A Weekend Workshop with Rafa García Marín - March 23rd-24th

[Darkmessiah]

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Once again we are back at the Scythe for another epic weekend of painting and learning. Our teacher for the weekend is the award winning Rafa García Marín, a former member of the Spanish Team community which dominated Golden Demons throughout the 00′s, Rafa is a very experienced painter and teacher and has been at the top of the hobby for quite a few years now.


Rafa will be teaching the secrets of contrast and colour theory over the course of 2 days, he will take you step by step through the ideas and theory of contrast and colour, he will demonstrate those ideas using the free miniature you will receive and you will then get to take those new skills and apply them to your own miniature under Rafa’s Guidance. It is with no exaggeration that I say that the skills and knowledge you will acquire aren’t being taught any where else in the UK and are limited to very few people within the sci fi and fantasy miniature painting community.


The workshops costs £85 for both days, included is food and your miniature, Games Workshop’s Savage Ork, also included is hobby support after the workshop, no doubt questions will arise once you continue to apply your new knowledge and we will be here, continuing to give feedback and advice, helping to push your progression!


The workshop will run from 10am up until 5pm, although Rafa and I will no doubt be there for a little longer, the workshop will be broken up into 4 main chunks, morning and afternoon session over the 2 days, the morning sessions will be more focused on the theory and ideas of what Rafa is teaching, with an hour or two in between demonstrations to get some painting done, the focus on the afternoon sessions is for you to sit down and get a good few hours painting in so you can really get to grips with what is being taught. Both myself and Rafa will be there to give you feedback and reinforce the ideas, theories and techniques, give you advice how can improve your technical skills and answer any hobby related question you can think of! When the day is done we usually head out for a few drinks and something to eat, Liverpool is a vibrant and fun city with plenty of great eateries and pubs.


Items that you will need to bring with you:-
Paints
Paint Brushes
A Lamp (or two) with a daylight bulb
Palette (ideally a wet palette)
A scalpel or X-acto knife
Fine grit sand paper/file
Pin vice, drill bit and brass rod
Superglue
Plinth or stand


Don’t worry if you cant bring all of these items or you forget some as we will have some spare that you can lend.


For information about travel and accommodation in Liverpool, check out the Upcoming Workshops page on our site www.TheWeekendWorkshop.com, For further enquirers and information or to book a place on the workshop, gives us an email, contact us on facebook or use the contact form on the Get Involved page.


Here are some of Rafa's miniatures

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For more miniatures check out our site at www.TheWeekendWorkshop.com or check out Volomir's Blog!

 

[megazord_man]

Having just had the chance to catch my breath after the weekend I thought I'd write a review to give you a flavour of what happened and just to record my thoughts.


Having arrived in a cold and snowy Liverpool on the Friday evening I met up with John, mike and Rafa in a the ship and mitre pub only to be presented with the strangest pint of what I can only describe as cider and vinegar. Before long we found ourselves in the scythe and teacup setting up for the weekend. Lamps up, wet pallets out, minis prepped and undercoated we were ready for an evening on the town.


With a slightly weary eye the next morning get got straight into colour theory, contrast, harmony and such. Rafa taking the time to explain things in a technical way which as an engineer I found good and useful. All of this was backed up with an explanatory printed document explaining the theory with some diagrams. Personally I have a healthy interest in these things so I kept up nicely, but I can imagine that if you're coming from a different background it could have got a bit heavy quite quickly. I guess a few practice demonstrations on the pallet could have helped people with the understanding. But as I say the things spoken about at this stage will stay with me for a long time and I'm sure it cements my understanding of the theory in a way I've never heard before.


Following this stage we went through some colour choice, base coating demonstrations, followed by layering demo and wet blending. Before long it was our turn to get some paint on to our savage orcs of choice. During this Rafa took the time to spend a period with each of us discussing our colour choices, giving insightful feedback and simply helping each of us to push our abilities forward. For example with me, we discussed the importance of the mid tone and how changing a couple of colours can help to make things more interesting. From the results of this conversation I can say is that it was stunning seeing how things changed in just a few brush strokes. I was staggered! For me, that's the sign quite how good Rafa is, amazing!


Once again as a group in the evening we were on the town again which of course made the following morning a little difficult thanks must go out to Peter at this stage, you're a diamond geeza. It's probably worth saying that the enjoyment of the weekend comes from not only our hosts John and Rafa but it's also the pleasure of the other peers on the course. All of the people there help to make it the dynamic, enjoyable, funny, creative and massively good experience a weekend workshop becomes.


The following day we spent quite sometime discussing, watching and learning all things airbrush. Once again I found this extremely interesting and quite a unique opportunity. I learnt loads and have found I've been doing all sorts of things wrong, turns out I'm a little ham fisted I'm looking forward to trying things out afresh, mid tone, shadow and highlight with some glazing too.


Following the airbrush work we covered the technique of adding some light spots to lift and define the pj. Once again the application of which has greatly improved things for me.


Sadly before long it was time to come home


Overall, Rafa is an amazing painter, a great guy, gives insightful feedback and ultimately pushed me well beyond what I thought I was capable of. Job done, thank you so much! Also thanks to John for organising the event, it was an incredibly enjoyable weekend for me.


You need to get on one of these weekends now!