"I went to the private lesson, with 2 things in mind. Seeing again Roman, as it's always a real chance to discuss everything, life, experience, and of course painting spirit!! The second one was about the choice I made to start for the first time a big bust, and wanted to learn from him how he can give, always, a so unique atmosphere." - Francois



Francois is no one unknown to me. 
Already have we organised two painting classes together in Versailles in the last couple of years and made up good friendship beside the miniature painting aspect that got us connected. So I was really happy when he wrote me and asked about a two day private coaching session with me.

After some mails on the organisation aspects of the trip it was clear to me as a teacher what Francois would like to learn. First, he wants to tackle a big bust and also dive into my mind and thoughts and work order when it comes to achieve a strong atmospheric color and harmony concept for his project. On the other hand it was also my goal to push his self confidence in painting to make him less afraid of future projects he might try for the first time. 

We decided to work on a bust by Nuts Planet that looks very familiar to Jon Snow of the Game of Thrones television series. The bust is called "Night's Watch".


Francois arrived with homework and brought some inspiration:


"Full of doubt, when it comes to unleash myself to play with primiry colors, and place the first colors on the bust. But the confidence Roman has on this, gives you constantly the energy to go on. I was really surprised of myself doing it, but hour after hour, something happens ! It was really cool as it has increased my confidence on painting.  pParticularly on bust and confirm that I spend always nice moments with Roman. I hope I will see you soon !!!"

- Francois




When Francois arrived to the MV Studio we enjoyed a hot coffee together and some good talks about life. We were sorrounded by a cold winter atmosphere, but the studio was warm and cozy. As I knew that we only had two days to make Francois return home happily it was time to start really soon. First we tackled the confidence and started with advanced color theory, made up some plans for the guy who looks like Jon Snow and prepared ourselves to start painting on the model in the afternoon of our first day.


Some color theory tasks, Francois had to fullfill to understand the analysis of the things his eyes see and how he can repeat them with a confident understanding of color.




It was time to start on the busts and Francois was really concentrated.




More focusing.



We painted long and intense and had some good laughs together, enjoyed a really nice time and great chats, but mainly I as a teacher was always pushing Francois further and further in his progress. It was a real joy to watch and to hear all these "clicks!" happening in his brain.

Thank you, Francois! Thank you for putting yourselve in my hands and for your trust in my teaching abilities. I was really happy to see you exceed yourself and paint confident. Keep on happy painting, my friend!




"I think this experience will help me in future:

- better understanding of colors and ambiance
- training myself using a bit less pre made pot, but more primary colors
- painting bust, as this was my second bust. And first one at this scale!!

Thanks again Roman, this was awesome, and I can only push all of you to try this coaching !!"

- Francois



Feel free to contact me for your private coaching!
Right now I am fully booked with two day MV private coachings until the end of September 2017. All requests from now on will be planned up for autumn 2017. Right now I can not give you any specific dates yet, as I the second half of 2017 will be planned around weekend seminars and these will be settled in June/July. You can contact me via www.romanlappat.com.
Stay tuned!

Hi Jungle,

it's been a while since the last tutorial from the monkeys in here.
As I told you before, I still have plenty in stock from 2016 and as we do not have a year of the painter in 2017 only once in while - when the time is available - something like this kind will drop in.


KONG FU
Due my recent Kong Fu articles here on the blog I slowly see the end of the tunnel of my creative block. Still I did not paint at all yet, but frankly I do not find the time right now as many things are to be done at the office desk. It helps to work off the things that are in line. It clears the brain and the fog. As I am a person who loves to create it is the hardest part for me right now that nothing new is created right now. That I am not flowing in my creative waters and be able to finish something at the painting desk. This fact was really hard in the beginning, but slowly I understand more of it. Well, here is Lord Dumah, that I finished in the end of 2016. I hope you enjoy the article ...

_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Let's get it on with a step by step on how I painted
Kimera's "Dumah, Lord of Bones".




INTRODUCTION
Again this is not a step by step teaching you color recipes, as mostly all I did was mixed from primary colors by Schmincke Primeacryl. The primaries I use can be found here. I often got asked on a particular color of a particular brand to make this repeatable for everyone, but frankly it is hard to tell you when you mix everything out of five colors. Nonetheless I know from my seminar teachings that a true way of free painting can only be found if you consider this an option. Observation is the key, analysing colors and tones instead of repeating mixes that you only understand if written in front of you.

Some of might think this is bad teaching or a bad step by step. Well, I can only recommend to open your eyes to it. The joy of painting is hidden in this way of mixing colors and of course you can use all your model paints for it too, it is just a deeper understanding of color that will appear if you limit yourselve.

While I was preparing the photos for this article I saw that some are not perfect. Done during the painting process it takes a lot of discipline to grab your camera or your mobile and do photos in between your steps. Everybody who tries to write a step by step knows what I am speaking of. So, please excuse the photo quality of some in this article. In the end I hope you will enjoy the article.

I actually took the base that came with the model, added it to a round plinth in a good size and added some small stones and groundwork to it. Nothing special.

PAINTING PROCESS AND THOUGHTS
Lord Dumah was primed black with GW black primer and well, looked pretty dark in this first stage. In the back you can see some color mixes on my wet palette going on. Coming from primaries.



Lord Dumah here for me is a dark character in my vision. I mean just look at his concept. Some kind of demon with superior weaponry to slay the good fellas. So I started rather dark. First I gave the base a first sketch of color and contrast. Some cold green was mixed here and used, following a zenithal light situation. I decided to start the skintone a bit brighter as I knew that the true metallic parts would frame it in dark/bright contrast. So the skin and face would stand out. Fabrics were kept pretty dark too as I did not want to draw too much focus on them. Still many areas are black primer in this stage.



True Metallics were used also, but also kept them very dark so far. Of course these are not mixed from primaries as my primary colors have no metallic pigment. I used Scale75 metallic paints here.

Everything I did so far has a drop of dark blue in it to keep the harmony of my atmospheric vision.
This is mainly slappadislapp of paint to bring my vision forward.


Still unsure about the models further color choices I pushed contrast on the base and painted the surface brighter, with stronger edge highlights. More definition. And a tiny touch of yellow in it for highlighting. Yo, check my thumb to see the colors I used.



Very important if you are unsure about further colors is to block out all areas with applying paint. So I did. Some more work on the metallics and colors everywhere.


I really enjoy to work with textures of paint. In the metallics, in the fabrics. So while pushing contrast I use my brushstroke-power with pride and joy. Still slappy di slapp :D


Edges break light, so if the edge is sharp it will recive a strong edge highlight. Round edges not as they are no edges.


My vision slowly becomes clearer as everything comes togehter in the same stage of pushing contrast, color harmony and closing in to detail work.


On the way I decided to have another color playing a strong game on this model. As I see him as a demon lord I decided to have some glowing runes here and there and started with the large surface of the shield. I painted my sketch there in pure strong white to have the strongest underpainting for a glow or so called OSL effect.


I always test these things on another surface first and you can see on my cutting matte how I did it with a simple slaanesh symbol. When decided this is ok I used a flourescent red/orange and placed it on top of the white as glazes and repeated this step several times to make it more intense.


Not finished yet with the shield I decided to have this also on other areas going on to keep the overall balance of color harmony. His eyes should glow too:



With no other orange going on so far, I decided to take all areas that lack behind with me. Working on the metals and skin was the main thing now. Also the fabrics recieved a stronger but still desaturated textured highlight.


I used my airbrush now to spray a green touch as a glaze into the model from below to connect base and model even further.


Lower parts get greener ...


If you do it right no green areas - except the base - will be visible from the top.


During the process of this model I got asked on facebook which colors I used for the fabrics. Well, as I can not name a specific brand or such I explained my contrast range on these parts by remixing my steps. A dark purplish black, slowly highlighted with a yellowish/pinkish white to make it turn to grey, but really slowly.


As the explanation on the wetpallete was not so visible I decided to place it also to my skin:



On the fabrics it self it looked much darker as I was pushing back the deepest shadows already and also the green glaze with the airbrush plays its game.


After everything was closing in more I decided for some more magic orange going on.


And also added reflections on the metals from the glow of the sword as metals are the strongest reflecting material I got going on in this project I decided to only gently work this on them. Not on the skin or fabrics. It's not a super-nuclear glowing orange thing.


My true metallic metal highlights turned brighter and a little blueish. You mainly can see this from the top as they were placed from a zenithal light source.


Reflections of the orange.


For final steps I cleaned up here and there. Checked for mistakes in painting, did some darklinging here and there where it was needed to seperate areas clearly from eachother. Final highlights here and there. This is the final paintjob that I did on comission and my client was really happy:


The cloak recieved some wathering on the lower parts.


Due my free color play by mixing everything from primaries I am able to create really interesting color games. I love them so much. It feels so much like painting I am used to from canvas painting back in those days.




Lord Dumah was a real interesting model to paint. Not an easy one as some forms do not attract for happy painting. It is a very complex sculpt and sometimes I would have wished for sharper sculpted edges and the chain on the sword made no sense to me and was a pain to understand and paint. Overall I was quite happy on how he turned out.




I hope you enjoyed this walkthrough, my thoughts and ideas behind this paintjob. May you find inspiration in it, that is why I wrote it. If so, consider ...

_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

Hi Jungle,

jungle news on the horizon,
no time for you to enjoy the silence.

First of all it is about upcoming blogposts for next week you really can look forward too:

Roman is writing on a full step by step of his work on Kimera's Lord Dumah, which will hit the jungle next week. Stay tuned for it. This will be interesting for many of you. 


Scheduled for next week too is a big review of Roman's second Advanced Class he recently held in Blumberg-Achdorf. Teaching about atmosphere and how you can include it in your paintjobs and how it will overhaul your way of working and thinking.


Another superhot information
for those of you who are not on facebook and did not get the news yet: www.romanlappat.com went online today. Roman was working on his artists portfolio page now since one and a half year and now it is ready. Not everything is finished as some further plans will be included in the next weeks, but such a project is a neverending story. Check it out and enjoy!

Many thanks to http://www.philipprinz.com/ for his great work, support and help! Contact him if you are in need of a helping hand when it comes to your homepage .
















Next weekend workshop ahead is Jar's Beginners Class in Copenhagen, Denmark in June. Thanks to the great organisation of Jacob and Peter and the great location of Farros Cigar Roman is already pretty much looking forward to a fully booked seminar.                           Check MV's Seminar Roadmap 2017 for news about workshops.

There will be more of course. Plenty of things are in the pipeline, more private coaching reviews, more kong fu, some finished projects, another book review and more. Jungle drums will bounce again, but with a healthy pace. Stay tuned!

Keep on happy painting!

I have met Mads for the first time on my beginners class in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2016 and really was happy when I recieved a mail from him asking to learn more from me.

"Even though I had only met Roman once before he really made me feel as I was meeting an old friend and I instantly felt at home in the studio." - Mads

We both talked through some mails on what Mads wanted to learn and quickly realized that my very popular coaching of the understanding of atmosphere would answer many questions Mads had in his mind. We did meet up in the middle of winter beauty in the warm Massive Voodoo Studio. Atmosphere was already present, now it was time to learn how to extract the knowledge out of nature observations and put it into Mads figure projects.

"Roman was simply great at guiding and observing what I did and with short explanations and tips push me beyond the limits of what I thought was possible to do. Never would I have thought it would be possible to learn so much in such a short amount of time." - Mads


View from the studio.


We spoke through plenty of theory, did some of my teaching exercises and I was happy to see Mads understand the principles about  it very fast. Some plans were made, before we did start on the model that Mads prepared already as homework.





"It was finally time to begin putting paint on the base and miniature. We started by applying an environment color to the base and miniature and then using that as a basis/addition for everything painted on after – this is something I cannot recommend enough as it brings the miniature together in the end." - Mads


Mads focused on succeding on his learning goals.

"While Roman already has pushed my understanding and approach to painting it after this phase he truly showed how great a teacher he is and how great his philosophy for painting is. He had observed that I was a nervous and worried about doing something wrong and messing up the project – a trait that has been “blocking” my creativity on all previous projects. We talked about it and he asked if I was willing to be pushed even further and out of my comfort zone and I agreed (if to be guided and pushed by Roman then why would I even be there). Roman wanted to push me out of my comfort zone by having me paint the base with my fingers!!!? "

The two days of the coaching went by pretty fast and we managed to achieve more than I expected as a teacher. Mads as a student made me really proud.



If you want to read Mads impressions on the coaching first hand then I can only recommend checking out his new blog and find his review of the coaching there too:









What I saw as a teacher made me pretty sure that Mads now will strive forward to new adventures, ask himself new questions on painting and would observe his entire world with different eyes.

"I learned a lot and have had a bunch of fun painting since then - learning more every day!" - Mads



Feel free to contact me for your private coaching!
Right now I am fully booked with two day MV private coachings until the end of September 2017. All requests from now on will be planned up for autumn 2017. Right now I can not give you any specific dates yet, as I the second half of 2017 will be planned around weekend seminars and these will be settled in June/July.

Hello fellow painters,

since several months - weekly - we got some questions about MV's Ultimate Paint Rack dropping in.
And we always tell everyone what we can say.

As MV monkey Raffa is the project manager of the Paint Rack Campaign and also the mastermind behind the paintrack we other MV monkeys do know little about it, nor are we part of the process.

These are the facts right now:

•  The MV Ultimate Paint Rack is not on sale at the moment
•  We do not know about future production plans
•  We can not give you an estimated date when they will be available
•  There is no option to hand out the design files
•  We can only give you the information Raffa gave us

From today on we will link all messages, mails and questions regarding the future of MV's Ultimate Paint Rack to this post as typing plenty of messages a week to this topic can be quite frustrating, if there is nothing new or good to tell you.

Stay tuned and hope for the future!