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Translation :
Daniel Serrano
Román Navarro Moreno was born in
Albacete the 21st of
february in 1970, in a cold winter.
Nowadays he lives in
Albacete and he works as a Fireman
for 14 years. He married
recently and because of his job, he
has a lot of spare
time to dedicate to the world of
miniatures.
He did his first model jobs at
school, at the age of 12 more or
less, and he liked to work the wood
doing carpentry. He
remembers with special love, a ittle
Eiffel Tower that he did.
By those days he started to build
his favourite subject,
airplane kits in 1:72 scale. He
remembers affectionately the
glues, the scents... He used Humbrol
paints at first time, he
used them to paint the aircrafts and
the pilots of the kits, but
he didn't pay attention to them.
After that he
started to paint tanks, motorbikes
and cars. Of course, in tank
modelling, the figures are a more
important part and that's
were the hobby begun (he was 16 or
17 years old).
After that, he left the hobby for
about 4 years, because of the
military service.
He was 21 years old when he walked
in front of a shop that
had tanks, figures, planes... and
step by step he went back to
the hobby, with the airplane kits
again, but that was only for
a few time because he started to
focus on the figures of the
models and dioramas of that shop.
The owner of
the shop painted figures and that
was how he joined the
world of figures.
At that time he knew his great
friend, Juan Antonio González,
who also painted planes and figures
and, as usual, started to
ask him a lot of questions about
figure painting...
A great source of help for him was
the magazine
TodoModelismo, full of articles,
figure and kit shows... He was
doing airplane kits and figures
simultaneously but one day he
decided to leave building planes to
focus only in figures.
There was a 'before' and 'after'
when he joined a painting
class by Jesús Gamarra. "That's when
I really started to
paint", says Roman. In those classes
he learnt some basics.
He remembers there was 5 classes
that he felt short but
intense. Román says that it's in
those classes where you learn
something.
Besides from this hobby, he hasn't
any other one, but that's
because he hasn't much more time
because he normally
paints 5 or 6 hours a day. He hasn't
got a particular objetive,
just have fun and learn, because you
learn something
everyday, even from the one who has
just started.
Roman is always proving new things
because that motivates
him. If not, he says that this will
became monotony.
When we ask him about his favourite
painters he, without a
doubt, names firstly Jesus Gamarra,
then he emphasizes Joan
Masferrer, Miguel Felipe Carrascal,
Luis Esteban Laguardia,
Pepe Gallardo,Juan Carlos
Garcia,Jose Hernández, Albert y Jordi Gros, Juan Carlos Ávila, Raul
Garcia Latorre ,Miguel rojo
Guzmán, Genaro Ortega,Luis Gomez
Platón, Rodrigo
Hernández Chacon, David Romero
,Diego Fernández Fortes...
Those are in Spain, where he thinks
we have the best level of
the world, but he doesn't forget
Bill Horan, Mike Blank,
Gianfranco Speranza, Diego Ruina...
who he knows personally
and are friends of him.
His favourite historial period are
very varied. He likes mostly
the old times until XIX but he uses
to paint the figures that
he likes, wherever are they located
in history. He hasn't a
favourite scale yet, because he uses
to paint every scale
without priority. When he started,
he only painted 90mm
figures, but once familiarized, he
started to paint other
scales. He thinks that you have to
vary the scale to avoid
monotony.
Between the different figure makers
he wants to highmark
Elite Miniaturas, Art Girona, Pegaso
Models, Miniaturas
Andrea, Metal Models...
He paints basically in acrylics but
sometimes he uses oils and
enammels, depending of what he's
painting. He's a member of
the association "El Baluard" from
Girona and some saturdays
he teaches some pupils.
When we ask him about his awards he
says 'uhff, they are a
lot...". He tells us that the awards
and medals are important
because they give you motivation at
the beginning. The first
one, he says, is the best. He won
his first medal (a silver
one) with a 90mm figure at the
Torrent Show.His face was like
if he was in a movie, because it was
his first show and he
didn't expect to win anything.
After that and in the next 5 years
he has won a lot of them.
His favourite show are all of them
because each one has its
enchantment. Lately it's usual to
see him at the Soldat de
Plom shows at Girona, where it's
going to be helded the next
World Expo, and at Folkstone. He
alsos joins Torrent show
and Leon Rampante latelly.
A good anecdote he remembers was the
firs time he went to
Torrent, by the year 1998, he hadn't
participate in any show
yet, and on saturday morning, when
the pieces were being
exposed, he got into the place
without acreditation and an
organization member kindly asked him
to leave the place.
One thing he likes from the shows is
that you can visit other
places, besides you don't have too
much spare time.
About the future of our hobby, Román
tells us that in his
opinion, it looks very promising
because each day he sees
new people that's starting in the
hobby full of enthusiasm and
very talented. He thinks that
nowadays it's easier to learn
because of internet, where you can
get a lot of information
with websites as Lilliputmodel.com,
a great job done by some
friends, with a lot of information
and a great forum where he
participates as much as he can and
showing step by step's of
his figures.
Román would like to hail all of
those who are starting, and
tell them that this little world of
miniatures is full of joys and
downheart, because not always we do
the things as we want
but step by sten and with dedication,
you can see the
results... And the most important is
that we have to have fun
with what we do, that's the best
award we can get, the
personal satisfaction is the most
important.
Thanks all, see you at the forums....
Regards from Albacete.
Roman.
Gallery
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