A wonderful movie -
I saw it on the plane to the US and was simply amazed.
If you got the chance see it!

Aloa Jungle Painters,
 
a newly finished bust from my table. Version 2 of this 1:12 bust.
Orc-halla awaits! Really cool subject. Just imagine Viking Orcs roaming the sea and ravaging the shores. Nothing more to say! Close your eyes or look at this bust and see Orc-halla arise!

The version 1 I've painted was more a colorful experiment, this version 2 is more the "normal" version in traditional look.

I am planning on writing a detailed Miniatures Unpacked and a step by step on this bust's two versions that I have painted. Well, not just right now as preparing all the photos and such is always a lot of work and my life is busy right now with some private things and we just returned from the states as we were at the Nova Open 2015.

All will take a little while, but I am looking forward to write these for you with all the patience it needs. So far, I hope you enjoy the model.
 

Ragnok, Norse Orc Hero
Comission Work
1/12 Bust by Fer Miniatures/Forged Monkey
Sculptor: Raffaele Picca
Painter: Roman Lappat


More photos via Putty&Paint!
Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

Hello Jungle Painters,

Raffa and Roman returned home from their US trip and fighting their own little battles to get rid of the jetlag.

After spending a great time at the Nova Open 2015 in Washington D.C. both went for some days of holidays to New York City. Now it is time to unwrap all their impressions and get your jungle blog rollin' again.

Let's start with a review on the great event that was Nova Open 2015.
To see more event reviews check this link!

Check Nova Open on facebook to recieve updates!


The Nova Open is a big event focusing on Tabletop Tournaments, including many different games and tons of great gaming tables. Many gamers made their way to D.C. to be part of it and the athmosphere there was just wonderful.

We want to thank Mike, Laurie, Dewey and Joanna for first inviting us to the show and second for their unconditional help and support in organisational matters. We felt so welcome from the first minute on and the time spent at the show was just too cool!







We also want to give a shout out to our british friends from GBHL Podcast with whom we meet up for a spontaneous beer in the hotel lobby bar. These guys are totally crazy when it comes to Lord of the Rings tabletop and sharing their hobby experience. It was our pleasure to meet up with you guys!
Check out their NOVA Journey's Vlogs - here is one with a spontaneous chat of Jamie and Roman:




We also want to thank everyone who took part in the raffle of our painted miniatures. Congratulations to the lucky winners! It was our pleasure to help the Nova Open Charitable Foundation raise money for charity!

Again back to CJ's great photos and her in action. Always behind the camera!





Crazy fellas!

Hello Everyone!

Bene aka Benji is selling some of his miniatures. If you are interested in buying one of his minis or have a question about the miniatures, just drop him a message to

bene (at) massivevoodoo (dot) com

so he can answer your questions or talk with you about the details. Below you find the miniatures he is offering.

Ey Jungle Painters,

another one jumps the table.
Again a Hasslefree sculpt by Kevin James White.
Did I tell you yet that I love his sculpts?

Her name is Leonore and I tried to paint a different light situation to her. Not the typicall zenithal light situation. More a light hitting her curves from her left. Just an experiment, but fun.
Hope you like her!


 Leonore is on Sale beside other Massive Voodoo
Miniature Projects - support us and check out our offers!








Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes 
Roman

Hey fellas,

well, it has really been a long time since I have written anything here on the blog. To be honest I was not in the mood to publish anything just because I thought I didn´t have anything to tell.

As some of you might know I have a very special relationship to my hobby. There are days on which I enjoy my hobby very much, but there are also those on which I don´t even want to think about all this. It might be caused by a lot of different effects, e.g. work or life, but in the meantime I don´t care a lot about this anymore. I got used to those ups and downs, I think of them as a natural thing. And I´m quite happy about this as it makes things a lot easier. Perhaps some of you might know of what I´m talking about. I´m sure I´m not alone in this ;-) the most important point of all this is: enjoy your hobbies as long as you can, but accept that there are times in which you need a break. Don´t panic in those moments. Most of us are not professionals and by this, we have the freedom to choose what we want to do in our free time. Do something else, get new experiences and when the time is right, get back to painting :-)

So, what have I done in the last months? Of course I was not completely off the painting table. I visited shows (like the Duke of Bavaria) or took part in some classes (e.g. Raffa´s sculpting class and Fernando´s painting class), but most of all I enjoyed my time. I had an awesome and relaxing holiday with Roman and Sanne in Hungary and here I was able to get rid of all the stress which pushed me down since Christmas.

During the last years I had invested a lot of energy in my work. I´m a manager in a publishing company and responsible for our online job board. So, my daily business is calling companies and taking part in important meetings. Don´t take me wrong, it´s a quite interesting job and I´m pretty good at it, but it consumes a lot of energy. You might know the questions: Is the customer happy? Are the calculations right? Are the contracts fixed? How much is the customer willing to pay? I think you get the point.

The vacation in Hungary helped me a lot. It was my first bigger time off in 3 1/2 years. I was able to reflect what I have done, what I have become and what I would like to do in the next few years. The result was to find a new job to get a new perspective and move to a bigger city in order to improve my social life. So, on October 15th I will start my new job in Stuttgart :-)

But enough of this. MV is a painting blog and because of this I´d like to show you some of my projects I´m working on recently. I finished only one project since my last posting and the rest are all in different WiP-phases. I will finish them, when  the time is right :-)

Sorry for the crappy pics, they are just quick shots off the table:

Thorag:





A very interesting paintjob. I was surprised how difficult Latorre´s sculpts are to paint. I switched the colors a few times because I was not really satisfied with the appearance. But finally I was able to finish him, right in time for Duke of Bavaria.

Roman Centurion:

This is a really huge bust from Castle Miniatures. I liked the idea of the battle-hardened veteran right in the middle of an epic carnage, fighting for his life. I would say that the face is pretty much done for the moment. Now I have to focus on the helmet and as soon as it´s done I can do the detailed work on the face (details, light situation, more colors). The rest of the bust has only recieved some basic colors, so all in all this bust will take a huge amount of time to get finished.

Pirate bust:

I started this bust during Fernando Ruiz´ painting class in Blumberg (July). It´s a really awesome bust and I can only recommend it to everybody. It´s challenging, but not too hard. It´s just right for having fun. As you see, I invested a lot of time on the face. I´m also pretty satisfied with it. But there is still a lot to do :-)

Gladiator:

Oh, this fella is real pain for me. It´s my sixth attempt to paint him and I have sworn to myself to get him done properly. It was my first non-gaming-miniature I bought some years ago. I also finished him in those days, but a few years later I decided that I could do better a better paintjob. So I stripped him and since then it was a real horror. I somehow never got into the right mood to paint him, but nevertheless forced myself. I learnt the hard way that this was the wrong attitude ;-) even if he does not look very challenging, it´s a pretty old sculpt from Pegaso and because of this you have to interpret a lot of things (= paint things that are not there, but have to be there). But at the moment I´m very happy with him and he will be finished for sure!

New Energies:



Only few of you might know that some years ago I had been very active in tabletop wargaming. I was a passionate 40k-gamer and pretty successful in those days. I stopped playing when I started investing more and more time into painting. But in the last two years I played a few times with Simon, a good friend of mine in Augsburg. He gave me one of his armies and it felt like being home. Brooding over army organisations and testing them gave me a good feeling and I learnt that I have not lost my skills in the last years. So, last week I decided that I will start a small 40k-army once again. As most of you guys are tabletop gamers, too, I´d like to share my experiences with you. I will write some small articles about how I build and paint my army: which shops are nice to get the important stuff (e.g. megabitzshop.com), how do I paint pre-heresy marines, how to I achieve a homogenous army while using different color schemes...

Hopefully some of you will find my tips useful. My army will be a small Chaos Space Marine warband which I will use with the Grey Knight rules (yes, I know this is heresy, deal with it ;-) ). The idea is to create a band of badass veteran-warriors from different Astartes legions which have arranged themselves with the chaotic situation after the defeat of Horus. So, I will paint the marines in different pre-heresy colors-schemes, but make the armours appear old and used. I like the idea :-) Death to the false Emperor!

Well guys, this have been a lot of blabla... I just want to tell you how much I appreciate it that you are reading this blog! We are a small, but precious community. So, if any of you guys are living in Stuttgart or somewhere near this ctiy, drop me a message. I´d like to get in touch and spend an awesome time with you :-) you can reach me via: baphomet[at]massivevoodoo[dot]com

Cheers,
Peter

Hello Jungle Painters,

it is time once again for a miniatures unpacked on your Massive Voodoo Jungle.
This time we are heading to Italy to Aradia Miniatures and we will have a look on their brand new and fresh release, called "Mawhi". This review is written by Roman.


We already wrote one Mu about a miniature by Aradia Miniatures: The Toad King. 
Check it out here!

Let's start, shall we?
First of all, let's talk about the artists who worked to bring this real cool beast alive:

 
For the packing aspect the miniature recieves three of five Voodoo points. It is a functional package, but compared to those other crazy companies who make a contest in who got the most fancy boxes this is pretty casual. The miniature is safe and that is most important. Nice addition is the copy of the artwork drawing. Some people might ask for a promotional paintjob there, but that is just personal preference.

Opening up the box you find the main body, head and arms without further packing. You find three smaller parts in a plastic zipper bag.

 
Ok, now we'll have a closer look. I can say from my part that I already love the miniature. The sculpting work of Allan Carrasco is always a joy to look at and imagine paint on these great surfaces. Allan is well known for his monstrous creatures, but this one is a little different than usual. In cooperation with Aradia a really interesting concept was born:






Mawhi's smaller parts: a Tucan bird, an anchor and a shell with the Tucan's feet to be placed on the back of the whale colossus.




While I turned around the model I was expecting a monstrous whale penis as Allan is famous for sculpting his models very authenticly. Well, I was surprised to find it all packed warm in some clothing.



The sculpt itself recieves five of five Voodoo points. Such a cool sculpt and a fresh concept with enourmous impact and great detail by Aradia Miniatures.

Looking on the cleaning work you might encounter when ordering one copy for yourself. On the arms you find some resin staves, which are actually not for pinning the arm to the models armpit. They just have to be removed and the areas has to be cleaned to fit well to the armpit.


You will also find very normal mould lines here and there. These are not bad, just the regular ones which can be cleaned easily with sandpaper or a sharp blade. All details are fine and the casting quality overall is superb.


The fitting quality of the parts - after removing and preparing the surfaces - is top notch.
On the following photo you can see a glimpse of the details. All these shells on the whales back and stuff. So cool!

The casting quality of the piece and the time you need to prepare it for painting is pointed out with four of five voodoo points.


Well, you know how it is with those great sculpts by Allan Carrasco. They caught your attention and after a moment you are realizing that you are building up a base and prepare them for painting, even you do not have the time to do so :D

I added some more shells parts to the back of the whale while I did some on the base. The base was build rather simple with a steering wheel and a chain I bought at the local hobby store, cork, Milliput and real shell pieces from the beach.


Before I primed the big "Mawhi" I had to fill gaps on the arm and neck. Tiny ones. We recomment the following articles to you "How to prepare a resin model", "Filling Gaps with Milliput" and "Working with Vallejo Putty 501".


What a beast, eh?




Well, last point. The price for the piece. It's at 55,00 € and we say this ain't cheap for a miniature, but in fact it is a fair price. Looking at the size of the model, the coolnes of the sculpt and concept and the overall quality. Definatly a fair price! Compared to other miniatures, full body or busts in that size it is truely fair. Five of five voodoo points.