Miniature Monday – Cassiata
The black knight, the anti-paladin, the dark champion… this and more are the names of the antithesis of the white knight, an iconic figure in literature and folklore. Often the right hand of an evil tyrant or king. But nobody said this embodiment of dark virtues can´t be female… click here to see how our readers breathed life into this remarkable miniature.
(posted by Dirk)
Antonia and I had a very busy weekend, so my wife didn´t succeed in painting her version of Cassiatta. I painted all night long to finish her, as I wanted to use her as a main antagonist in a roleplay encounter (leading my gnolls… and bugbears if I finish them).
My inspiration was a picture of the Thayan knight from D&D (for which I will use her), but figured she bore a resemblance to a blue-lipped-black-knight in an well-intended-but- not-quite-successful-D&D-motion-picture we just re-watched. But I skipped the red ears ;). I used blue on the blade and the stone to link with her skin, and red on tunic, shield and sword to match her tattoo. The armor went just plain black as appropriate for this character and not to bring too much color into the mini. All-in-all I´m satisfied with the colour sheme.
David R. was inspired by the symbol on the shield, which let him think of Tzeentch from warhammer, so his choice of colors was a little different from mine:
I think this mini works well with a small color palette, just some accents, the main emanation comes from the face. David wrote that he tried a new method of painting skin and was satisfied with the improvement. I like it too, it´s a very smooth skin. And the eyes have a very clean edge . Did you start with the eyes and worked out from there, or did you paint them into the finished face? I had to repaint the face several times…
And I especially like how David integrated Tzeentch´s other color on the base…
Our last (but not least) entry this week is from Arjen:
He used a similar color palette to David, which was inspired by diffenent sources. His aim was to find a paint sheme that works for both evil and good characters. In my opinion dark blue works fine for this. And it is a brilliant way to make the mini useable for diffenrent things. Do you want to use Cassiatta (or Casiatta as Arjen told us is the name of the metal version) for a roleplaying event?
My favourite is the white hair, reminds me of Storm from x-men. I thought about using white hair on my mini, but I had the wrong skin color for this, it wouldn´t had turned out so good as on Arjen´s. And it´s a nice warm skin color.
So this time we had the classical dark knight, the champion of chaos and the one that works for good or evil. I like miniatures that could be used in different ways, and it is fun to see what others make of it. Next time we will travel faaar way to the east. I think this samurai also has the potential for very diffenent looks. I hope you astonish us with your interpretation…
gallerie
Coming Next:
06/20/16 Nakayama Hayato, Iconic Samurai (Bones II Core Set)
Want to participate in next week’s post? Email the pictures of your minis until 06/19/16 to
06/27/16 Basilisk (Bones II Core Set)
07/04/16 Rogan, Half Orc Rogue (Bones II Core Set)
07/11/16 Tiik Baron, Fish Humanoid Champion (Bones II Core Set)
07/18/16 Troll Slayer Sophie, Mascot Demon Lady (Bones II Core Set)
07/25/16 Ape Demon (Bones II Core Set)
08/01/16 Whispering Tyrant, Undead Villain in dramatic pose (Core Set)
08/08/16 Drys, Elven Dryad (Core Set)
08/15/16 Bone Fiend, strange skeleton-golem-thing (Core Set)
Caffeineforge 
Ugh! My miniature looks so beautiful in real life and then so ugly here next to yours. I think I need to stop taking the pictures so close up where it looks like a mess of mistakes.
I actually thought the eyes for this miniature were the easiest I have ever done. I was just painting the face and managed to not get any paint in the eye area leaving it completely black. I liked the black look and the pupil was a raised surface so it was easy to just do a little yellow dot.
The base was not intentional. I was messing around with different colors and eventually it came out looking kind of gross and messy and pink and I just decided that she was standing in/on something really disgusting.
I really like how Arjen managed to make the character look both good and evil. That seems especially difficult with this model but you really pulled it off.
We often have the problem that the photos are not so good or sharp, especially because we make them as late as possible…
This time the result was better than the others, don’t know why. We usually use the macro setting.
Did anyone else look at her butt and think that it might be supposed to be exposed skin with a thong? Bones miniatures are kind of raunchy sometimes so I suspected that was what the sculptor intended but I wanted my miniature to be more believable.
Painting her butt flesh-toned….why didn’t I think of that? It is really nice you can change the outlook of these minis so much by choosing a different color scheme: naked arm or sleeve? Plate mail or leather? Just a change of color and it is done.
I even didn’t realize that she had a cutout! I just painted all as armor, and her rear in trousers. But as I wanted a grim fighter and also the skin tone was a little complicated, I just let her head uncovered.
But yeah, it’s all possible: just another color and you get a complete different feeling. I tried this on the gnolls and painted the scale armor as leather, plain metal and bronze!
I like David’s Thayan knight: just because you are an evil lady, doesn’t mean you have lost your fashion sense…on the contrary. There is a kind of grim vanity in the way she has sought out her matching gear and tattoo.
David: I like the evil glint in her eye that matches the shield. The base was not intentional…those are the best things, when you are painting and messing around and you think “wait, this might really work”. It is how I ended up with white hair and an oriental skin tone. I left the hair white and it looked nice an then the only color that contrasted nicely with both the white and the black was some kind of midtone skin.
Regarding close ups: If you enlarge mine like that you will see the paint is uneven with rough edges, but hey, for D&D where you put em on the table and look at them from half a meter away they are great. Personally, I take the greatest joy out of figuring out a color scheme, painting it neat is a very secondary objective.
Nice work everyone! This is especially true, as I don’t particularly like this mini, yet I am now regretting not even starting on her. I was actually too busy, so I just took a pass. Next week is probably out as well but I will definitely get that basilisk done!
I think David is right on with the thong and plate mail chaps. This is a Werner Klocke sculpt and his is well known for scantily clad females.