) , früher fast jeden Tag im Prado gewesen)

- Sven

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Hey Jungle,
it is about time to write a review about this.
One of my new seminars - one of my students said "This is definately Tier III", compared to your other seminars for beginners and advanced painters. Tier III means it is really advanced content that I am teaching. Something that helps you, but also can make your brain explode in the beginning.

Well, it has been a great weekend and a beautiful start for this seminar with a great group of students.
Thank you all for your long years of trust in my teachings and your will and joy to learn from me.

We started Saturday with a lot of theory and analysis of the topic. In depth.
I was happy to see that my explanations and way of exploring the subject with my students worked well, so after a certain time we were able to start painting the newly won knowledge to a Games Workshop Miniature and some faces...



_______________________________________________________





You can find more information
about upcoming group workshops via this banner








"Workshops with Roman are always a great experience.
This was no exception from this.
Roman always manages to build a happy little painting family out of the student group, partly by his great teaching style, partly by pushing everybody out of their comfort zones. This helps a lot with understanding more advanced topics like skintone and faces. Furthermore, on the advanced workshops you tend to see familiar faces which also helps to form a bond with your fellow inmates:)

As this workshop was held by Roman for the first time, he also was a bit nervous on saturday (which was obvious as he was dressed up quite a bit) but everything went very smooth and the teaching concept proved very apprcochable. There were some mindblowing moments, as always but Roman managed to pull it all together for us. Also, Roman always managed to pull people out of motivational disasters, as always.

In this respect, I learned one very important thing: Trust the journey!

Lots of love goes out to Roman and all other fellows who have been there!

See you next time!"
- Flo





"Zunächst mal war die Idee superschön,
 mal einen kompletten Kurs auf das Malen von Haut auszurichten! Ich denke, damit triffst Du bei vielen ins Schwarze - entweder, weil sie Haut (oder bestimmte Hauttypen/töne) schwierig finden, oder - wie ich - einfach gern (nackte ;-) Haut malen und den Horizont erweitern würden. Vom Aufbau her war es auch sehr gelungen - eine gute Mischung von Theorie und viel Praxis. Die Inhalte waren extrem sinnvoll gewählt und ich denke jeder konnte was für sich mitnehmen, egal was die persönliche Zielstellung oder Mal-Entwicklungsniveau waren. Hier meine drei wichtigsten Ideen, die ich mitnehme und in Zukunft verstärkt machen will (neben vielen anderen Einsichten und Augenöffnungsmomenten):
  1. die Kontraststrecke vorher aufmalen (das kann ja nicht nur für Haut, sondern für alle Materialien sinnvoll genutzt werden)
  2. die zwei Untermalungsformen - das werde ich auf jeden Fall in Zukunft viel machen!
  3. Das Zusammenspiel Atmosphäre, Hautton und Kontraststrecke will ich in Zukunft noch mehr beachten - insb. Sansa und Davide vs. Goliath haben mich mal wieder extrem geflasht
Die Kursleitung war, wie immer, überragend. Immer freundlich, immer hilfsbereit, ab und an auch mal bestimmt - wie es sein soll! Du hast Dich dabei, auch wie immer, auf das unterschiedliche aber doch durchgängig hohe Niveau jedes Teilnehmers eingelassen und Dich auf die jeweiligen Ziele eingestimmt. Auch auf die unterschiedlichen Charaktere gehst Du extrem gut ein - Du weißt/siehst, wer mehr Zuspruch/Anleitung braucht, wer eher vor sich hin arbeiten will und zu Dir kommt, wenn er was von Dir will; auch in der Ansprache bist Du supergut auf die Leute eingegangen - Du weißt, wer einen "Spruch" abkann, wer ein bisschen unsicher ist und eher gelobt werden muss - die meisten kennst Du ja gut oder gar besser ;-), aber dennoch ist das eine tolle Fähigkeit als Lehrer!

Zu kritisieren hab ich nichts wirklich Profundes. Zwei Gedanken (die mir aber erst gekommen sind, als ich mich für diese Review nochmal hingesetzt und wirklich nachgedacht habe):
  1. Ich würde würde es beim nächsten mal vielleicht bei zwei, drei Trockenübungen (Farben mischen und auf Papier übertragen) belassen, nicht zuletzt, weil ja mehrfach betont wurde, dass sich Papier und Miniaturenoberfläche von der Wirkung der Farben unterscheiden. Die gewonnene Zeit würde ich dann in die (gemeinsame) theoretische Analyse von verschiedenen Hauttönen investieren - wie lese ich Haut, verschiedene Hauttöne, Licht/Schatten auf Haut, Hautdefekte/Unebenheiten, wie stelle ich feuchte Haut dar, etc.
  2. Für die Praxis-Übungen an der GW Figur kannst Du mal überlegen, ob Du die Figur in zwei oder drei Teile aufteilst (also ein Bein, Oberkörper, Arm) und an jedem einen anderen Hautton malen lässt. Evtl. auch zwei Köpfe mit unterschiedlichen Hauttönen, Alter, Mann/Frau, etc.? 
Die von Christian kritisch angemerkte Aufregung fand ich überhaupt nicht schlimm! Im Gegenteil. Man hat gemerkt, dass Du (ein bisschen) aufgeregt warst, aber das war überhaupt nicht unangenehm und Du hast weder gestresst oder gar unprofessionell gewirkt. Ich finde diese leichte (!) Nervosität am Anfang nicht nur nachvollziehbar; vielmehr signalisiert sie, dass Du Neues und Unprobiertes wagst, damit offen umgehst und uns als Teilnehmer ernst nimmst (sonst wärst Du ja nicht aufgeregt gewesen). Ich fand's auch cool, dass Du Dich schick gemacht hast - auch Zeichen der Ernsthaftigkeit - nicht nötig aber ein schönes Symbol!

Insgesamt also ein für mich absolut gelungenes Wochenende mit ausschließlich schönen Momenten. Ich hatte, wie direkt schon am Wochenende gesagt, zwischendurch beim Malen wirkliche Glücksüberwältigungsmomente. Zwei davon sind mir noch sehr deutlich in Erinnerung: diese schöne Stimmung in der Gruppe, als alle fokussiert beim Malen waren; und zu sehen, wie sich die Büste in die Richtung entwickelt, die ich mir vorgenommen habe. War wirklich toll!"
- David



























While painting for a long time,
sitting, focusing and concentrating it is important for a teacher not only to bring variety in the teaching concept, but also movement. So we had this thing going on to get our bodies active again and this time I challenged my students to try themselves in "Throwing stickers as far as you can!" ... quite the challenge as they fly as they want :D























Well,
Sunday arrived with new challenges concerning painting.
Applying everything so far learned to a bust of my students choice. Everybody was no able to see his color journey ahead of him and individually planned their skincolor, with my help if needed.






It was truely great
as a teacher to see the passed on knowledge take hold and work for each student on their individual skill level journey. They did not follow my painting or copied it, furthermore they used their own knowledge to plan and execute. Very special results for me as a teacher, while teaching this class for the first time, ever....





I can only say: Thank you!
It has been such a cool vibe and atmosphere with friends and students that you teach since almost a decade. It was great to see your results develop, but furthermore I was proud of you as you asked so good and deep questions about painting!

Keep on happy painting!
Yours,
Roman



You can find more information
about upcoming group workshops via this banner


_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________