Tevildo, the Prince of Cats

“Wise shall be those born with the Moon in the House of Shysh as they’ll know that no treasure is worth a grain of the Sand of Time ” 

“His Majesty” Tevildo is believed to be the oldest member of the Caravan and not even the most venerable Babus are able to remember a time when the Prince of Cats was not roaming freely around the camps of the exiles. Many legends circulate about his origins: some say he is the spirit of a powerful warlock, cursed long ago by the Great Necromancer himself for his arrogance and trapped in feline form as punishment. Others swear he was a gift to the founders of the Caravan from a mysterious ruler who shared their hatred for the Lord of Undeath. Whatever the truth may be what is sure is that the people of the Hundred Moons owe their survival to the powers of this enchanted familiar as he seems to possess a sixth sense that allows him to predict the coming of the servants of Nagash, who is constantly seeking the Caravan to inflict his vengeance upon it. Tevildo is a spiteful and vicious creature, and his mischiefs are often a cause of troubles for the people of the Caravan but he is tolerated and taken good care of for fear of losing his protection and be finally exposed to the eye of the Great Necromancer.  

My third entry to the Advent Calendar is a small one admittedly, but it's one I had a lot of fun playing with, both in terms of concept and realisation.

I knew from the very beginning that my Caravan warband would have needed a black cat. There is something so familiar with the association cats-wizardry that I thought he would have been the perfect companion for my magical gypsies.

Tevildo is not just a cat though, he is a powerful ward against the dark magic of the Great Necromancer, a lucky charm for the whole Caravan and a master of mischiefs.

Think about him as having the same bad character of Lucifer from Disney Cinderella, the weird powers of the Cheshire Cat of Alice in Wonderland and the cruel cunning of a powerful wizard.

The conversion was of course incredibly simple. I just made use of the Grynx from Yvraine and got rid of all the too eldary details, like the collar and the hairy ears, resculpted a new collar to match the jewellery on the rest of my warband and retouched the ears slightly et Voilà!

The painting was really great fun, it's such a nice model to paint, not much to get distracted on so I could really focus on getting the colour and texture of the fur right. I was going for an unnatural black glow to really conceive the idea of a magical creature and at the same time tie it together with the rest of my warband (I used the same colour to highlight the black on my models). The result is quite shiny but doesn't go as far as to make it look like a blue cat instead of a black one.

Next week we will go back to something a bit more conventional and then onward to the gran finale in a couple of weeks! 

The miniatures of the rest of Les Kouzes are getting better and better and I can assure you I have seen some crazy good stuff in there, so keep checking!

Hagen