Miniature Painting Workshops and Private Coachings with Roman Lappat
"I know from other hobbies that it is sometimes a good choice to get a push in the right direction by someone more experienced when you really start from the scratch.
It was pretty clear to me I would need the same when I started painting, even when I am only painting for the gaming table and not to show off. I browsed the Internet and the first thing I found was the Massive Voodoo page. As I saw Romans and Raffas work I was deeply impressed. Not very much after that I got into email contact with Roman and asked for a private coaching, however (as I just was painting 6 month at that very moment) he suggested to go to one of his beginner classes first.
I followed his recommendation and I was even more deeply impressed. Not that he is just a great artist with long experience, but further I found out he has a really friendly and open personality and is a very good teacher as well. I really can recommend those classes.
Afterwards it took a while to digest all that various input about techniques and color theory, but then after some more month passing by I was ready to grow again.
I contacted Roman once again and made an appointment for a two days private coaching in Augsburg. I think it was a bit of a special as I am only painting for slightly above one year and was coming to Augsburg not with one big project in my mind, but with a lot of small questions about how to do various things.
In my mind the coaching should touch upon things like:
- painting black/white
- true metallic metal
- fur and skin and quick painting techniques.
In general I paint and use a lot of Reaper bones miniatures for the gaming table and those should be the models I would like to use during the coaching as well. Especially as I will get a vast amount of new miniatures when their bones Kickstarter 3 will be delivered in September. We wrote some emails back and forth and Roman got a rough idea and even mentioned the magic word "airbrush".
I came with a lot of expectations to Augsburg and I must really say I thought we never could do all those different things in that amount of time.
I was so wrong.....
After the introduction we started with color theory. Roman let me mix colors out of the three basic colors and black and white (using simple artist paint). In the next step I had to copy colors he randomly picked from my model color paint rack. I was mixing them again out of the artistic paint. When he said in theory I even could paint a whole miniature by using only the three basic colors artistic paint we decided to give it a spontaneous try. All in all a great lesson for me about color relations and creating color schemes.
As mentioned before I get a huge Kickstarter delivery at the end of this year and of course I want to paint those miniatures as quickly as possible in order to put them on my gaming table. Therefore Roman put out his Airbrush and I got an introductory lesson in airbrushing. We touched upon pre shading and highlighting techniques by using the Airbrush on one of the big demon models I got. This was great fun and it is a good way to safe time and invest that time again in improving the painting quality of your miniature.
The next topic was painting black and I could use all the basics from the color theory part earlier on for that. I started painting a reaper bones undertaker, but could not finish as the day was already over (we were talking and painting already close to 12 hours). All in all it was a really great day, very inspiring but tiresome.
The next day we started heavily already with the first thing in the morning. I should work on he undertakers face and especially put eyes in his face. I must say not easy doing eye painting as first thing.
The figure was nearly finished and I thought we would carry on, when Roman was looking at it and said there is something missing. He looked at the lantern the miniature was holding and asked me if I would like an introduction in OSL. Sure I wanted! We went on for an hour or so working on the OSL (my first time) and it worked out really well. As always during that coaching Roman was pushing me till my boundaries and beyond.
We continued with an introduction in True Metallic Metal and I understand now better the concept of light & reflection.
The last thing should be fur.
I have chosen a reaper warg/wolf for that. A model I had already painted earlier on at home as some kind of winter wolf, but I was never happy with it. We discussed about my unhappiness and slowly he brought me to the conclusion... I never had looked at real wolf pictures at all.
I was trying to paint something I had in he back of my mind what never existed that way in reality. Thanks to the Internet pictures are not a problem nowadays ( I am still talking about wolves) and I looked a while at wolf pictures till we found a fur we decided to copy. I must say the final result was really good. I learned to open my mind (and eyes) and once again I could use all the basics about colors from the first day.
The first wolf attempt and the one done in the coaching
All in all those two days were a great experience.
I never thought we could touch upon so many different things and still have a red line we could follow. Roman is a great teacher and I definitely hope to come back again. I once again have questions forming in my mind, but they would definitely need some more time to grow, however I just purchased an Airbrush and started experimenting with it. The next time I hope to meet Raffa as well and maybe get a coaching by both of them."
- Jörg
Miniature Painting Workshops and Private Coachings with Roman Lappat
