Miniature Monday – Nazeera Bloodraven UPDATED
This week’s mini comes with her own pedestal – or is it a marble coffin? Good or bad, let’s see how our painters decided…!
(posting by Dirk)
As it seems, vampires are solitary creatures, since both of our own minis preferred to stay off the blog – or, in other words, neither Antonia nor I managed to paint Nazeera!
But since we planned to do it (and probably will next weekend, so keep your eyes open for an update of this article!) here are our color schemes (just add you imagination):
Antonia wasn’t too inspired by the mini (although she liked the dynamic pose of it) but since she expected to see a lot of reds and blacks on other minis (“Bloodraven” is kind of suggestive in this regard) she decided she would use untypical colors, i.e. blue, white and silver. That will definitely look different, and maybe not even, well, evil…!
UPDATE: Antonias take on Nazeera
Antonia: After two weeks of potential painting time, this is still kind of a WIP, but all parents out there will understand the inside joke I just made about “potential time for…”. Of course, there wasn’t, especially not last monday when our little one had his first official meltdown aka temper tantrum. Which deserved its name already although our son just turned 1,5 yrs. Well…. Anyway, I didn’t use as many light colors on the mini as I thought I would, dark blue just seemed much more dramatic, and the mother-of-pearl color on sword and pauldrons needs another soft wash, but it’s an iteresting direction, I guess!
I wasn’t sure if I’d use the mini for a vampire, or maybe something else entirely, and for now I settled with some sort of fantasy fighter or paladin. I’ll avoid too much black but might use even more red instead… and a hint of gold? Stay tuned on this!
Michael’s Nazeera follows a holy (or unholy?) path:
Michael wrote that he painted the mini as a paladin of a newly created god in one of his RPG campaigns – which alignment, if I may ask? I presumed something “good”, but maybe the bright silver is misleading…? The sword’s blade is supposed to be “something from the void”, so who knows?
The paintjob was simple, as he said (wash and drybrushed highlights), but I think it’s still very effective, giving a nice contrast to the whole mini. And I love how the highlights on her hair correspond with the robes color. Was that intentional?
Jim’s Nazeera is also alive instead of undead:
Jim said with a name like that he had to use black and red, and I love the result! The red is wonderfully bright, and the (dark silver?) drybrush brings out the detail well, which is very important, I think, when painting black armour or clothes. Jim wrote that the picture doesn’t show too well that he painted Nazeera as living, but I’d say the skin tone is fresh enough, isn’t it? Does it look pinker/”fleshier” in person?
I laughed when Jim described his Nazeera as “an evil human but not a vampire […] just a very, very, VERY bad girl [who] probably doesn’t think of herself that way, though.” I love the idea of detailing a miniature’s personality and motives, it makes the painting so much more interesting!
That’s it for this time, but as I said, we’ll hopefully update next weekend or so to show our painted minis as well! So if someone else wants to participate with a late entry, you have another week to paint! 😀
This week’s gallery:
Coming next:
06/11/18 Bones II Bugbear Warband! Hunter, Warrior and/or Leader (B2 Core)
(I added some of your suggestions already, I might shuffle them around a bit, but keep them coming! For some minis there are no pics in the onine shop yet so I’ll add them later.
As you can see I prepared a lot of date entries but am still looking for mini ideas. Post your suggestions if you like! The ‘Type of mini’ placeholder is just that, if you want something else tell us!)
06/25/18 Bones III Let the dogs out: War Dog and/or Foo Dog (B3 Core)
07/09/18 Eastern Encounter Part Two: Oni demon female and/or male (B3 Core)
07/23/18 Bones III Quinn, Iconic Investigator (B3 Core)
08/06/18 Catch-Up Monday – your pick from Bones 1 & 2 incl. extras. What about some demons (toad, wolf, slime…), a dragon or a giant?
08/20/18 Bones II Skeletons, as many as you like (like this or this or this one) Here you can find the Bones 2 Core Set picture, look for “Shambling Dead”. On reapermini.com you can search for “skeleton” and check the bones minis to find them. If you have other skeletons to paint just send us pics of those!
09/03/18 Bones III Ogres (guard, smasher, clubber) (B3 Core)
09/17/18 Unhooding woman/cleric (not yet available) (B3 Core)
10/01/18 Bones III Bregan, Valkyrie (B3 Core)
10/15/18 Bones II TBA
10/29/18 Bones III Hobageddon: Hobgoblin warriors (B3 Core)
11/12/18 Bones III Elven Blacksmith (B3 Core)
11/26/18 Bones II TBA
12/10/18 Bones III Animal/Monster TBA
12/24/18 Christmas break
12/31/18 New Year’s break
01/07/19 Bones III Humanoid TBA
01/21/19 Room for your suggestions!
Caffeineforge 
I’m sure I’ll have more to add later, but on Jim’s, I think the flesh is fine. It doesn’t look undead to me, just pale. That being said, if you just put it on the table as DM, I think the players would hesitate, wondering if it were a vampire or just, as you said, “a very bad girl”. Great work on painting – the cloth looks like flowing blood in a way, and I like the lips very much.
One interesting thing is the choice to put skin at her elbows and midriff. I remember wondering if she was covered head-to-toe in armor or not. Those kinds of choices – and I think they are choices, with no true answer – really make a difference in the overall interpretation. It was actually that very question that lead me to find this blog in the first place last year! I was searching on Google while trying to figure out if Cassiata (the female warrior who looks like a Thayan knight with the half-shaved head) was wearing pants or a thong (I went thong on mine).
On mine, I think the photo makes the armor look a little brighter than it is. I was going more for a general look of steel – not overly polished, but not darkened either. The god she follows is probably true neutral, if anything (in that game, we don’t really use a traditional rules set; it’s very free-wheeling), representing Determination, Persistence, and Power, even over death. The god was once my half-vampire PC, then later became a full vampire, was killed, resurrected, and set on a geas that brought him to apotheosis. It’s complicated, in the best way D&D can be. 🙂 What that means, though, is his cults are actually very varied in their interpretation of what he represents. Some take much darker turns than others; I’m not sure exactly which path the Nazeera model will take yet…
Looking at her now, she seems fleshy/living enough, so it must have been me! The amount of skin choice was a really up in the air for me. More coverage would be more “realistic”, but I decided on the “chainmail bikini” look, especially as she looks like a femme fatale whom is probably pretty arrogant.
I love all the backstory! Even when I don’t have a specific use in mind, sometimes a mini just has to have a little character.
It’s interesting that both Michael and mine represent living women instead of the undead. It didn’t fully occur to me until I started painting that she was a vampire and standing on some sort of graveyard slab.
I like Michael’s use of her as a paladin and the full armor coverage seems the right way to go. The purple cloth leaves one wondering whether she’s good or evil, but that black blade really reminds me of Stormbringer. Nice work!
I painted the armor black (raven) and drybrushed on some steel. The result is only so-so in my opinion. The various shades of red (blood) on the cloth actually came out the way I wanted and give the proper contrast. Her gloves, belt, leggings, etc. are gray to keep in the correct color palette. My pic leaves a little to be desired, mainly because it doesn’t show her face too well and makes her eyes look a little wonky. I should have tried again!
If I haven’t mentioned it before, check out Chris Palmer’s blog “All Bones About It” He’s painting Bones KS minis also, but trying to get through the whole bunch by himself, one mini (or more) per week! He is painting to a nice tabletop quality and includes pics of all his steps as well as the finished piece.
http://allbonesabout.blogspot.com/
I think I just spent at least 40 minutes browsing that blog now. Thanks for the link! In addition to participating here, I’m trying to catch up on a huge backload from the first two KS campaigns, and it’s always good to see new ideas.
Pingback: Miniature Monday – Bugbear Warband | Caffeineforge