Miniature Monday: Bronzeheart
Earth trembles, and behold! There’s the first beast of the… Apocalypse? Not so much – fortunately we’re just talking about miniatures from the second Reaper Bones Kickstarter, which we finally started to paint!
Back to the Beast – let’s see what kinds of bull-headed monsters the community painted this week!
(Article by Antonia)
Dirk decided to use the Minotaur as a gladiator for a (potential) RPG campaign set in the desert-ish lands of D&D’s “Dark Sun”, therefore he gave him a rather unusual yellow armor, made to show off in the arena:
It’s still a Work in Progress but I already like the contrast between armour and skin/fur and the glowing red eyes add to the menacing posture. Note the detail of the half-sunken gladiator’s helmet on the ground!
When I thought about painting my Minotaur I wondered (like I often do) “What’s special about this creature?” I thought about giving it a special colored fur, but although I find the idea of a black-and-white Holsteiner Minotaur kind of funny, I felt it didn’t go so well with the “mighty brute”-vibe that I get from the mini.
So I went for a different sort of bovine: A Bison!
I used Green Suff to sculpt a furry hump and an extra patch of heavy fur on its brow, added some more under the chin to make the head look “stumpy” and voila, Bison 😀
The paintjob itself is not that special but I like the mute tones of the armor which makes it look well-worn. It was nice to paint overall – again a good quality bones miniature with some great detail!
Arjen (welcome back!) sent in his piece too, photographed in front of a fitting dungeon backdrop:
His Minotaur got a reddish-brown coat and a matching leather armor, which looks really worn down, and the weapons too – you can absolutely imagine this beast strolling through the dungeon for years, killing off any unlucky adventurer who comes too close. Well done weathering effects!
As a final detail the base has some tiles and stones, very appropriate for the area 😀
William’s take on Bronzeheart has a nearly demonic appearance, with vivid colors and a shiny armor.
He said he considered a bronze or gold armor but finally went for the cold/warm contrast – I love how the reddish fur and the silvery-bluish metal look together. Also great work on highlinghting the muscles, btw!
And again we should have an extra look at the base – William sculped it as a labyrinth, recalling the mythic origins of Minotaurs (kind of the ancient Greek precursor of Dungeons and Dragons – Mazes and Minotaurs 😉 ). Quite a looker!
Udate: Since I seeminly can’t make the “click to enlarge” feature function, I put the pictures in a gallery where this hopefully works. Enjoy!
–> Extra news: Arjen also sent his version of Autumn Bronzeleaf, so head over to the updated article and have a look! <–
Coming next:
03/29/16 “Vrock Demon” (Bones II Core Set)
Want to participate in next week’s post? Email the pictures of your minis until 03/28/16* to
04/04/16 “Dragoth” Undead Lord on Throne (Bones II Core Set)
04/11/16 “Barrow Rats” (Bones II Core Set)
04/18/16 Dragon Hatchlings Part I: “Red“ and “Black“ (Bones II Core Set)
04/25/16 “Ankheg“ classical D&D worm monster (Bones II Core Set)
05/02/16 “Sharkman” (Bones II Core Set)
05/09/16 “Mister Bones” (Bones II Core Set)
(Wishes? Ideas? Tell us via email or in the comments!)
Caffeineforge 
I like William’s bold choice of bluish armor and red skin, never would have tried that myself but it looks great. I very much like Antonia’s modding, too bad the lighting of the picture is not better. I have trouble getting the lighting right as well, I use only two lightsources and have no real light box. I cannot remember how I did the elf mini, because that one is a good photo. Too long a break. Reinventing the wheel and stuff.
Dirk’s, I cannot help it, reminds me of Gundam Wing. Kinda makes me smile, though.
Thanks, Arjen! I like your dirty, weathered look. He looks like he’s been wandering around a dungeon for a long time. As for the photography, I find I get the best results with a single wide light just above the camera. Sometimes simple is best.
Antonia, I think you really nailed the bison look! The conversion is really seamless, he looks like he was meant to be a bison all along. I also like the prairie base, and the footprints are a nice touch.
Dirk, I like the idea of a desert gladiator minotaur. I look forward to seeing the finished product.
Hey folks, thanks for the comments!
@Arjen: Yes, lighting is alsways a problem, especially with a dark area like the bison’s head. In the larger pic it’s better to see, but since the (normal?) “click-to-enlarge” functionality doesn’t work I made a gallery so we can see all pics in the original resolution.
@William: Thanks for your nice words! I’m glad the bison conversion worked out so well, I was in a kind of hurry – on the other hand they say when in a hurry you “just do” and don’t overthink things, so perhaps that was helpful after all 😀
I’m not sure honestly if hard prairie ground would even show footprints that strongly, but since I like it when a mini interacts with its base, so I decided it might have rained shortly before :p
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