Exhibition of Miniatures and Tabletop Scenery Agram 2020
Exhibition of Miniatures and Tabletop Scenery Agram is a project that UMS Agram organises every year at the end of February and start of March in the Vladimir Horvat Gallery, ZZTK, Trg žrtava fašizma 14, Zagreb.
UMS Agram is a non-profit organization whose main interests are painting and converting of miniatures, workmanship of terrains for table-top wargaming, playing strategic table-top games along with other various activities concerning technical culture, history, fantasy and science-fiction.
The Association was formed to enable better communication and for connecting persons who have common interests in the mentioned activities as well as to improve the conditions for engaging in this highly creative hobby and to a higher level in Zagreb as well as in Croatia. Special attention is given to younger population which resulted in numerous awards by the highest authorities:
• 2009. State Award for Technical Culture Faust Vrančić;
• 2010. Annual Award of Zagreb's Association of Technical Culture Oton Kučera;
• 2011. Annual Award of Zagreb's Association of Technical Culture Oton Kučera for the UMS Agram president, Marko Paunović;
• 2012. State Award for Technical Culture Faust Vrančić for the UMS Agram president, Marko Paunović;
• 2017. Annual Award by the Croatian Association of Technical Culture for the UMS Agram president, Marko Paunović.
The first Exhibition was held in 2007 making this one a fourteenth edition!
As a part of the Exhibition, UMS Agram regularly organises Miniature Painting Workshops, Miniature Photographing Workshops, tabletop wargames demos and miniature painting competitions in order to promote technical culture and this creative manner to spend free time on. UMS Agram has full support of media which is seen in numerous newspaper articles and TV reports about the event.
This year's Exhibition was open to the public from Feb. 20 until Mar. 8 and was completely free for all the visitors. The Exhibition showed the activities and events organised by the UMS Agram team since the Association was registered until today. It was an excellent opportunitiy for all the members but also the attendies of our Workshops to exhibit their work for free. Also, it is an opportunity for all the interested to get acquanited with this part of technical culture, to see over 200 miniatures in a single place, hand crafted, assembled and painted by UMS Agram members of all ages and several dosen of hand made pieces of tabletop scenery.
UMS Agram used the venue to organise various activities and events beside the Exhibition of Miniatures and Tabletop Scenery Agram:
1. On Wednesdays (18-22h) during the Exhibition UMS Agram organised free beginner's workshops (Miniature Painting Workshop One on One) where one could learn the basics of miniature painting as well as building tabletop scenery.
2. During Saturday and Sunday Feb. 22-23 UMS Agram held a Miniature Painting Workshop – Resins and Weathering. Thirteen attendees made their own Star Wars themed diorama, painted it using special effects based on acrylic, oil and enamel base as well as using pigments trying to depict weathering effects on various materials (metal, wood, plaster etc). After completing the paintjob, the focus of the second day was adding water/fluid effects using two-component, single-component and UV resins as well as detailing by resin gels.
3. The weekend of Feb.2 – Mar. 1 was reserved for the international miniature painting competition: Black Queen Hobby and Miniature Painting Competition.
During the Black Queen Competition there were many free events organised in an effort to make this part of technical culture more popular:
• INQ28 Converting and Kitbashing Workshop by Ana Polanšćak (Feb. 29 13:00-15:00h)
• Layering Workshop by Jure Cukar (Feb. 29 15:30 – 16:30)
• Vegetation Workshop by Ana Polanšćak and Marko Paunović (Feb. 29 17:00-18:00h)
• X-Wing and Die-Cast Model Weathering Workshop by Marko Paunović (Mar. 1 11:00-13:00)
• Painting faces Workshop by Filip Kovačec (Mar. 1 14:00-16:00)
• Miniatures Fleamarket (Mar. 1 10:00-12:00h)
• Painting Booths (Feb. 29 12:00-18:00h and Mar. 1 10:00-16:00h)
The BLACK QUEEN Hobby and Miniature Painting Competition ended on Sunday Mar. 1 at 5PM with the awards ceremony. The gallery of entries can be seen here.
UMS Agram would like to take this opportunity and thank all the sponsors and donators of the competition: Grad Zagreb, Zagrebačka zajednica tehničke kulture, Carta Magica, Martin Wellberg Scenic Studios, Battlefield Berlin, Diorama Presepe, Green Stuff World, Gamer's Grass, DIY Connect, Triglav Models, Michael Kontraros Collectibles, Mr Lee's Minis, Scalebro, Secret Weapon Miniatures, Micro Art Studios i 28 Mag. For more info about the future UMS Agram events, look us up on social networks.
Text and photographs: Marko Paunović
Latest articles
- Back to Basics Workshops in Galerija VN, a part of Libraries of Zagreb Krunoslav Belinić, 4th December 2025
- We attended: Monte San Savino 2025 Marko Paunović, 24th November 2025
-
Science behind Acrylic Paints
- Binders (eng. resin) – form a film – in our case probably pure acrylates, I suspect they are styrene acrylates.
- Fillers – in addition to adding volume to the paint, they also affect the viscosity, coverage and appearance of the dry film
- Pigments – the main division is into organic pigments and inorganic pigments. Inorganic ones are more covering but have less vivid shades, while organic ones are often quite poorly covering (yellow for example) but their shades are vivid and bright
Additives:
- Anti-foam
- Rheological modifiers – affect the behavior of wet paint on the substrate (e.g. spillage) and the behavior of the paint when a force is applied to it (brush, roller, spray, airbrush). Rheological modifiers also include thickeners that affect the viscosity of the paint.
- Dispersants – envelop pigment and filler particles and prevent their agglomeration during standing. Good dispersion of pigment and filler affects the coverage and uniform appearance of the dry film. There are a bunch more but I won't go into too much detail
- Solvent – in this case water.
Contrast paints and speed paints – high pigment content, but not so much that it causes high coverage. They are formulated to spread, not to stay where you put them. The result of spreading is that the paint collects in the recesses, where a thicker film of paint remains than on the protruding parts of the miniature. Where the film of paint is thicker (the recesses), the shade of the contrast paint is more pronounced, unlike on the protruding parts where the film is thinner, which is why the shade is then influenced by the color of the substrate.
Composition:
- Binders
- Pigments
- Additives – all listed above + surfactants that reduce the surface tension of the wet paint film, which is why it flows
- solvent
- I would say they do not contain fillers, or contain very, very little of them
Washes – similar in formulation and behavior to contrast agents, only they have a much lower proportion of pigments, certainly no fillers, a higher proportion of surfactants, lower viscosity, and probably less binders.
If we want to greatly dilute acrylic paint or contrast, it is better to use a product intended for this purpose from the manufacturer of that paint rather than water, because it contains all the necessary amount of binders and additives for that paint to retain its properties.
" ["content_hrv"]=> string(4306) "U ovom članku, naša Dunja nam otkriva znanost iza akrilnih boja.
Akrilne boje – visoki udio pigmenta i dobra pokrivnost. Ako su dobro formulirane ostaju tamo gdje ih naneseš, ne ostavljaju „brush marks“ i suše se dovoljno sporo da stigneš napravit što želiš na minijaturi a opet dovoljno brzo.
Sastav:
- Veziva (eng. resin) – formiraju film – u našem slučaju vjerojatno čisti akrilati, sumnjam da su stiren akrilati.
- Punila – osim što dodaju volumen boji utječu i na viskoznost, pokrivnost i izgled suhog filma
- Pigmenti – glavna podjela je na organske pigmente i anorganske pigmente. Anorganski su više pokrivni ali manje živih nijansi, dok su organski često dosta loše pokrivni (žuti npr) ali zato su im nijanse žive i jarke
Aditivi:
- Protiv pjene
- Reološki modifikatori – utječu na ponašanje mokre boje na podlozi (npr razlijevanje) i na ponašanje boje dok na nju djeluje sila (kist, valjak, sprej, airbrush). Pod reološke modifikatore spadaju i ugušćivači koji utječu na viskozitet boje.
- Dispergatori – obavijaju čestice pigmenata i punila i sprječavaju aglomeraciju istih stajanjem. Dobra dispergiranost pigmenta i punila utječe na pokrivnost i ujednačen izgled suhog filma.
- Ima ih još hrpa ali neću toliko u detalje
- Otapalo – u ovom slučaju voda.
Kontrastice i speed paints – visoki udio pigmenta, ali ne toliki da uzrokuje visoku pokrivnost. Formulirane su da se razlijevaju, a ne da ostaju tamo gdje ih staviš. Posljedica razlijevanja je skupljanje boje u udubine gdje onda ostane deblji film boje nego na isturenim dijelovima minijature. Tamo gdje je film boje deblji (udubine) nijansa kontrastice izraženija, za razliku od isturenih dijelova na kojima je film tanji zbog čega na nijansu onda utječe boja podloge.
Sastav:
- Veziva
- Pigmenti
- Aditivi – svi nabrojani gore +
- surfakanti koji smanjuju površinsku napetost mokrog filma boje zbog čega i dolazi do razlijevanja
- otapalo
- rekla bih da ne sadrže punila, ili ih sadrže vrlo vrlo malo
Washevi – po principu formuliranja i ponašanju slični kontrasticama, samo imaju puno manji udio pigmenata, sigurno ne sadrže punila, veći udio surfakanata, manji viskozitet i vjerojatno manje veziva.
Ako želimo jako razrijediti akrilnu boju ili kontrasticu bolje je koristiti za to predviđen proizvod od proizvođača te boje nego vodu, jer sadrži svu potrebnu količinu veziva i aditiva kako bi ta boja zadržala svoja svojstva.
" ["created"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" ["modified"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" } ["Member"]=> array(10) { ["id"]=> string(2) "64" ["group_id"]=> string(1) "1" ["first_name"]=> string(9) "Krunoslav" ["last_name"]=> string(8) "Belinić" ["first_name_mask"]=> string(9) "krunoslav" ["last_name_mask"]=> string(7) "belinic" ["username"]=> string(5) "Kruno" ["password"]=> string(40) "eb3fda45fbec0258e90d809803b10491c548b22f" ["born"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:19:00" ["created"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:20:39" } } Krunoslav Belinić, 20th November 2025 - We attended: ModelMania 2025 Marko Paunović, 5th November 2025
- Necropolis Board part 1 Antoni Pastuović, 5th November 2025
Latest battle-reports
- Kill Team - Blooded vs. Vespid Stingwings 28th February 2025, GW - Warhammer 40.000, and Antoni Pastuović (Imperial Guard)
- 22nd April 2022, GW - Warhammer 40.000, Borna Pleše (Space Marines) and Kristijan Kliska (Tau Empire)
- 17th November 2021, GW - Warhammer 40.000, and Nino Marasović (Space Marines)

















