Good Morning ladies and gentlemen,

time for the results of this weeks 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 this Tuesday.
We had twentysix votes for "Water Jar" and seventeen for "Boudica".

The winner is:

A Miniature Painter's Water Jar

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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Allright!

Jarhead writing about jars, eh?
Well this is not a common article I guess, but in many aspects we all do talk not enough about the water jars we use. Every Miniature Painter has one, or two or even three. I very often have one, but preparing this article reminded me to at least use two again.

The perfect example
Let's dive in the article by having a wonderful example how a workspace with water jars should look.
I say perfect example, because you have one water jar for the use of metallic colors, one for normal acrylics and even another one for dirty work if you are in need of water for your use of sculpting putty.

The water looks kinda fresh and will definatly help the painter through his project.



It can be even more, for example Steven wrote this in the comments:

"I think I'm probably over-doing it, but I use 6 jars. 3 for normal colours and 3 for metallics. Each time I clean my brush, I waggle it in each one in turn. The first jar is filthy, the second looks slightly murky and the third is clean. I also change the water at the start of each session and will sometimes change the water in the first jar part way through a session if it's looking like soup."

The reality
Very often the reality about water jars looks different. Sometimes they are the black sheep on my own table and I do not care about them too much. I can not tell you even why.

I took the opportunity to check the water jars in our studio without telling Bene, Raffa and Erik to see how far away from the perfect example reality can be.

My own, ok let's not talk about the clarity of the water.
No just don't. Some say it is the black hole on my workbench.

Raffa's. Dry as a desert.

Erik's. A dark brown black red or something.

At least Bene is working with two jars, one with a blueish touch and the other one looks like an oil accident. Maybe I should add a sculpture of a dying pelican to it to remind  him of health issues.

Allright, reality does look different. A lot.
Now to collect some information we just gathered.

Water Jar Material
You can use mostly everything you like as a water jar. Glass, plastic cups, ceramic cups, etc. and I know some painters who even have professional equipment as a water jar. They have some separation inside their jar to have all in one, like small different lakes. I do not recommend using metall cups or cans as these might rust over time.

Water Jar Water
In the recent examples you can see that most of the cups are filled with dirty water. Some are dirtier than others or have another color or do not have any water, but dirty dust. This happens to all of us as we paint.

Some recommend using only destilled water, others put some dish-liquid in it and others just paint with the water that comes out of the water tap. I can only speak for myself here and say I only use the water from the water tap.

Important is now that you make one thing clear to you:
Clean your water regularly!

Here is the why: 
Usually I do not care about my water when I paint dark shadows. It does not matter if my water looks very dark as I am up to paint dark shadows. But what if I want to paint clear, strong and bright highlights to a miniature? The following example "soup" will definatly influance your bright tone as you are taking out water from here. Even it is only a small percentage of grey that is influancing your color it will definatly make your paintwork more dessatured.


Next example: 
This blueish touch might also take influance on your color that you are painting.


You might find that blueish touch in all the colors you use. like a filter someone puts on top of your miniature:



Another important aspect is: 
Are you a brushlicker or not? If not you are on the safe side of health issues. If you do lick your brush once in a while during painting clean water is not only recommended it is a must. See the following example, we got some strange film on top of the water. This can be just dust from the room, oily film because you washed out strange and non-acrylic colors, varnishes or maybe it can also be resin dust that Raffa produces in our studio by making moulds and preparing casts.

All in all we can say it would not be healthy to paint with this nor lick your brush when you use such water.


Oli of the MV team can tell you a story about some health issues he had back some years. He was feeling sick once in a while and did not know the reason. He and a doctor found out that it was because of bacteria inside his painting water.

Water gets dirty with color quickly
After preparing for this article I do clean my jar at least once a week. Recently it even happens to me that I clean up my jar several times during a painting session. Why? Well, here is a test to show you how quick our painting water gets dirty.

Let's say we have some fresh water.
Ok this example is not fresh, I forgot to clean it properly and some yellowish-sandish color rests already influanced the water:







This was just done in a second. Now imagine you paint for hours, days, weeks without cleaning your water jar. With every clean up of your brush you bring in remains of color pigments to your water. In the beginning they might color up your water, but after a while they settle down and go to the ground.

Cleaning your Water Jar
Usually when cleaning your water jar you empty it from water, flush it with fresh water and put some new water in it. The simple and fast way. Sometimes when you paint a lot and do not clean up your jar regularly this is not enough.

This is the ground of my water jar when flushed out. I call this pigment mud and it was swimming in my painting water, the water I put in my colors to mix, the water that is inside my brush when I lick it. Unhealthy, yes.

I have a friend - telling no names here - who was thirsty and really lazy to get a drink so he drank some of his painting water. He is still alive, but after the following photo I know I would never do it myself.


I really have to clean it properly, not only the bottom of the jar also the sides. You can see small pigment mud pieces everywhere. If I just clean the bottom and put fresh water in it I will have these pieces swimming around freely, ready to get mixed in my colors and ready to be painted to my miniatures.

Cleaning it properly is essential. 
You can do this with a sponge, tissues or a towel. Once in a while you can even put your jar into the dish-washer. Essential to your health and paintwork.


Seperated Painting Water
For example I also use two jars once in a while, when I paint a lot with metallic colors. The reason is simple. If I clean my brush with metallic pigments the water will get filled up with metallic pigments.
If I use the same water again for painting skin my miniature might have some metallic shine in his skintone. If you like it you can do it, if you don't, don't.

I used the jar with the lid for my metallics so I can remind myself of it, but well a lid is not a good idea I have learned. Somehow I had mould on the bottom side of the lid rather quick. I am no biologist but this made me never us that jar nor a jar with lid again. Really it looked like strange alien stuff. Use no lid!


As you can see on the upper photo I do not care too much about the outside of my jar, but that is presonal preference.

My water jar is loosing water over time?
You are right and that is very easy to explain: It's open and water evaporates slowly and additional to this everytime you put your brush in you take out some water. So this is not a bad issue and you can not help it.

Well, so far this is all I can tell you about a miniature painter's water jar. I really had my fun creating this basic topic article, but I think it is has some valuable information.

I hope you enjoy the article
- let me know your thoughts, ideas, experiences and tips via comments!

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I also had my fun creating funny tests in my water jar - these are just for inspiration and I am thinking about mixing some cocktails like this in the future:






Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes 
Roman

Hey Jungle,

I do enjoy painting a lot recently.
I found spirit again and brush is dancing to wild tunes.
Why? I guess because I do not care anymore. Once in a while every painter cares too much on what others might think of their work, what they think about their style, what they think about their progress and their habits. Once in a while everyone cares about this and in these days you start to think too much about what you are doing. That's a blockade and I razed it for me.

No need to care too much. Painting has his own flow and if I let it flow I enjoy my painting time the most.

With this flow I finished another model. 
This time a tiny bust, sculpted by master Raul Garcia Latorre. A joy to paint. Bust is ~36 mm high and by the company Mproyec. The casts are always limited and if you enjoy Brognir too - there are only 32 left. 

Brognir Stonebridge
A cool character for whom I did not quite find a story yet. Raffa always said he is reminded of a trader, an ugly unfair trader guy who you do not want to mess with. I was not convinced. For me he was just that guy, that Brognir. Filled with illuminated rage. I got a friend who always seems angry with the world, but in fact he ain't. I recently asked him why he always seems that way and his answer after he gave it some thoughts was that it is not anger on the world. He said it is illuminated inner rage. Brognir looks the same. Hope you like my version ...






If you want to see more photos of my version please check my Putty&Paint gallery.

What character do you see in the sculpt of Brognir?
Just had an idea, he could be a great Blood Bowl coach, eh? Oh my god, no I got all these ideas, oh no ... ahhh my brain, damn!

Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes,
Roman

Hello Jungle dwellers,

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.

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.

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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
Step by Step - Boudica
Roman takes you on a ride through his work on this bust by Origen Art. This 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.


#02
Gear Article - A Miniature Painter's Water Jar
In this article Roman takes a closer look on the simple gear everyone got: The Water Jar for painting.
Sounds like a simple article, but you will definatly be in awe about the wisdom that lies in deep waters.

Now vote!

Aloa Jungle,

Monday once again.
What about another finished miniature?

A bust that I have started during a painting class with my friend Kirill Kanaev.
The class itself was great fun and there was a lot to learn from our teacher. If you like to read more
about the class, check the review:

Painting Class with Kirill Kanaev.



Allright back to my bust. I started it during the class to paint what we were learning during the class. What I've observed when it comes to myself and classes by other teachers: I am confused afterwards. Really. When I go to a class I try to leave all my knowledge and own painting wisdom at home and go there with an empty bucket. Afterwards I have to paint a lot to put the bucket's content into my own painting style. For me it works only this way and after the class I was really unsure if I would ever finish the bust of the Greek Hoplite by Young Miniatures.

I did. Cool.

What really helps me when finishing up a project is it's story. Even with a bust. 
I try to gain information about the bust's topic, read some here and there, go back in history, learn for myself and in the end imagine myself being there too, with that guy the bust represents. Well, strange I know but I do. Can you do too?

 

Battle at Marathon 490 B. C. 
In 490 B. C. persian King Dareios I. wanted to take over the greek homelands. 
He organised a big invasion and gathered his army. It was the first time the persian tried to conquer greek homeland. His plan was to land his army with ships on the plains of Marathon, only twentyfive miles away from Athen. It was planned to be a surprise attack. Hah! Surprise! Surprise! Sneak in with an army of many thousand men and just catch all the greeks unaware.

Very often in history such plans were damned. Why? Because of spies, rumors, birds who could talk and the wind and smell. In this case the situation canalized into a battle at Marathon. The Athenians were definatly in a little hurry and with the help of additonal hoplites from Plataiai they had an army about 9000 hoplites, marching against the Persians. The Persians were famous for their archers and their cavalry and Dareios I. thought that the plains would be a great playground for his tactics. Well, history tells us also about an army of 2000 spartans who arrived too late to the battle. I just wanted to mention this.

Somehow - against all odds - the allied hoplites won this day. They drove the persians back to their boats and back over the sea to Persia. It was a great victory for Athen and Greece.

About the painting process
Painting up the bust was fun during Kirill's class as I learned several tricks here and there from this great guy and painter. Finishing it after the class was impossible to me first. I did not know what to do on it, how to proceed, because my own ways of painting were a little disoriented. He was standing in my cabinet for a long time and just recently I told myself - screw it - finish him. So I did.

Maybe I was also a little bit confused, because some of my friends told me that this guy looks like Conchita Wurst from Austria. Maybe I was scared to paint further on him. I do not know, but thanks to my friends who went quiet about this during the last couple of months I was able to finish him.








If you want to see some more photos, please feel welcome to see my gallery on Putty&Paint.

I hope you like him.
Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman  

Hello jungle people,

well by now you know that the monkeys of Massive Voodoo are famous for their teaching skills.
May it be in one of their wonderful weekend classes or in a small class on a miniature event where they unwrap their knowledge for you.

Nothing goes as far as a private coaching in the MV headquarter. While the other classes pump up your learning curve very much, a private coaching makes it explode. With this in mind Michael from Austria decided to have his private coaching with Massive Voodoo.

This time it was only Roman teaching the coaching with Michael as Raffa was on his honeymoon.
Roman knows Michael since several years already due some of his MV's Jar's Beginner Classes in Vienna, Austria where Michael always helps organising like mad.



Michael's learning goals for the two day private coaching were the following:

- Development of personal painting skill, main subject "realistic Skintone"
- Doing the jump from gaming models to display painting
- useful plans before the actual painting work, wise application of colors to achieve a nice result
- Using the airbrush not only for priming, but using it wisely for tasks during different steps

Well, what can Roman say as teacher?
It was a real cool coaching with Michael. I knew Michael's painting skill and his level and I knew that Michael finds most of his fun in painting miniatures for gaming. He has his golden rule to only play with painted miniatures and it is always a pleasure to see how much heart he puts in his gaming models. It is always a joy to show Michael a trick or two on how to improve some of his gaming models.

Michael and Roman did spent two pretty cool days in an unhurried and cozy MV studio painting athomsphere!

We do not like to talk too much on the coachings ourselves, rather let the student tell you his/her impression. Thank you for the write up, Michael!

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MV Private Coaching 
Review by Michael

For those of you that don´t like reading the whole review. Let me tell you, it was great! A great experience with a very good friend in a purely relaxing environment. If you ever have the chance to go there, do it!


From the beginning. 
First contact online was done by my wife as this was a birthday present. After I received the nice voucher at my birthday, I contacted Roman to fix the date for the workshop. I had a nice conversation about possible topics and decided that one of my “problems” I currently have with painting my minis is getting the skin looking real! I mainly paint minis for gaming, so they are in constant use in Warhammer, Blood Bowl, Mordheim, Warmachine or Hordes games.

Waiting for this day to come was quite hard, as I was already nervous months in advance… but patience is something that you have to master yourself.

Directly before the workshop I received a notice by Roman, what to bring for the workshop and a reminder on the agreed topic. Therefore, I packed all the material and all the items I took with me as well as the latest painted minis for my Journeyman league in Warmachine/Hordes, just to show some of the problems with my painting. Finally, the day was there, so I drove (the day before) to my parents nearby and had a short rest before driving to the place on Thursday for the planned start at 10 am. The artists quarter wasn´t hard t find, especially if you are originally from the region.


Day 1
The feeling you get when approaching the place is very good, a lot of sound from bands working on their sound as well as many paintings all over the place got me from the beginning. Some obvious arrows with lots of apes pointing upwards showed the way. Roman was already working and so the greeting was warm and open. We sat down and had a cup of Coffee and started chatting about what to come. Then I was introduced to my (very comfortable) working place and was introduced in the basic rules of this workshop. We started the workshop with an introduction into colour theory and removed most of the colours again to start mixing all different kinds of colours by the use of red, blue and yellow! Quite an experience if you are used to choose from many many colours, but by this (after trying this out for quite a while), I am confident to be able to mix any colours I am in need of.

We based the bust (and a additional bust for trying out things) black and then we applied a skin colour mixed by basic colours as a prime version with the airbrush. We added already some darker version from below to give first shadow and highlighted colour from above for zenithally light.

Now we were ready working on different topics like Shadows and even deeper shadows and even deeper deeper shadows… the same for the highlights… quite fund and good practice for my patience, as not every colour applied has to be visible instantly! During the following hours (only a short break for some food) we worked concentrated but always in discussion on ideas, possible ways of achieving different looks, colour theory as well as good mood music and some fine jokes. Really, this made the time fly by! I had the chance to meet some more people from the massive voodoo crew and had some nice chat with them.


In the evening, we finished around 10 p.m. and decided that our work was already quite more than we expected it to become in the first day, so we planned a little bit additional for the next day. Driving back to my parents and sleeping there including a nice breakfast was a good basis for the coming hours.




Day 2
The workshop started again at 10 am with a cup of coffee and a short discussion about the previous day including some ideas what to do on the second day. The bust was (in my eyes) already looking good, but of course, Roman had some more things to add and change.


We started with scars and hair and worked through the leather parts as well as the metallic. Highlight of the day seriously was painting the eyes. Didn´t believe that I would be able to paint such tiny details into eyes (reflections in reflections… ), but I think I managed well enough to give the bust a good look. Finally, we added some more colour by adding snow on the shoulder and the fur as well as giving the whole model a more cold approach to match the snow on the shoulder. In addition, always when I thought a piece of the model was done, we discussed what could be added or changed and after doing so, it looked better.

At noon, some other painters of the group arrived and we painted together and had some good chat from time to time. There were some challenges Roman gave me, just to make sure that I practice some ways of painting prior to work on the bust. In the very end I ended up with a painted bust, that I am really proud of! I like to look of the bust, I like the painting and know that there are things to still improve if I want.



We sat down to have a final discussion about the outcome of the course as well about some other topics (painting workshops in Austria) and in the very end I jumped into the car with all my material and drove very relaxed back to Austria.

I think that this is one of the most important things to mention, you need experience!!!!
And experience can only be achieved by painting, so I promise to keep on painting not only playing minis, but from time to time also display minis!

Anyways I am sure that I will be back for another workshop with Roman and the Massive Voodoo team as this for sure has greatly improved my painting style and also my understanding of colours and their usage.

Greets
Michael