Indiegogo Loot – Figure Art Book by Massive Voodoo

A Saturday surprise arrived at my door this morning: The Figure Art book from Massive Voodoo (i.e. painters Raffaele Picca & Roman Lappat), financed with an Indiegogo campaign last year.

‘Figure Art’ turned out to be a spectacular book. It is six months late, admittedly, but worth the wait!

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The Figure Art Book

For a start, it is lavishly sized. I am not sure where “normal book” ends and “coffee-table book” ends. I guess this is somewhere in between, about an inch higher and half an inch wider than a 40K Codex (which, of course, doubles, when you open it up). Lots of room to show off miniatures.

The contents are divided into three main sections – Small Figures (71 pages), Large Figures (34 pages) and Busts (20 pages) – which are again divided into sub-categories. Each section starts with an introduction with a discussion of scales and painting each type of miniatures.

There is also a very helpful list of the contents in the back.

The “display pages” vary between presenting as little as one miniature/diorama per 2-page spread to as many as eight miniatures. Sometimes there’s a bit of text on (painting) the miniature. Sometimes there’s only the scale, year and little else.

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Background: Black vs. White

The miniatures are – of course – stunning. It’s a true joy to page through the book and marvel at each and every picture. The only (minor) complaint I have is that the majority of pictures are taken against a black background (which, admittedly, is how they do it on their blog too).

It works for some miniatures, especially if they are painted in brighter colours. Yet for the darker miniatures or dioramas, I often found myself squinting at the page, trying to make out the details.

I definitely would’ve preferred more “white-background” pictures. It makes the miniature stand out better and, especially for a 100+ page book, makes “reading” it a lot easier on the eyes.

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The Figure Art Documentary Book

I suppose I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll never, ever be able to paint miniatures even remotely as good. Still, for everyone aspiring to get a “little” better (after browsing through ~130 pages of Golden Daemon material), there was another bonus in the shipment: The Figure Art Documentary Book, a stretch-goal from the campaign (I believe).

Where the aim of the main book is to show off miniatures, the Figure Art Documentary book has Raffaele Picca and Roman Lappat sharing some thoughts on their works and some tips for miniature painters and modellers.

Specifically, there’s a 10 page section on work-in-progress from both painters, another 20 pages of tutorials (see picture above) and a massive 20 page step-by-step documentation by Raffaele Picca’s Slayer Sword-winning Untold Honor diorama.

Definitely a fascinating read, seeing what goes into building and painting a diorama like this.

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Final Thoughts

The minor nit-picking on the black backgrounds aside, this is definitely a great book, and one I enjoyed a lot flipping through this afternoon.

Curiously enough, I believe it is the add-on-bonus documentary booklet, which gives this a lot of “re-reading-value”, over and above “just” a book with nice miniatures. Having the work-in-progress documentary for many of these miniatures, with WIP-pictures, commentary and tips from the painters, makes it twice as interesting to go back and look at the final miniature a few more times.

Thanks a lot for this fantastic book Massive Voodoo!

Z.