Workshop Review - Augsburg I

by Roman aka jar

posted by roman, jarhead, kong


Aloa Jungle visitors,

these days are pretty busy. The Artbook is printed, travels to painting events are organised, projects are finished or get prepared ... like the usual Massive Voodoo Madness, BUT there was one event that really felt like a homerun. Last weekend we had our first painting class close to our studio, in Augsburg (our hometown), Germany.

The room was in the same house and even on the same floor as our studio is and so preparing was a walk in the park. The classroom size was limited to a smaller group of pupils, so it has been a relaxed weekend with much to learn, but let me tell you from the early start ...



The pupils arrived for the first session of the class on Friday night.
Thanks to everybody who took part in the class. Thanks to those who traveled far, thanks to those who lived close and thanks to those who did the class for a second time.

Again I want to say sorry for the issue we had on Friday. I put on the heating in the room on Friday aroudn 2 pm and somehow this was way too late for the evening. It was cold here down in Bavaria and Friday made me really feel bad. Luckily Saturday and Sunday we had it more comfortable. The room looks a bit rough, but it is said by the house owners that there will be a true workshop room there in the future. It is all about money that they don't have yet, but maybe with two classes there and my rent they have something to start. I did like the athmosphere of the room, except the cold on Friday night.

The regular program of preparing the figures, building a harmonic base to the figures and a lot of theory was guiding us through Friday night. Everyone was happy that it was over late at night due the freezing temperatures. There have been some students doing the class for the second time and they did not have to paint a GW's demonette. They brought their own projects and were helped with questions about  them, suggestions during the way of progress and ideas. Some impressions of Friday night:





Saturday morning brought everyone back to the place and luckily the room felt a bit warmer than last night. It was time for some more theory and different preparation works on the base, figure and some special effects in front of the priming that awaited us during high noon. We had a walk to have some meal after priming and readied up for painting after our return.

In small demonstrations we brought together the theory of Friday night with some practical exercise and everyone started enjoying painting on his base first. This step is really important to get a non-fearful approach to new painting techniques I explained. It is a sketch. A sketch is not the final product. Don't you fear painting at all ... just paint!

After we saw the rough sketch and plan our base was improved with, we started the same procedure on smaller areas at the figures. This gets a bit tricky while painting shadows as you don't get rewarded pretty fast and so the usual Saturday night frustration arrived. It was calmed with steps later on, whilst painting highlights to the figure that made our light sketch more visible. After all armour parts were prepared for the next day and some small presentations in theory again it was time to say goodnight again ...








Sunday morning arrived quick and we started with some special area parts on the figure. Maximizing contrasts here and there, painting leather, painting the faces to finish and painting metallics. The figures grew from a sketch to a picture. Now it was time to bring in more details to this picture with special effects, clean up here and there, detail lights in the upper torso area and well ... a lot of painting in the end.





Time went by pretty fast like on every Sunday at a Painting class but it was a real joy for me as a teacher to see the individual improvements of my students. You really did well for some 10 excessive hours of painting. As said never stop to learn, experiment and try new things. Your own experience is what matters, not the experience of others. Paint!

Sadly we were not able to take photos of every figure as some students of the class had to leave earlier on Sunday as they had to travel a far distance, but we made some ...







As mentioned earlier I was really happy to see your figures grow. I remember when one student told me in front of the class that he already has a plan how to paint his demon lady. He showed me a colour scheme in some Games Workshop books and I told him he shall wait for this decision until the theory parts are done. They might change his plan massively and so they did. He ended up with an underwater scene with glowing fishes around his demon lady. That is what I am trying to teach, open your eyes, be inspired by everything around you and feel it.
 
If you feel it, you can paint it.


Thanks for the great weekend!
I am off to the next class in Augsburg this weekend!

Read you soon!
Roman

PS: Thanks for the coffee donations!


Musica

by Roman aka jar

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

BANANALICIOUS Fantasy Master Winners!!

by Roman aka jar

posted by roman, jarhead, kong


Hello bananalicious people,

we are done with the though judging work of our first BANANALICIOUS PAINTING CONTEST.

172 entries had to be looked at, compared to eachother and  the photos the participants sent to us studied in detail. Believe us when we say this was no easy task, but we had to made our decisions and so we did ... thanks to all your patience!

Your jungle will bring you the winners during the upcoming days
- today follows the Fantasy Master Category.  26 entries dropped in in this category. This category made the judges mad. All entries were so good and if you did not win something be sure it was a very, very close call. We hope to see some more in the next bananalicious contest as this category really brings candy to the eyes. Thanks to everybody for throwing in their pieces!

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! 
The Winners of the BANANALICIOUS Fantasy Master Category are:



Gold
Andreas Pettau


Silver
Ringil



Bronze
Joan Carlos Ros Magan




Congratulation to the winners!!!! To the winners: Please make sure to write me your postal adress via email (to: jarhead---at---massivevoodoo---dot---com) if you did not win something in the lottery. If you won something I already got your adress.

And make ready for some more news next week - we have a painting class this weekend again and next week there will be one big update left to hand out all the special prices! After this everything goes out to the post office!

Bananalicious wishes to you!
Your MV-Team


__________________________________________________________________________________
Many thanks for all the help of our sponsors:





GAU 54 mm Minis
Tuffskull Painting
Masquerade Mini 
North Star Models


Special thanks for support to:


Tim
 
Sebastian

BANANALICIOUS Historic Master Winners!

by Roman aka jar

posted by roman, jarhead, kong


Hello bananalicious people,

we are done with the though judging work of our first BANANALICIOUS PAINTING CONTEST.

172 entries had to be looked at, compared to eachother and  the photos the participants sent to us studied in detail. Believe us when we say this was no easy task, but we had to made our decisions and so we did ... thanks to all your patience!

Your jungle will bring you the winners during the upcoming days
- today follows the Historic Master Category.  9 entries dropped in in this category. We hope to see some more in the next bananalicious contest as this category really brings candy to the eyes. Thanks to everybody for throwing in their pieces!

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! 
The Winners of the BANANALICIOUS Historic Master Category are:



Gold
Andreas Pettau


Silver
Patrick Kaiser



Bronze
Andreas Neger




Congratulation to the winners!!!! To the winners: Please make sure to write me your postal adress via email (to: jarhead---at---massivevoodoo---dot---com) if you did not win something in the lottery. If you won something I already got your adress.

And make ready for some more news tomorrow with - Fantasy Master ahead!
Bananalicious wishes to you!
Your MV-Team


__________________________________________________________________________________
Many thanks for all the help of our sponsors:





GAU 54 mm Minis
Tuffskull Painting
Masquerade Mini 
North Star Models


Special thanks for support to:


Tim
 
Sebastian

Musica

by Roman aka jar

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

The title says it all ...

by -Matt Cexwish-


Dear Participants, Dear Organizers, Dear Hobbyists,


We proudly present the next Edition of our  Miniature Painting Extravaganza: The 4th Edition of the Russian Alternative Battle! Yippieh!

The Theme this time was “Undead”! Sooo... Sinister, creepy, crawly,  nightmarish Abominations, cold, dripping, ghoulish Dungeons and pointy, bloodthirsty Teeth all over the place... Leave the sun screen at home, guys, you are not going to need it.

Let´s bid the Winter “Good Bye!” by embracing this Cold and Dark Topic before the Snow melts and make way for a new Season, Spring!  We are all very excited to announce the SECOND Real Action Painting competition this year: The Spring Angel 2013, which will be held on Sunday  the 16th of June in Moscow, Russian Federation! Read all about the Rules and Details on our Website and make sure to register today!  http://russian-alternative.com/

We cordially invite everyone that took part in the RAB 4 to come and meet a lot of wonder- and colourful Artists personally, spend a lot of great hours with some of the Best Painters on this planet and to learn their Tricks at one of the many Painting Demonstrations... All for free! All we ask you to do is to paint something according to your highest abilities in order to have a chance to win one of the convented Spring Angel Statuettes and the many High staked Prizes! We are extremely happy to be part of this amazing Journey and are looking forward meeting all of you in Moscow this Spring!

Some of you may have noticed that some Pictures have arrived after the Deadline for existing Entries and that there was one Entry that has appeared on the Public Gallery a couple of days afterwards . We think it´s important to mention that we have not accepted any Miniatures after our initial Deadline in order to keep it fair and transparent for everyone who has managed to hand their Project in on time (as it should be, actually). In these particular cases the Entries were registered and handed in on time, but there were a couple of problems with the Photos. We have decided to ask for better or more specific additional angles to be able to judge the quality of a Paintjob properly.

The Russian Alternative will always try to treat every contestant equally, no matter how prestigeous or well - known the Artist might be.  Again, we strongly encourage you to plan your entry carefully, leaving at least 3 Days after completion to take proper Photos and have one or two days for possible technical uploading problems.  Remeber: It´s always better to finish one day too early then a couple of hours too late...

Many thanks to the Organizers, that are again taking part in creating an Important Competition, Plattform and Showcase for Miniature Artists in Russia and the Miniature World.

Congratulations to all the Winners ! Here Are The Results! Dawaj, Dawaj, Dawaj!


Cheers,

Ben Komets & Matt Cexwish

Workshop Review Preview

by Roman aka jar

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

There is a workshop review to expect this or the next week.
As said we had a cool painting class in Augsburg last weekend, but this was just number one.
The second one in Augsburg is ahead at the upcoming weekend. So I am not sure yet when the reviews will drop in as this week already keeps me busy with too much stuff ...

The first impressions of our small group of painters ... luckily no one was freezing on Sunday anymore!


... and some of the figures the students did paint - not finished yet - but from early Sunday morning:


More soon!