Stef Paints
Even after all this time painting miniatures, I'm always keen to improve and learn new things about miniature painting. It's why I'm always watching videos on YouTube, reading articles and trawling through Instagram (a lot of which end up in my Hobby Digest email every month).
So when I saw this event advertised being run by two artists I admire - Phoenix Miniature Art and AC Miniatures, being held at Element Games in Stockport, I jumped at the chance to attend.
The TLDR of this is that it was a fantastic event, loads of great information, hands on demos and 1 on 1 time offering advice and feedback on both what we were learning on the day and also any other questions I had.
The format of each day was a mix of demos by the artists, showing a specific aspect of their process. Then, we were given time to practice what we'd just seen while they walked around the tables offering advice as we worked.
To begin with the focus was on sketching and how it is an important part of the process, seeing different ways to sketch and very quickly make decisions on the direction of the miniature. This was something I'd never really done before, and I found it really useful to see how they approached it.
Other topics included skin, armour, metals, leather and gems. Each of these was covered in a similar way, with a demo and then time to practice. The artists were always on hand to offer advice and feedback, which I found really useful.
An Ogryn model was provided for us to work on, which is actually quite a nice model. It offers large areas of skin and armour to practice the techniques on. Obviously there was no way the model would get completed on the weekend - and to be fair it probably never will get finished off. I like the idea that this will sit on my shelf as a reminder of what I learned on the weekend.
I also saw it as an opportunity to experiment. I played around with bounce reflections and NMM, along with pushing the skin tones further than I've done before. I'm actually really happy with the result!
I came away from the weekend re-energised, keen to put the things I'd learned into practice. I feel like I've learned a huge amount, both from the contents of the masterclass but also from chatting to everyone at the event and simply chatting about painting all weekend.
I was also able to get some feedback on my Ghazkull from last year's Golden Demon which was awesome!
I would highly recommend attending an event like this, whether it's this particular masterclass or one of the many other great events that are out there. The hands-on experience and 1 on 1 time with the artists is invaluable.
Until next time!
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