Mathieu Fontaine – Miniatures painter

Last weekend I was heading for the second Masterclass of the summer: Colorado Springs. I’ve never been to Colorado and I was really excited to head this way. 5h30am wake-up call though is less exciting But having been up later I would have never been greated by this scene that was forecasting an excellent weekend.

I’ve never taken the time to show you much about my home town so I will at least show you the bus terminal which is a really interesting little spot. It is in fact one of the two old train station in town. Passenger trains have been absent here for a really long time so the first one was transformed into a public market and the second one became the bus terminal and an excellent micro-brewery.

And the mean of transportation to Montreal

For those reading french I have to tell you that the free wi-fi works 3% of the time… which is frustrating but hey.

It was also the first time I was passing through the new hub at Montreal’s airport for USA bound flights. … Well it’s an extension… Anyhow. My flight was to bring me to Chicago first where I’ll be transferring for Colorado Springs. Pretty uneventful flight. Of course, when you need to change flight in Chicago, it’s usually never the closest gate. This time was no exception has I had to travel from concourse c to concourse f which was a nice walk with a weird tunnel… There is a long tunnel between these 2 concourses, the lighting is low and there is a lot of various colored neons on the ceiling that keep changing. And what about this little music out of a toy box? I’ve never been on LSD but that must be close to it… Here is a link with few pictures: http://www.architecture.uwaterloo.ca/faculty_projects/terri/ohare_tunnel.html

The flight to Colorado Springs was also pretty much quiet. The descent was pretty bumpy rollercoaster style. Another funny thing. Never been to Colorado and I always thought that Colorado was in the middle of the Rockies. So pretty mountainous… No need to tell you that when the pilot announced our final approached and I saw that I was wondering if I was in the right aircraft:

(sorry the windows weren’t really clean…)

Finally found out pretty quickly that Colorado Springs is at the foot of the Rockies so here is the view that would bless the scenery for the entire weekend:

(NORAD and BPRD are somewhere in these mountains… just checking if your following )

The Rockies also means that you are at 7000 feet of altitude, at least where I stayed. 7000 feet means less oxygen than my usual 600 feet. And unless you leave there this not the type of things you would think about. So here are the few upsets of the altitude:

1 – you dehydrate simply by exhaling so you constantly drink water unless you want to fell like the following morning of a bad party

2 – your sleeping habits are slightly disturbed by waking up constantly during the night until you get use to the level of oxygen and 3 days is far from enough for that.

3 – you have exploding paint pots. Change of pressure means that you need to crack your pot open carefully otherwise you might have a little colorful explosion.

But overall the sight of the mountains was totally worth the troubles.

The class itself was organised in part by Gamers’ Haven, a great local game store. A shop at proximity of the store close recently and we were able to use the empty facility.

So as you can see we had all the place we wanted!

And here the students:

My hosts and organizer

And the organizer from Gamers’ Haven

Oh! Did I tell you about the view?

When I leave for a Masterclass, I never know what to expect from the student. I usually barely know the organizer so usually the students are total stranger to me. So far I’ve always been happily surprised. Colorado Springs has been the exception so far. Happily surprised wouldn’t be enough to describe my surprise at the level of the students. I had 11 pro-blenders by the end of the weekend and I fully expect them to be able to win a Golden Demon in the near future if they but the effort. It also made my job so much easier and fun. We can go in the thick of the subject and push further. So expect these guys on the podiums in the future! Well I surely hope so.

The class was pretty straightforward. Good atmosphere, dedicated and curious students, good food and good camaraderie. By the way the best sushi are in Colorado Springs! (ok I haven’t been to Japan yet but…) So I must say thank you to Sean and Terri to make sure this class was a real success. Hopefully I’ll be back soon for an airbrush and weathering class

The trip back was punctuated with several thunderstorm delaying my plane to land and leave from Washington and Montreal. But overall I had a really nice trip.

So… I just received my plinths from Wayne Rogers and I need to get back to work.

The left one is for the Boelg and the right one is for my vehicle entry for Baltimore! So I need to rush things up before leaving for the San Francisco’s class in 2 weeks.

So in the meantime keep painting!