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Traduccion
al Español Mauro Bellato,Supervision
Samuel Perez
Traduccion Español a Ingles Dani
Serrano
Hi all!
My name is Gianfranco
Speranza, I was born in Sydney in
11st november in 1965 but in the
kangaroo land I only lived one year
because my mother went back to
Milan, the city were I live today.
I work in a hotel in
the center of the city, with the
good and bad things that you can
guess but at least I don’t work on
nights. I live with my mother that
sadly is not healthy.
My passion for
figures born when I was 15 because I
saw a very nice figures painted by
Claudio Moro in the window of a
model shop... it was love at first
sight and I thought that one day I
would paint at the same level.
I have very good
memories from those years ( i
deleted the bad ones). I couldn’t
pain eyes or straight lines, for
example. I used very poor brushes, I
didn’t know the W&N ones. I used a
Rotring pen with printer’s ink to
paint the eyes but they were to
shiny so I changed to ennamels
achieving a matt finish that I
didn’t like neither.
I remember that the
guy from the model shop asked me to
use some acrylic colours from Huplar
(I still have some of them). He said
that the secret was to use a lot of
water so when I got home I tested
them trying to paint an indiand
figure and I remember that I needed
like 20 layers of paint to get some
kind of pink hue on it!
But above all I
mainly used Humbrol ennamels.
I focused in painting
figures, not in transforming them.
There were a lot of nice figures,
like today but since I didn’t have
too much money to buy them I managed
to paint figures for the model shop
that he changed me for the figures I
chose. For example, I remember very
well that to get a 120mm figure from
“Royal Models” I had to paint 16
54mm figures!
When I started there
weren’t magazines dedicated to
figure painting, except the Military
Modelling that casually published
articles about figures. I didn’t go
to shows and I didn’t join any club.
So I spent a year in that way,
without many improvements. At least
I met Claudio Moro and I started to
ask him how he painted. With his
knowledge I started to improve a
lot. The model shop vendor told me
that my figures looked like a bad
copy from the Moro ones... that was
good!
Then I had some years
that I didn’t paint anything, losing
my contacts. At my return some years
later I found that my friends didn’t
use Humbrols anymore because they
jumped into the oil paints. I
started using it more or less at the
time the first Figurines issue went
out. I painted alone because my
master Claudio Moro stopped from
painting so my improvement went very
slowly. Then I have like a divine
ray of light after reading “Building
and Painting figures” by Shepperd
Paine, for me the best book of oil
painting and because of it I had a
real improvement in my works. My
last improving step was joining the
AMIS club in Milan and starting to
go to shows.
Figures are my
principal hobby, I spent all my
spare time with it. Lately I’ve
changed a bit my routine so I
started to take swimming classes,
english and french classes,
drawing... Since a lot of time I’m
also interested in the great
painters techniques and materials
and I would like to emulate them in
the future, thing that I’ve done but
using modern colors. I’ve started
making my own oil colours using
pigments used in XVI and XVII
centuries.
My favourite painters
and sculptors are those that inspire
and amaze me with their works.
Listing them all would be large and
I would forget to name some of them,
what I won’t like. At this moment,
thanks god, there are new people. My
two favourites right now are Marijn
Van Gils and Kostas Kariotelis.From
the first one, the thing that I love
most are his ideas, extremely
realistic. I always get amazed with
the stories he tells with those
little scenes. In the other way,
Kostas has a more classic touch and
tries to sculpt a unique figure with
a extraordinary sculpting technique
and an unbeatable feeling for the
details.
From the beginning
I’ve always liked the antique era,
middle age and napoleonics, but I
also like the Renacimiento and the
600. But sincerously, if I get a
good idea, I don’t mind to sculpt
any subject. I like all scales
between 54 and 90mm but 54/60mm is
the most versatile scale and the one
I use most of the times.
I’m not a big fan of
a specific brand, I prefer to follow
a sculptor. I mean, sometimes
sculptors work for some companies,
and I don’t use to like every work
of that sculptor. Because of that,
I’ve always bought figures that i
really like, no matter the company
or sculptor. When I started to
paint, I painted a lot of Poste
Militaire figures, I think most of
them are real state of the art. I
have to name, of course, Metal
Modeles. I’ve bought a lot of good
napoleonic figures from them. But I
have to say that I don’t buy
comercial figures since 2003 (just
some flat ones) except a real
beautiful bust from Latorre in 2006.
In the last years I’ve focused in
sculpting my own figures and
painting flat figures.
My sculpting
technique is... a surprise! Today I
still test different putties and
tools and I try to follow Bill
Horan’s technique, adding
interesting things from what I see
in magazines or shows. My painting
technique is completely with oils, I
use to dilute a lot the colours with
white spirit what allows me to paint
sutile layers, achieving opac
colours and a more precise and flat
painting. I use mainly Windsor &
Newton brushes that are fantastic
but I’ve also used good brushes from
Mussini, Maimeri, Hold Holland and
Sennelier. Nowadays I’m
experimenting with the self making
oil paintings using natural pigments
(I have like 15 colours) so today I
use my own colours and Titanium
White because I can make a good one
myself. I have to say that I’m not
sure if the other ones are good but
a good way to find it out is using
them!
Now I’m not in any
club but I`ve been a lot of years in
AMIS in Milan. They used to organize
painting classes, terrain sculpting,
horse paintings... I used to teach
flesh painting with oils. I’ve done
some seminars in shows, thing that I
don’t really like because of my slow
technique that doesn’t allow me to
get good results in a couple of
hours. I also write some articles
for specialized magazines what is
really satisfactory when someone
comes to thank me for something I’ve
wrote. I use to be jury at national
and international shows in Italy,
Spain, France, Belgium, England,
Germany and USA and I have to say
that the most beautiful thing of
being jury is to meet new people
even more than having great figures
in your hand.
I started to join
shows in 1995 and I have a lot of
awards (i hope not to sound
pedantic). I think I have more than
a hundred having in mind that at the
beginning the awards went to
individual figures instead of
displays so you can have like 3 or 4
awards in the same show. I have to
admit that I don’t have space for
all of them and some of them are in
a supermarket bag inside the closet.
The rest are in the shelves or hung
up on the wall. Maybe the award I’m
most proud of was the gold medal in
Le Petit Soldat in 1997 in Master
Painting because the past year I
compited in Standard, getting
silver, so next year I decided to go
to Master. The second reason is that
Bill Horan was in the jury and I
remember that he was surprised when
I told him that it was my first gold
award in master, so he said “I’m
sure it will be the first one of a
large list”, and that’s how it was.
Another award I’m pretty proud of
was the Best of Show in Folkestone
2002 with a flat figure diorama
depicting the Funeral of Gustaf
Adolph. It was a great satisfaction
because Euromilitaire is an
historical show and the most
International one for me. And it was
an award to my painting because the
figures were comercial, that’s
really special because normally it’s
used to award scratch figures. Other
Best of Shows that I got were
Arenzano ('98 y '99, Girona (2001),
Cernobbio (2001), Kulmbach (2005),
Amberes, 2006 and Lion (2007).
The future of the
hobby is a bit variable, I don’t
think that there’s a risk to see the
end of our favourite hobby, at least
not in short terms. There’s no doubt
that in the last 10 years there have
been a lot of changes and in the
future they will be greater. It is
true that lately the youngsters
rather play with Playstations than
build kits or paint figures but the
figures world attracts more people
than in the past years, maybe
because of the fantasy figures but
also because the shows are not a
real model competition anymore and
because of collectors the shows are
more exhibitions, more
communication, good behaviour...
Also the low cost flights have been
a good point so people can go to
foreign shows more oftenly.
I think that the
person that starts to paint figures
today has more advantages than in
the last 10-15 years, there are very
usefull specialized figures in
different languages, internet and
e-mail. The community has grown and
has opened to the others with the
advantages of that for the rest of
us and for the newbies in
particular.
Because of that, the
one that starts painting a figure
today, gets bigger improvements.
Since 1996 I’ve
always attended the Le Petit Soldat
show in Vale d’Aosta. I think it’s
my favourite show because St Vincent
is the most important point in
figures because of the stadistics
and the quality of the works is just
spectacular. I also love the open
system with the displays, I think
it’s the best way to see the whole
work of a person, its painting or
sculpting skills. But above all,
it’s a pure fun weekend with my
friends, italians and from the rest
of Europe. At night, after having a
great dinner in the restaurant, the
tradition is to go to the irish pub
to drink beer and have talk with the
people. It’s like a private party
for figure painters!
To end, I just want
to wish to all of Galeria de Autor
readers great fun with one of the
most beautiful hobbies in the
planet.
Regards,
Gianfranco
Galeria
Gianfranco Speranza
Album
Gianfranco Speranza
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