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In the good old era of barbarians, when bulging muscles, a crude weapon and a loincloth were all you needed to sway your audience and scare away the painted dogs wolves, no warrior was larger and bulkier than Cuth Wolfson. Read on if dare…

(posting by Antonia)

This mini (and its female counterpart Tyrea Bronzelocks) seems to be heavily inspired by the art of Frank Frazetta, one of the early iconic fantasy & SF artists who defined the style of franchises like Conan the Barbarian.
Although I prefer my humans a bit more on the realistic side myself, I have to admit that Cuth makes a very good fantasy/chaos barbarian in “Schwarzenegger style”. The back is a bit smooth, but otherwise the muscles are well defined and a nice suface for blending, scars and body art.
Unfortunately my mini had clearly visible mould lines and also deep gaps where the arms where attached, so it need a bit of work before painting.
I painted my Cuth as a veritable fantasy viking:

Since we live in the close area of one of the largest settlements of the viking era, we know quite a bit about the subject. So the first disclaimer is, no, of course they didn’t wear horned helmets. But Cuth’s weapon is not exactly a throwing axe either (or is it?), so I’ll have to blame artistic license anyway 😉
My Cuth is a northman, so I gave him pinkish pale skin and brown leather and fur pieces, plus a greyish-blue loincloth. I added scars and a large blue tattoo, both by using red resp. blue inks/washes. This trick helps to make sure the effect is not too strong, since scars on pale skin often aren’t that prominent, and on historical illustrations viking tattoos look a bit “faded”.
I imagined him in a fight on the shore, so I made a sandy base with a bit of water effect for small waves.
Overall, I’m really happy how the project developed, especially since I wasn’t quite fond of the mini at the beginning.

 

Dirk did a classic chaos barbarian right out of an illustration:

Without even knowing the name he was also inspired by Frazettas’s works and successfully created a gloomy atmosphere by using a black wash on the whole mini, giving the skin a sickly appearance and the once bright red a dullen look. The strong highlights after that intesify the “illustrated” feel. He said this was a very quick paintjob, and I really like what he achieved in less than two hours. Sometimes just picking the right combination of colors can help a lot for great results!
Michael sent his orcish Cuth in advance:

He wrote: “Here’s my barbarian. I definitely had to boil and chill to straighten his axe out, but it’s stayed so far. I went half-orc, using Reaper’s Orc Skin paint that I got not too long ago. To add a little visual interest, I tried my hand at scarring him up (hope it came out ok in the pictures).”
Cool idea with the half-orc, that would definitely explain his super-human built! Scarring is also a great option on so much skin, although on the pics the scars look so red that they rather look like fresh cuts – it’s always an interesting consideration what color a scar has depending on skin color. Generally in humans it seems that darker skin tends to form slightly elevated scars that are darker than the surrounding area, while in pale skin scars can be reddish or plain white. How that works in orcs I have no idea though 😀

Jim added Cuth’s female counterpart:

He said: ” I decided to do both Cuth Wolfson and Tyrea Bronzelocks. These were actually the first two minis I pulled out of the box when I got my Kickstarter package, but only now got around to painting them. Pretty basic, as they are both fairly … um … fleshy and I didn’t go to any great lengths on the details like the horns, etc. The detail was decent without too many soft areas. Anyway, I’m pleased with them and can check them off the to do list.”
And even when you say you didn’t do much on the details, once again I’m surprised how many you found – I was completely unaware of things like the skull-kneecaps or the studs on the leather belt until I saw your picture, so thanks for bringing them to my attention!
Both minis fit well to each other (you are absolutely right on the “fleshy” aspect), and while I’m not going to start the “is one-boob-armour more or less practical than none at all?”-discussion I have to admit that Tyrea really looks like one of those (then) semi-scandalous illustrations from the Conan era, with your choice of red hair and ochre loincloth working within the theme.

 

This week’s gallery:

 

 

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Coming next:

02/04/19 Bones III Wild West of Oz Wicked Witch plus Monkey* (B3 Core)

*they sell them in packs of three (obviously) but in the KS there was only one piece

Want to participate in the next post? Email the pictures of your minis until Friday 01/02/19 to

MondayMiniature@fantasymail.de  (It’s a .de domain, in case emails are bouncing)

–> Attention: The submission date for photos is about three days before publishing date, to give us a bit of time to actually write about your pictures  😀

This way you’ll have two weeks/one weekend to paint, and we have one weekend to write (which is the only time of the week where we have some open minutes).

You can of course send in pics later, but to take out a bit of the stress (most pics arrive here rather last minute) please consider the three day deadline. Later pics will still show up in an update  😉

I added tons of miniatures to the schedule now. We might still shuffle them around, do extras (like “Show me your project!”) or add more, just tell us what you think in the comments!

02/18/19 Bones II Dub Bullock, Rogue (B2 Core)

03/04/19 Bones III Werewolf (B3 Core)

03/18/19 Bones III Athak, Undead Knight (B3 Core)

04/01/19 Bones II Alain, Paladin (B2 Core)

04/15/19 Bones III Were-Crocodile (B3 Core)

04/29/19 Bones III Skara, Female Skoli (B3 Core)

05/13/19 Bones – Catch-Up Monday (Your choice of Bones I-III!)

05/27/19 Bones III Eastern encounter part 3 – Kitsune! Female and/or male.

06/10/19 Bones III Gwyddis, Dwarf Valkyrie (B3 Core)

06/24/19 Bones II Sir Conlan (B2 Core)

07/08/19 Bones III Durok, Dwarf Ranger (B3 Core)

07/22/19 Bones III Wraith (B3 Core)

08/05/19 Bones II Alistrilee, Elven Archer (B2 Core)

08/19/19 Bones III Sigurd, Viking (B3 Core)

09/02/19 Bones III Brotherhood of the Seal (B3 Core)

09/16/19 Bones II Mi-Sher, Sword Dancer (B2 Core)

After that Bones 4? Or should we start earlier? Until then everyone should have had the chance to check their shipments or even bought some minis directly from the shop.

we need more suggestions!

 

This entry was posted by Antonia & Dirk Vogel.