BAM... and then SUPER BAM! Part 1..

Yeah.. this picture rightly sums up my thoughts of the, what I will now call, SUPER BAM class that I got to take part of last weekend. I call it SUPER BAM because I had already been to the BAM workshop the weekend before, but now due to improvements made by the Massive Voodoo crew and the extra time made from the improvements I got the SUPER BAM experience! Not to say that the rest didn't get an improved experience also. I would have to say that the class evolved over the week through everyone's feedback and became BAM 2.0! The Evolved BAM! Or other such names that we could call it.

But in the end it was a massively eye opening experience for me, and there were many "click" moments when items just became clear. Like a fog lifting..

Pretty heavy opening eh? Fully worth it though!

So I had explained in other posts like the BAM.. Beginning post, and BAM Reloaded that I was not going to be doing the same bust as the first class. What I tackled instead was the UDock Wild Hunter bust that is being sold through Scibor in Poland. Though I picked up mine from Battlefield Berlin ( and at 10% off due to spending soooo much money in their store! Too difficult not too! ) and I am really glad that I did. This would be a piece that although not the best sculpted ( sorry but this beard sucks! ) it would though give me a great chance to test out some more advanced techniques from the Massive Voodoo inner archives of knowledge!

The piece... 

Yeah.. it is that big.. and yeah.. it is 280mm tall with the stone column! But the first thing we will do? Not take the column as it then becomes insanely heavy, and also the casting between the 2 pieces were not the greatest. 

The first steps of course with regards to tackling such a piece though was to prep, prime and basecoat the bugger! I was lucky that I was spending the entire week with Massive Voodoo head artists Roman and Raffa. So although we headed to Berlin to meet up with other internationally known painters, sculptors and all around nice guys, I got to sit down with Raffa the day BEFORE the class to start in on this beast with the airbrush. 

I am going to have to split this into 2 parts though.. mostly cause the pre-workshop work and the workshop work both had a lot of information and experiences in it! So this is going to cover the prep, and set up of the model for the workshop.. 

You can see the beginning steps below as it began to take shape.. 

Black primer from the spray can.. 

Some white.. to spot where the highlights are on this thing.. 

First layer of skin tones applied here. GW Cadian Fleshtone mixed with Grey to give it a de-saturated coloring. This would play a critical role later on, but again my ability to see into the future is not as prominent as Raffa's. 

Continuing on with the skin tones.. Little bit more thicker now to get a fuller consistency over the whole thing. 

Roman looking at me like.. "Dude.. its big.. get back to work!" And Raffa is all like "HAHAHA better you than me.. now get back to work!" :) Slave drivers I tall you!

 You can also notice that they were both wearing heavy sweaters and jackets.. wish I had a photo of me at that time wearing my t-shirt. They actually thought it was cold there! It was only in the basement of the Wu Dao, with the window open, and it being northern Germany's fall beginning... :)

Here we can see the shadows are starting to get put in. Just taking the basic skin tone, and adding in brown to darken it up. And applied in a couple of more transparent layers to build it up. 

From here, and being at something like 1am on Thursday night/Friday morning.. I began on the beard. Again.. foresight from Massive Voodoo was correct.. this beard was going to be a pain.. and that was the understatement of the weekend! 

Though I did at least learn from my Brekk bust in that I would not use the same orange on that model as on this. And also made it a bit more de-saturated again by adding grey to the mix. Vallejo Bright Orange was the color used, and from this point on everything was applied by brush! Oh the horror!

I only got this far before I was getting frustrated with it, and decided that 2am was a good time to go to sleep! What with it being the start of the workshop the next day! Of course.. I would wake up at 8am the next morning, and dive right in while the sleeping beauties of MV caught up on much needed rest! 

After a quick stop at the pastry shop for a sandwich and more German goodies, I dove into the beard ( literally! ) and finished up the coverage, and began to add in the heavy, dark bronze color that all the metal sections would be based upon. 

I then did the "smaller" bits like the sleeve guard, leather bracelet and Axe base coats. Raffa did challenge me on the coloring for the dragon scales, but Roman backed up my decision and provided some ideas on how to counter the coloring on the other sections of the model. 

This is not to say that they argued, but it was good to see different points of view on the same piece, similar to Brekk. As it gives more paths one could take with a piece, and how each decision on placing even a single color needs to be carefully weighed in order to make the most out of the composition. The first of many "click" moments, although not as strong as others, that will hopefully stick with me going forward. 

From here I relaxed a bit before the class begun. I had 2 hrs to grab a bite to eat, chat with others showing up for the class, and rest my hand a bit from all the painting on this beast! Thankfully Steffen and Arne popped by ( even though they were not in this class ) and hanged out to talk about my expectations of the class and see how my trip was so far. 

Such serious poses from Steffen and I here..

And Arne and I with our serious faces.. as you can see.. I do serious better than Arne.. he just does "Why you taking my photo Steffen?" so much better. :)

Wow.. OK.. another major wall of text.. I need a sit down now ( or sit somewhere else at least! ) and begin to write Part 2.. the real SUPER BAM! class review.. enjoy the weekend and keep an eye out for it on Monday.. oh the cliff hangers.. how we love them right?