Good monday morning jungle,


This tutorial is for free, 
if you enjoy its content and find it helpful I would always be happy about a small donation for a coffee or a tea, or even better icecream. Thanks! I am writing this to inspire and help other fellow painters, hobby people, artists and such!
_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
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A Walt Disney Infinity Ironman walkthrough. You do not know these figures?
Well, actually they are toys for kids.


I first encountered them when I was asked to participate in a star wars charity project by the Museum of Miniatures, Mumi. This shows the massive and cool project, where many artists were involved. I was asked to paint one jedi for the cause and I was able to pick Asako Tano. 

Painting this was a true joy as volumes are a little uncommon and the overall look is much more comic than what I usually paint. Variety in what arrives at my painting desk is a wonderful thing. I decided to not stop here and I ordered myself two more figures.They are quite cheap and you can get one even under ten euros. Sadly Walt Disney is shutting down the Infinity range. Two figures I said. One was Ironman that I repainted for the pure joy.





The initial Infinity Figure looks really simple in its paintjob.
I plan to change this with my version. Important for me was adding a stronger light situation, damages and some focus guiding edge highlights. And of course as it is me, much more unusual color play.

So I primed the model black and white, like I did with Yasmin from Aladin here (sorry did not take a photo of the primed Ironman):



Did the same to Ironman and after this applied my basic colors. As I never have control over myself while painting and following a clear guide to explain better what I am doing there is really hard for me I can only call this stage:

Initial sketching ... 
slapping paint with fingers and a large brush finding my idea and throw it to the model. I used a cold white here to sketch in my reflections on top of a dark red. You might think this looks wrong and indeed in this example it does, but I am all calm as I know what I can do to calm this down again. I just need to glaze another color with the brush or the airbrush on top of it to calm this. So I allow myself to go crazy, there is nothing I can not repair or take care of on my way.

I placed deepest shadows and sketched in some maximum light reflections.







Now I used my airbrush for a moment and sprayed a glaze of red, several times on top of the whole figure to calm my initial sketch down a bit. The areas where I placed shadows will look darker, while the ones I sketched with maximum light will show a stronger, more desaturated red. No photo of this, sorry.

After this I sketched other areas like the blue parts and black ones.
I used white again to mark out my strongest edgehighlights. While using black I added some scratches here and there and while using white I painted some edge highlights to these scratches too. Some purple was also carefully sprayed into the model from below. Just because I like purple. Again as a glaze to just tint, not cover.


More definiation on highlights and shadows. What I mean with this is: more sharper, stronger in its intensity. You can not really achieve this is if you use ultra thin paint. For this I am going with almost undiluted paint to really be able to place a strong impact and readability.

By using a black/purple glaze with the brush I was able to go back to my shadows again and make them stronger where I want them stronger.






In the next stage I again was redifining my highlights. Redifining in this case means I use glazes of red to pull too bright areas together and make them more intense in their look of reds. It also means that I use pure white to add final and thin, sharp edge highlights, even white reflection dots here and there. Again I rework these areas with glazes. Again I do the whites. Again. Maybe in between I redifine shadows too. It's a game. The game of wax on, wax off until you see what you want to see concerning your vision. In the next example photos the influance of sharper whites is clearly visible.

Also I worked out the base in the same procedure and added more purple and magenta. While doing this I might guess that magenta and purple also found their way back in the model itself while I was in the flow of painting.



In this stage I paint on until I feel the moment when I say: done. It works for me, I enjoyed it, no areas I am unhappy with. I call this painter's instinct. A personal thing that everyone has and uses different parameters for it. Others would maybe say this Ironman is not finished. Well, that is the painter's instinct of others. Paint one and show it to me - soon - in the upcoming Massive Voodoo competition* and show me your message. My message is easy: happy painting and my brush strokes sound like this :)

(ough, this was a teaser for those of you, who read)

I really enjoyed re-painting this figure, even it is a toy.
I loved it, because of the toy and childish look. Volumes I not often paint.
Really enjoyable. Will do more. Iron Man was the second.

Superhero discussion
I am not a big fan of Ironman. Never was. Somehow I saw only the first movie and remember other movies where he appeared. I like his superpowers ... ah well, he has none, but his superpower is money. I do not like this fact with Ironman, but do like it with Batman. That is very controverse I am aware of. Maybe it is because one is a tragic pimp, the other just another handsome guy with too much coins, but this is my personal view and personal views shall differ. Actually I do not see many superhero movies. Loved deadpool. Others entertained me, but never draw too much attention.




Instagram spotlight - Enrico Marini
You might know that I am quite active on Instagram when it comes to my Work in Progress stuff. I also follow others that inspire me. One of these is Enrico Marini. Not did he draw the comic series "Eagles of Rome" that I collect and I like so much. He recently shows super great Batman drawings.
Who am I to resist?






IMPORTANT:
Like said in the beginning, Walt Disney is shutting down the Infinity range. Sad, but true. Well, rumours tell me that you might check their range and get yourself your favourite character soon. They are still available and easy to get. Just saying. Prepare yourself for this, part of the upcoming MV challenge/competition, put to life soon by Josua and Roman. More soon!

Stay tuned and keep on happy painting!

Roman

_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Hi Jungle,

what is best to start with after some days of vacation?
Right, good memories. When looking back at 2016 I got plenty to tell about and still several tutorial and articles from last years painting spree.

This tutorial is for free, 
if you enjoy its content and find it helpful I would always be happy about a small donation for a coffee or a tea, or even better icecream. Thanks! I am writing this to inspire and help other fellow painters, hobby people, artists and such!
_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________


This piece definatly has its story.
Starting in last years August in Sweden on a car craveyard.



During my visit to Sweden to hold one of my beginner classes local-living and amazing, Markus suprised Peter and me with a surprise visit to this place ... somwhere in the deep forests of Sweden.

It's an amazing place. 
It stole my breath away. I was not able to speak, just full in awe ... and taking thousands of billions of photos. This is just a brief impression on what we saw there.









If you want to see more of it, check these photos.

Well, Arvika was a blast and as I was able to put this inspriation into a project I want to tell you about it. First, I was thinking to write this article for Figure Painter Magazine, but in the end I decided not to. Not that I do not like Figure Painter Magazine, not at all I like it very much and I love to contribute there as you will see in future issues. I just had to listen to my heart like I always do and it told me that this article is to personal and more a thing for Massive Voodoo itself, than a part in a magazine. Well, the heart, takes decisions away from us or helps us to make some.

Let's speak about: Memories
Some more photos, because these memories are so good :)















Well, you see I can not stop, even if you might already get what I want to show you here. A place full of magic. Everytime I come back to these photos I remember and breathe every second there again.

Thank you so much, Markus.
... and of course Peter too for the great time, friendship and comradship spent in Sweden.










Allright, you get that I was inspired :)
So inspired that this memory burned like laser in my soul and before I could think in any direction that I would create something to say thanks to Markus for such an amazing impression and chance.

Home again I found a small cigar box without cigars 
and glued a car in it. 
Simple as that, kind of. It was absolutly in the flow as the inspiration just wanted to get out. Nau!
If you are interested in what car I used, check out this article over here:
Tutorial: Using cars in 28 mm miniature projects 


As you can see in the photo above I added some cork, roots, rubber tires and stuff to the base. All put together with superglue. Before glueing the car to the base I damaged it, by adding true material damage to it, but not as hard as on this one. 


Adding some soil to the ground - again superglue for the win - I made ready for priming, but also took a piece of masking tape to protect the clear car glass window part.


I used Vallejo's Plastic Putty 401 to add some areas of interest, by using a cotton ear cleaner and speckled it all over some areas. In the end this will look like a rough surface, a mixture between rust and crackled paint and whatnot.


Primed it.

Prepared my basic primary five colors that I wanted to use and started painting.
Colors are these ones from Schmincke, Primeacryl.


Taking a brush, painting. My brain was all yellow, green and a car that is rusted. All the good memories came back in this paintjob.


It was also a great time back then as my good old friend Robert from Graz was visiting me and we painted together. Also wonderful memories. You might remember him, he is the creator of the diorama "Frutti di Mare".

I was just slapping color and painting my vision. Let's call it sketching first, but in the end sketching is where painting begins.









Quickly I realized I miss green in it. Yellow green. Mixed it, placed it.


Just picking the colors from my wetpalette and mixing together what I needed here and there. For the rust I used some of my holy modelmates rust, that is not available anymore as Modelmates shut down. Sad story, but good memories. Lucky you if you got yourself a little stock or if you heard any romours of Alan's other company, called "Dirty Down".


The key to such a start of a project?
Inner peace, good memories, great time with friends, no restriction in color recipes, good music, a creative roar that has to be shouted! So much yellow in my green and brushstrokes!




I added more darker green here and there, painted wildly so it is quite hard to tell you exact steps. Believe me or not, but I think when you look at the photos you will understand that a certain brushstroke or a technique is not easy to explain in this kind of process. Call it freedom in painting, happy painting. Simple as that. Painting a vision, follow color instincts, put it where you want it. Wash? Drrrpppp! Bbllrrrpptrrrff!! Put it where you want it, paint on until you see your vision fullfilled.


Ah yes, I added some moss and some grass pieces from Polak Models and some mininature grass. 
And I painted my plinth ... uhm, the cigar box black, why?






Paint on it again to get more definiton via drybrushing moss, adding more detail to the car by redifining the texture there. I was also adding tree funghi here and there that I made out of carefully selected tabacco pieces.


It was easier done than you might think and I hope you are not too shocked on the minimal way of explaining color recipes or special painting techniques here. It just happened, like a flash while all that inspiration and good memories poured out and into this small cigar box. There is no special way or name for this technique, maybe: painting?

A project that I enjoyed a lot and now that I got it back from my exhibition it will start its journey to Sweden, finally.

I called the project: Memories
... as it is just a this. A small piece of my heart and soul.








You can see more photos of it via Putty&Paint or on my own page in the diorama section:
http://www.romanlappat.com/dioramas

I know this is not a typical tutorial, explaining many things in detail or step by step. Well, the main goal behind this article or so called step by step is just to show you:

Sometimes you just have to paint, nothing else.

I was so inspired by this car wreck that I had to do a tank wreck in winter and I can already tell you this was not the last one of this wreckage series:


If you want to see an article on the creation of "Ghosts of Winter", let me know via comment and some interactions. I might take some time in the near future to write it up for you!

Keep on happy painting!
Roman

_______________________________________________________________________________
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.
_______________________________________________________________________________