As mentioned on my previous blog post, I have been working on no less than eleven Samurai cavalry figures that will nicely complete my Fireforge Samurai Cavalry units. The nice weather has made it difficult to justify being indoors painting, so these have taken somewhat longer than planned and to be honest, although ready for the table, they are still not finished.
The eleven figures were intended to be eight Cavalry for a new unit and three commanders, as I already have two units of cavalry. Three seemed like a nice number! I had also decided to paint four in black armour and four in red armour for no other reason than to give a bit of variety.
I also had some ideas for the commanders. The Samurai were well known for taking heads in battle, so I decided to add a couple of heads, well three in total, to two of the commanders. It’s a bit gruesome but the custom seemed to be that having taken the heads of their opponents, once the battle was over, they would ‘groom’ the heads, mount them on a spiked board and present them to their Daimyo.
To make the heads, I took some spare heads from the Fireforge sprue. The heads without helmets are the obvious choice! And it seemed sensible to use the ones with their mouth open. I then carved the topknots off and used some green stuff to make the hair from which the heads would be attached to the saddles. I guess they probably would have used some sort of the twine or rope but it was easier to model the hair.
Once the greenstuff had dried, I painted the hair black and the heads in a light coloured flesh. I used a blue wash to get a more gruesome look. I guess you lose a bit of colour when your head is chopped off!
I resisted the temptation to have blood splattered over the horses. The idea of taking heads in battle isn’t exclusive to the Japanese but it’s one of their less civilised and gruesome ideas, I think!
The third commander is from the Fireforge command set and comes with a cloak, which gave me an excuse to try another experiment. The cloak really needed a fancy design painted onto it but I had seen an idea on Facebook that used a nail art decal to add such a design. Although my free hand is improving, a decal would look better. So I sent for a batch from an online supplier – just search under nail art – the selection is immense!
Yes, I realise that the dragon is probably Chinese but I liked it. I had to cut it to fit but a coat of matt varnish sealed it in place and I think that it is better than anything that I could have painted! I have a whole batch of these to use and I will experiment with them on the Horo that I intend to add to the figures at some point in the future.
The third experiment or innovation for me was to use a chrome paint on the weapons. I think that this looks particularly good on the Katana, which would be nice and shiny and sharp, ready for cutting off heads…
So, for now my cavalry are complete…except that I will add either Horo or Sashimo to them and I plan to make some special commander bases for use in my new rules set ‘Never Mind The Bushido/Naginatas. However, I need a break from Samurai, so another project beckons!
For now, Happy Modelling!
