Painting Workshop Review - Pirates, Ham & BBQ with Fernando Ruiz

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending my second painting workshop with Fernando Ruiz. Fernando is not only a fantastic painter, but he runs his own miniature company FeR Miniatures which produces some of the coolest busts and miniatures that I have seen on the market. If you have not seen his range yet, you should take a look.

Fernando doing one of his demonstrations

Nananananananananana...

Fernando's painting technique is a little different from most painters that I know and it is very, very cool. Of course, he uses glazes and washes and stuff like that, but there are two main aspects where his approach is different:

1) He uses acrylic retarder from the brand "Amsterdam"
2) He teaches you to start with a rough sketch on any given part of the miniature (i.e., the face) instead of going straight into smooth and detailed work on highlights and shadows.

Both aspects are really cool and useful tools which have helped me to produce really good results in a very short time. I don't want to go into more details here, but I can only strongly recommend to attend one of his workshops if you get the chance - especially if you are already an experienced painter.

So, besides the painting bit, what else was cool during that weekend?

• The bust that Fernando brought with him as the workshop miniature - fricking awesome!
• The mental picture that Fernando planted in our heads of a fetish version of the Muppets Show.
• The Gin (Monkey 47!!)  & Tonic that Jens brought to celebrate his birthday with us 

Vlado, Fernando and Jens. There was a lot of love in the air, trust me. :)

• The BBQ on Saturday night with grilled Chorizo (Yum!), steaks, salads, home-made herb butter and tons of other tasty stuff
• The Spanish Ham, salami & cheese that we had throughout the weekend for continuous snacking

From left to right the WIPs from Philip, mine, Peter