New Monkey In The Jungle!

by Phil

Heyho, I am the new monkey in this jungle. My name is Philip or the macaque and I live with my wonderful girlfriend in Cologne, Germany. It is a huge honor for me to be among all those crazy creative people here.

Some words about how I got into this hobby. If you don't like blah blah just skip to the last paragraph …

When I was about 18 I painted my first few miniatures. A couple of months later I already dropped the hobby. Why? Because I had no inspiration or influences. Last years fall and more than a decade later I wanted to give my girlfriend a bonsai as a gift. I thought a little samurai would be nice under the tree. So I was looking for a little samurai on ebay. And then it happend. I stumbled upon miniature sites and I instantly wanted to paint again. But … I was very busy working that time so I started to devour tutorials like a baby milk on mamas breasts.
When I bought some basic equipment I began to wake up early, very early, just to have some time to paint before work. I took my miniatures to work so I could prepare them in the train. Somehow I got into Space Marines and started a Blood Angles army. I never intended to play wargames. I never even liked armies. I thought it would be the best way to learn and get into routine. I was wrong.

Magic moment one – Just painting, no brain fuck.
In february I attended for the first time at a painting class of Roman and Raffa in Munich. 
The most important lesson I learned at my first painting class was to release the bonds in my head. Just let your creativity float, the rest will happen by itself. If you have been to one of Kong's classes you know what I mean, otherwise you should do it.

Magic moment two – Try the unknown. 
When I was back home I learned there was a sculpting class by Mati close to my hometown. I thought, let's try it, you have nothing to lose. I had never touched Sculpey or Greenstuff before, but sculpting was love at first sight, thanks to Mati I quickly found a good sense for material, tools and shapes, as he is very good at identifying your mistakes and leading you to the right way. OOMMMM.

Magic moment three – Dare the complex.
A few months later I attended my second painting class of Roman. At this workshop I painted a non GamesWorkshop miniature at 54mm for the first time. I converted a King Maulg into a Viking Björlg. Woohoooo. Much more fun than a Space Marine. There was no need to be afraid of larger and detailed miniatures after all.

Magic moment four?
I am pretty sure it will happen at Matt and Ben's painting class I just registered for. I am really looking forward to learn from these two insane monkeys, too!

Without this jungle and all its tutorials, classes and inspiration I could have never learned so much in the last year. I hope I can give you monkeys some inspiration back someday. But for now I am just a Padawan …

Enough jibber jabber! You can find some of my recent miniatures on my still empty cmon gallery.

See you soon,
Phil

Visions of Hatred - and more!

by Raffa

Posted by Raffa, Picster, Capuchin,....

Heeey everyone,

what a nice moment this is... finally i finished another big project that was taking a lot of my time over the last months.
I'm talking about my Demon Prince conversion that maybe some of our readers have already spotted from time to time here on Massive Voodoo or on some other spots.

Now some projects are finished quick and some projects really are time eaters just like this, so i'm really happy i can say it is finished now.
Thanks again to all my friends for support, advice and ideas especially Roman :)

I'm pretty unhappy i didn't take many work in progress photos, but to make up for it i already recorded a 360° view video and uploaded it on Massive Voodoo TV :)

Ok finally, enough talk, at the moment i am a little bit exhausted, i think i will post more on this later :)

Visions of Hatred



And finally the 360° View... do yourself a favor and watch in 720p :)

I really hope you enjoy this mini as much as i do!

Oh and apart from this.... i also finished another two miniatures :)

No Mercy - Rohan Command

Frozen Heart

Aaaaaaaaand more 360° Goodies:
Frozen Heart - 360°

Traitor of Mankind - 360°

Butcher Pete - 360°


I really hope you like the minis! If you visit the italian Games Day this weekend you will have the chance to see them all in person!

Cheers,
Raffa

Tutorial - Using Dayglow Colors

by Raffa

Posted by Raffa, Picster, Capuchin,....

Hey everyone,

as i recently found out about this little effect when i started using dayglow pigments i had some experiences i want to share with you.
At first you maybe never heard about dayglow pigments or colors.
Dayglow - with this term i mean the color somehow glows under light, so with a little light the color is much brighter than normal acrylic paints.

To get such dayglow paints with a good quality i decided to mix my own colors.

First you need dayglow pigments, you can order them online (google for a shop in your country) or you can buy them in artist shops. But inform yourself about the quality of the pigments, in miniature painting you want the highest quality possible.

Here i compared Orange and Pink Dayglow Pigments with the GW Colors .... you can clearly see how much more power the dayglow colors have!

Now you need some acrylic binder (Schmincke in my example) and mix it with your pigments, thats the way to make acrylic colors with any pigments ;)
I like to add a little drop of matte varnish and i put it inside a vallejo styled dropper bottle for easier use. I also add a small steel ball (from a BB gun) to improve the mixing ability.

You can then use the color like a normal acrylic color... if it is too thin, just add more pigments to the mix.


Now for the interesting part... practical use ;)

Normally i just paint the figure with normal colors and add thin glazes of the dayglow color to desired spots to bring in the light effect. In the photo above you can see the effect pretty well.

Another good example for the use of dayglow color... here i wanted to give the balls a mysterious look. I painted them normal and afterwards dabbed some dayglow color on it.
After this step i gave the balls 2-3 coats of gloss varnish to give them a glassy look

Here on my latest project you can see the use of dayglow color to give the fire a glowing appearance :)

I hope you liked this tutorial and you try out this technique!

Cheers,
Raffa

Ben & Matt SMARTMAX Painting Class 2011, 09.12. in Lüdenscheid Germany!

by -Matt Cexwish-


We (Ben Komets and Matt Cexwish) would like to proudly present our Next (and -of course- veeery Special) SMARTMAX Sponsored Steampunk Painting Classes, which will be held from 09th - 11th of December 2011 in the West of Germany, Lüdenscheid... The Painting Classes are for German speaking Students mainly, but we do have monkeyman coming over from the UK already, so we will make sure that English Speakers will be able to learn and recreate our Tekunikus well, too...:)...

For more Info´s, please follow this little Link... And do not hesitate to ask any Question you want, we will try to answer them all...:)... Domo Arigatooo...

Follow The White Rabbit...

Grey Knight bust up to ebay

by Roman aka jar

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Another model hits ebay - this time it is the Grey Knight bust build from GW's Inquisitor Artemis in 54 mm.

It is for sure something unique here and if you are a fan of Grey Knights a fair starting price of 0.99 $ should get your interest - click on the banner to get directed to the auction and all information:

Inspirational Tornado

by Roman aka jar

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Coming home from Berlin - cleaning up some collected inspirational links - hope you enjoy these.

MINIATURE RELATED
Great article by Stepan Rath about his gold winning Khemri Standard Bearer
Warhammer 40k Lore in a Minute
Big colour theory thread at OZ painters with lots of effort put in by weisern  
Chest of Colours - How to paint with dry pigments


RANDOM INSPIRATION
Danielle Tunstall (horror photographer)
Great sunset gallery (on facebook only)
Victorian on Mud Heap (great LEGO build up)
Nuka Cola Shop
www.shorpy.com  (historical photo archive)
How to be a Retronaut

BLOGS
So you want to be a blogger?  
at wargaming tradecraft
Great write up by N++
Clay to Bronze
A Daily Video Journal Of The Artist - DAVID LEMON
Zeus and Periphas 
at Rafa Coll 


MUSIC
Dead Letter Chorus - Run, Wild
More Painting music

Many thanks to everyone who emailed me some inspiration and thanks to everyone around providing inspiration.

Now I ain't sayin' you a gold digger, you got needs...

by -Matt Cexwish-

Hi Di Ho!



All of the Massive Voodoo Monkeys went on some kind of Expedition recently and for me it was time to Dig Deep Down into that Jungle just to return with some Old Treasures from the Past...^_^...

After filming the Video for the Diorama it seemed like a Great Opportunity to put some older Projects up also, so they might be seen (and understood...) in a New Way from a lot more Perspectives... It also serves as an opportunity to tidy the Showcase up for some New, Upcoming Work (that is getting bigger and bigger lately...:D...), and to reflect on a couple of Aspects with some distance, so... Please drop me a Line if you are interested in Buying any of those upcoming Goldies and we can start talking about the Price (Bananas, Cookies, Krügerrand Coins, lot´s of them, uggghghhgg... I am not all that Greedy...:P...)...

This Weeks Diorama is my Project for the French Golden Demon 2009, which was held at the Parc Floral in the Beautiful Vincennes District in Paris... It was truly a Special Project, heavily condensed and the Beginning of a more "creative" approach to Miniatures (since it is mostly Scratchbuild...)... It is still one of my Favourite and personal Pieces... 

One of the Strangest Things I have heard about it was the Interpretation of a Fellow Painter that asked why the Puppet Master Kills, Burns and Eats the Children in the Stove of his Ghypsie Waggon...o__O... I was not too happy with that Interpretation at all... Although I wanted to allow a very multi layered and kinda symbolic Imagery it was beyond my Imagination that it can be seen that way...:)... Guess I can be Happy that my Mind is twisted, but in an Optimistic, Good Way...:D...  

If I would change One Thing About it: I would add an additional little Story inside the Base that can be seen through the Sewer Grid... Now it´s a Sad, Black Surface with not much going on... But yeah, the Rest came out Way Better then Expected...:D...

Here is the Link ...

The Videos will be released every Wednesday (because Wednesday lies in the Middle of the Week and therefore deserves a bit more Attention...:)...)...

Next Week´s Project will be a Rarely Seen Duel that I have not published so far, so stay tuned... Hope you enjoy the Show...:)...

Enjoy Your Week...^_^...