Beginner Workshop for Miniature Painting with one of the most experienced teachers: Roman Lappat

Thanks to all of you for a beautiful happy painting weekend!

Thanks for all the help during the class and afterwards.Thank you for joining up for the class and your joy to learn painting wisdom and philosophy :)

this time the review will not be written by myself.

Killian, one of my students in this class will take over. When? Now. :)

This above is Killian ...

in action during our toothpick-spear-far-throw-contest ...

This is his review ...

Let’s imagine your vision about painting.

It is a place full of creativity.

Some might imagine green, calm woods, others wild, blue rivers, and still others red fearsome places burning in fire. No matter where you draw you creativity from, it is a place where you thoughts roam free and everything is possible. You feel save and you head thrives on all kinds of ideas.

Now imagine an ogre, tall, enormous, bald with a black beard and a gigantic club in his hands. He tells you he doesn’t drive much because he is too easily distracted. This ogre will smash your place of creativity. An afterwards he will rebuilt it with you and your hands. Then he will smash it and rebuilt it with you again. He does this over and over and over again. Until in the end you don’t recognize this place of beauty any longer. You cannot tell what has become of it. The only thing you can tell, is that it is more than before.

This is the story of the beginner class of Roman aka Jarhead. And yes, the similarity to the ogre is intentional, but Roman is far more kind. What remains true is that, over the course of two and a half days, (33 hours), you will become someone very different with respect to you painting and the understanding of the world that surrounds you.

Be open-minded. Welcome change, strive for something more than you are now and you will not be disappointed in what Roman has to teach you.

The first few hours of the workshop start out pretty normal. A bunch of guys and girls setting up their tables, brushes, colors, wet-palettes, chatting and getting to know each other. The first task is to create a base which resembles the feel you want for your miniature. Roman presents various different materials. Some so simple, you think you’re dumb never having thought of that before. And others, you never thought could be used to resemble a specific material

“Just use dried potting soil if you want soil on your base. Nothing will look more real, than real soil” Yes thanks, Captain Roman Obvious, but damn it worked so well!

When your base is done you will get some pretty intense lectures about contrast, color theory and light and shadow. Some really interesting stuff and how you carry what you see over to painting and to you miniature eventually.

After a jam packed first few hours, Saturday starts not too early and is all about color theory in the morning. Mixing colors, creating various tones, and how to get the effect and the exact color you are looking for. SMASH the ogre has done it for the first time. Some parts of your world now make so much more sense and you suddenly think outside the pots of your chosen brands.

After priming the bases and figures using zenithal pre-shading, it is time to paint your base. A very delicate step you might think, especially because you invested so much time and effort in your very first scenic base. Everyone gathers around Romans table and he tells us to choose a mood, feel and main color for our base and he chooses one for his. As he is mixing the paint on his wet-palette, he pulls out his club, tells you to use the largest brush you own, and just slaps that paint on. SMASH your world will crumble as you see how someone can slap on paint, all over the place, not caring for details, material etc. so carelessly on something it took you hours to build. He then tells you to slap on some shadows and he is done. Unfortunately it looks gorgeous, so you guess you will have to try that yourself.

Then comes the rebuilding part.

As you move along, brush stroke for brushstroke, everything makes sense, falls into place and looks and feels just right, natural. After painting the various colors and some larger details on your base it is time to put on some wash to make the details pop. And like you would imagine: choose a wash, and pour it over your base straight out of the bottle. Exactly! No one with a sane mind would to that! Would you? SMASH It can be so easy, and “time is precious”. You will soon discover that this also works great. You don’t have to be so careful. You are not painting some fragile, thin paper

After the base is done its time to paint your Demonette.

Roman will teach you how to paint the skin, shadow, light, contrast using different techniques. It is the applied theory of Friday and you can again tell that everything fits together perfectly. Roman encourages you to be bold. More contrast, more color, different color. He will teach you how far you can go and how courageous you can be. The result is no less then astonishing.

The last day is all about how various materials look like, and how they can be painted to look realistic. Have you ever seen someone paint a leather saddle in two minutes, using at least 3 colors and two different washes basically messing it all up over the piece? And guess what? Yes it will be the best looking leather saddle you have seen. Just because it looks realistic and not painted. The same holds true for metal and doing color transitions on the miniature. I am not gonna lie, it is a lot of input for one day and you surely cannot master those techniques in the short amount of time. But Roman will teach you everything you need to know, so that you can train at home for yourself. Ever fancied some wet blending? You will learn how to do a color transition in two minutes. It is way easier than you might think.

After two and a half days the workshops ends and everybody is exhausted. But the results speak for themselves and are so diverse. Everybody is very proud about the beautiful piece they have created