Hobby exploits 2020 and onward

This weekend I attended said workshop in Dublin. The event was set up in Underworld Gaming store in south-western Dublin, and we had 8 attendants from Germany, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland (although nationality split was even more varied).

The main theme of the workshop was the method of painting preached by Marco, which in the nutshell comes down to establishing values of light and shadow on the model with only white and whatever colour primer is useful for your desired colour scheme, and then adding colours with transparent paints on top of that sketch.

The workshop spanned across two days (Saturday and Sunday), 8 hours each, although some of us started social part on Friday, supporting Dublin’s publicans heavily experienced during pandemics.

Saturday class stared with short introduction from Marco (BTW I couldn’t believe what his real-life background is, certainly it isn’t fine art). After the introduction Marco made a lecture on colour theory and contrast, and how those ideas subscribe to his painting method. The lecture was supported by reference materials Marco had printed for us. Of course everyone was free to ask questions and comment.

With theory done (ca. 2PM) we went for a quick lunch and with our stomachs full were ready to start painting. But before any paintbrush touched any mini Marco had one more challenge for us. He asked everyone to tell a story in which their models find themselves. Moreover we had to write it down with detailed description of lighting conditions, weather, ambient mood of the scene and emotions of the character for the sake of comparring it with final result.

Marco recommended colour of primer to fit each of our plans and maybe boost the effect, he also had number of similar minis with different light situations sketched on them, that helped to understand theoretical concepts better.

In our sketching of light we were limited to brush only, although Marco had his airbrush and helped out in moments of emergency. This is what I came up with around 6PM on Saturday (brush only).

You tell me what is the story behind it.

Sunday started a bit unlucky for me. I was late (thank you Dublin bus) and missed presentation on TMM, and had to ask Marco to help finish my light sketch on the back of the mini with airbrush. After that was sorted we started with colours. Everyone brought all the transparent paints and inks they could muster and that included Marco. Suffice to say we had more paints than most game stores ever saw. Marco also had his own-made mediums which pretty much turned every kind of acrylic into contrast paint. Throughout the process Marco was very responsive and kept watchful eye on our progress, helping out with conceptual and physical parts of the job (yes, my mini has touch-ups made by Marco Frisoni with his own hand)

I finished the day with this little guy:

Real quality (smoothness) would require more time and more layers of paint, but all the lights and shadows, as well as all colours are already there. I wont push him any further to keep him as illustration of my progress during the weekend.

All in all the workshop was great fun and brought improvement to my painting and certainly impacted the way I think about painting. On top of that, everyone I met there ware super nice and supportive – painting in group has its own quality to it.

After the experience I had during the weekend, I’m sure I’ll be looking to participate in many more similar events. Thank you Marco and guys.