Paint-o-Palooza Activities + Update

Our Dear Pioneers,

Since we are coming closer and closer to the start of the First Paint-O-Palooza (May 26th + 27th 2018) and since we have been waaay too silent about it until now due to the many things that needed to be taken care of, it is time to post a bigger Update and more about the Activities / important Information connected to it. 

As a reminder, there will be six main activities running throughout the day: The Miniature Exhibition, the Lectures, the Palooza Grail, the Fleischwolf Challenge, the Painting Camp and the Miniaturwichteln.

In the Miniature exhibition you will be able to see a selection of Ben & Matt´ s Miniature Projects that you might already know from Photos. Other Artists can also decide to join us and display their projects in our Display Showcases. Please feel free to bring a few models that represent your style best. Please inform us how many models you might bring (including the Dimensions) so we can plan in enough showcase space and prepare name tags etc.  

The Lectures are various 1 – 2 hour lenght lessons conducted by some of the finest Miniature Artists of our time! The Speakers are choosing their topics according to their own practice and style. We encourage them to tell the audience what it is that made them start painting miniatures, to talk about personal styles, special techniques and their opinions on miniature painting in general. For these lectures you simply have to sit and listen. At the end of each lecture there will be some time for questions and feedback.   

The Palooza Grail is our Painting Competition and since we have been attending many painting competitions all across the globe in the past ourselves, we would like to do some things differently. There will be 5 categories: Single Miniatures, Bases, Busts, Open Category and the volunteers and helpers category . 

The most important twist about our competition is the way it will be judged: Every participant will be able to vote on every entry! For this, everyone attending the event will get a voting card with a small voting square on all four categories. These cards are numbered and have great value as there is only one vote per person for each category. The registration of entries starts on Saturday morning. The entries will then be placed in their respective categories and all get their individual, continuous number. Then the public can take a close look and decide which ONE Miniature they think should win the  respective Category. At Sunday around noon, we will close the public voting and start looking into which entry has been chosen for Gold, Silver and Bronze by counting the votes they got. In case of a tie, the Head Judge has the final word. He (or she) will also have to choose one Best of Show Entry, which can differ from the vote of the people (but he also has to be prepared for the tar and feather treatment afterwards :D). The Winner will be awarded the Paint-O-Palooza Grail, which is an authentic vintage one-of-a-kind Trophy created by Ben and Matt. We hope that there will be many constructive discussions between the participants about whom they choose to give their voice – and for what reasons.   

The Fleischwolf Challenge [ˈflaɪ̯ˌʃvɔlf] is a Speed Painting competition following special rules: There will be different modi and rounds where participants have to paint the same model according to these specific rules. After a varying lenght of time, they can choose to either keep their painted Miniature or enter it into the elimination phase. In this, the winner will be decided through popular shouting vote. The defeated miniatures will be sacrificed and grinded into tiny bits in the mighty Fleischwolf (a miniature mincing contraption). In the end there can only be one winner that will be awarded the special Golden Fleischwolf trophy, filled with the ashes and sweet tears of the Competitors. However, every brave participant whose miniature has been grinded will be awarded the Fleischwolf Keychain souvenir, which should always remind him (or her) to strive to improve their painting - for the next challenge.   

The Painting Camp is an open painting and sculpting table where people can simply sit down and work on their models. It will be supervised by a venerable Painting Veteran, an expert in his field that will be able to give big and small tips on how to do and / or improve a certain technique, tell some fun hobby anecdotes and simply have a great time painting with some like minded people. There are no rules as to what you can or cannot paint here, everyone is welcome to simply paint for as long as they wish.   

The Miniaturwichteln [mini̯aˈtuːɐ̯][ˈvɪhtln]  is not only a very long german word, but also follows the beautiful german tradition which is gifting away miniatures in order to receive some random new ones. For this, we will prepare a big Treasure Chest with a healthy base of some very random and occasionally very rare miniatures. In there you will find many different scaled models from as many manufacturers as possible. We will ask the participants to bring one (or a couple) of Miniatures from home that they don´t really see themselves ever painting. For each Miniature you donate you will be getting one random miniature in return. You never know what you will be getting, so we strongly encourage people to act based upon the beautiful Golden Rule : “What you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself.”   

There are also some surprises to be announced which you can be assured will make for many memorable moments and a lot of laughter! :D

Besides our Activities, we have also started with the production of several highly limited items that will only be available during the Paint-O-Palooza. 

Our Supporter Shirts will be hand-produced with love and with the highest quality by our local Shirt Master here in Berlin. You will be able to reserve your Shirt during the check-out with the right size and have to pick it up at our Merch Table during the Event.

Following the fantastic tradition of other Miniature related Events across the globe, we have decided to produce our own Limited Edition (Event Only) Miniature as well!

This White Metal Miniature will be limited to the maximum number of people attending the 2018 Palooza. We will post updates on the Miniature and other cool Merch in a next Update. :) Hope you will love them as much as we do! 

So, how is the organization of all this going along? 

Quite recently, we have run into some severe challenges that we have luckily overcome by now: Initially, we have been assured by the operator of the Citadel Tavern to run the event with his help in and around the premises of the Tavern. Sadly, he is going out of business(after 30years), putting us in a very unpleasant situation. 

As the Event is planned to be as indepentent as possible, we wanted everyone to attend it free of charge, paying for everything out of our own pockets. After the annulation from the Tavern, we have gotten some wonderful support by the Master Of The Citadel, who is a Scale Model enthusiast himself! :D He has saved the date by reserving us the entire so called Bastion Kronprinz (Crown Prince), the most spacious of all the lawny Bastions!

So now, we will have more than 2.000 square meters (that´ s around 21,527 square feet!) of space to organize the Palooza!

So, as a result, we had to spend way more money on the whole event than what we have initially been looking into. In order to recover some of these expenses, we will open the event for non-Supporters through an official Ticket sale. The ticket will cost 35 EURO and it will become available soon. 

Don´ t worry, it will stay a free event for all of you as our Patreon Supporters (both in case you already made your reservation as well if you decide to join the fun up until the event starts! :) We just want to communicate this as an update and share our reasoning with you. 

Ok, enough of writing novels for today! :)

tldr; the Palooza is alive, Ben & Matt will have to sell some Kidneys (hopefully not two each), the Activities will be amazing, the Event Only Miniature is off the hook... Join the fun now! :D 

tinyurl.com/paintopalooza   

And let´ s all do a small Sun Dance so the rain will go somewhere else on May 26th - 27th! :) 

Have a great week everyone,

Ben & Matt