Learning from the best teacher in miniature painting: Roman Lappat

"Hey there,

last year I got a special birthday present from my friends and family: a private coaching by Raffa and Roman. As contact via e-mail is so easy, we were quickly able to find a date. Even during mail contact (and we wrote quite a lot) I could see, that they were professionals; meaning that we did not only fix a date, but they already saw to it, that the seminar was personalized and exactly what I needed (and was looking for).

I honestly have to say that I start at a beginner’s level. 
When I was younger I really did not care about painting; playing was enough for me. But lately I tried to put some color on my minis and really enjoyed it. I wanted to get better and I wanted to reach a higher level of painting, so my defined goals for the seminar were:

- Advancing my personal technique; starting with show-case painting
- Focus “gradient”
– how to prepare, start and advance ideally
- Clever color space planning and clever appliance of colors to have a clean and beautiful result
- Material focus “metal”

This was a whole lot to plan for, but Roman just wrote: “Don’t worry, we’ll easily fit this into your timeframe.”

Now we had to find the fitting miniature. We decided on the “Viking Warrior C.950”, a Viking bust by “Young Miniatures”. I had never painted a bust before and had to admit, that it did nothing for my already strong nervousness. Same as before, Roman told me that I should not worry and that it would not be any problem.

The weeks passed by and my anticipation grew day by day. Seeing the days in Augsburg, Germany drawing nearer, I felt like a child before Christmas.

Sadly, only seven weeks before my big painting date, my wife got hit by a car and although nothing serious happened, she had to have surgery on her elbow and was handicapped for about eight weeks. Because I could not and would not leave her alone in this state, by that time, our son was only six months old, I had to cancel my appointment with Roman and Raffa. At this point I would like to thank them both again for their understanding and flexibility to find another date so very easily, although I know that your schedules are very full and I am glad that you could fit me in somewhere in between all your other dates.

Day 1
The seminar was supposed to start at 9 a.m. on Thursday. I wanted to pick up a small breakfast at a gas-station and while I stood at the check-out, I saw a guy in a Massive Voodoo Hoody – seemed to me like a good omen. When he turned I could not believe my eyes: it was Roman. I revealed myself and after a heartwarming welcome he introduced me to the other guy, Eric, who is also part of the team.

When you enter the Massive Voodoo Studio you can almost feel the inspiration I the air. It surrounds you, which is a wonderful sensation. After another warm welcome, now with Raffa, we spoke again about what was on the schedule for my two days and then we got started – but not yet with the bust. First I got to hear some advanced color theory, which really opened my eyes. Suddenly I understood so much more. They asked me to mix some colors and this part was also extremely interesting. On the next step we primed the miniature and spoke about the color space planning and atmosphere of the bust. Which story is it telling and how does this affect the choice of color. I can only recommend it to everybody to sit down, look at your miniature and plan ahead, this is unbelievably helpful.
Time flew and when all the base colors were applied it was already 6 p.m. and we had not had any break. We decided that we all deserved a break and some food. Raffa and Roman are such nice people that the short trip to the burger pub around the corner was almost like going out with old friends.

Refueled,
we worked on the shades on the skin and did not drop the brushes until 10:45 p.m.

Day 2
On the next day I was a little bit early and so had the chance to look around the studio and interrogate Raffa about his fantastic new pirate bust.We started with the first lights on the skin. There I got another excursion on the topic of multitude of colors. Then came the inevitable: the eyes had to be painted. As I had never painted a bust before, I had never thought about painting eyes. Thanks to my two great teachers, I was very satisfied with the result, although, at first, I was really anxious about it. Now the coat got some love ;-)

In the end I did the helmet and the axe. On the second day the time passed as quickly as on the first, which was not only due to the interesting topics but also because of the very good atmosphere with Roman and Raffa. At 6 p.m. we had a detailed debriefing.

Sadly we all three did forget to take a final photo of the end result. 
We were just having a too good time.

In the end
What can I say? It was awesome! I could not believe how much I got to learn in these two short days and my two teachers really opened my eyes for lots of topics. Both are great teachers and just really nice human beings, who are very able to teach their extraordinary craft. But you do not only learn about painting techniques, you will be handed a kind of philosophy. Like two wise sensei they succeed to accompany everybody on his/her own way.

Thank you both for two great days and for your art.
Stay as you are and keep going."

- Felix

Learning from the best teacher in miniature painting: Roman Lappat