Samurai

Lots of Painting Time….

I’ve found my modelling time somewhat curtailed these last few weeks. I have been doing quite a lot of painting, just the wrong sort. We decided to re decorate the Hall, Stairs and Landing, the sort of project that I should have delegated to someone else! For a start it involved painting 11 doors and the respective frames, the woodwork on the stairs and the skirting boards. Add to that the ceilings and stripping the old wall paper off, making good the surfaces and then painting the walls ( just two coats…) and it’s fair to say that we had our work cut out. At my age and now that I am carrying a tad too much around the waist, going up ladders is never a good idea either. But I managed it and with a bit of innovation ( taping a brush to a stick!) I managed to reach all of the tall corners to cut in properly.

When it comes to painting woodwork, I’m old school, preferring to sand every thing down to get a decent key for the paint and then undercoating before applying the finishing top coat – Satin rather than gloss for me these days. I also prefer the oil based paints, which do come with their own distinctive smell that seems to linger but the finish is good and hard wearing. An innovation for me this time was to apply both the undercoat and the top coat using foam rollers. The finish was better than anything that I could have achieved with a brush and cut the painting time in half and the clean up time to practically zero ( you just dispose of the rollers when done).

The old Ceiling rose…how come so many different coloured wires?

I then took on the job of replacing the light fittings and the old thermostat for the central heating, which worked but was very discoloured and tatty. This turned out to be too much of a stretch for my DIY talents but fortunately, I didn’t electrocute myself or burn the house down. I did need rescuing by my neighbour and very good friend Barry, who is a trained electrician and managed to sort out the problems that I encountered.

When it came to the new flooring, I did get an expert in, although I did take up the old wooden stuff that I had laid many years ago. The last bit was to replace the hall stand with a new shoe locker from IKEA. Walking around that place is guaranteed to get your 10000 steps in! So after a final bit of construction, everything is more or less done. There’s a new carpet to be laid on the stairs and we are having a new banister fitted but both of these jobs are being done by professionals , so I’m off the hook!

Pippin and Merry or Merry and Pippin, I forget which one is which!

All of which means that whilst I’ve done a fair bit of painting, not much of it was on my miniatures! I did manage to complete another two LOTR miniatures, Pippin and Merry. I’ve also started a new project. I am writing a set of rules that will adapt Never Mind The Bill Hooks to the Samurai era of Japanese warfare. I have started to build and paint a new Samurai army based around the Fireforge sets, which I have also reviewed for Wargames Illustrated. I wont repeat my review here – you will need to get hold of the January edition of WI to read that but here’s a couple of pictures of the fireforge models being assembled.

Finally, here’s a picture of the first painted Ashigaru – I always do a test figure or two, before I start the batch painting of the units. I’ve picked up a few things to correct. I’m not that happy with the flesh but will have a play with a slightly different approach on the next models.

I will need to paint at least 100 or so of the Fire Forge models to get just one army ready to play test my rules. So it will be early next year before I am ready to go. I guess that I could just use unpainted models or buy some ready painted but as you will note from my exploits in decorating, I am just hard wired to DIY!

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Samurai Scenery.

Whilst looking in my display cabinet I noticed that there were some pieces of scenery that were not actually painted. I had acquired them just as I lost interest in painting Samurai and moved on to WAr of the Roses! As I am currently on a mission to reduce my lead pile and to complete all of these odd projects that I started and never finished, I thought that I would complete these pieces in between painting World War Two British Infantry.

The painting required was minimal, more a case of basing the pieces up and adding paint where required! The Temple dogs are resin pieces from Ainstey Castings. Once they had been washed and dried, I under coated them with a stone texture spray. They were then given a liberal wash using Army Painter Strong Tone ( brown ink) before dry brushing with Vallejo Stone Grey, mixed with white after the initial dry brush coat. I then based them on MDF bases, attaching them using the Vallejo Dark Earth texture paste and finished the basing using my usual method.

Temple Dogs from Ainstey Castings

The two garden lanterns are 3d printed scenery – I think from Iron Gate Scenery. Once undercoated, I simply painted them red, with black brown for the lanterns. The ‘lights’ were just yellow painted straight onto the lamp area. When dry, I carefully dry brushed this area with black brown and the grid was then picked out. They were based exactly as above, on 30mm round MDF bases.

Garden Lanterns

The last item was a Buddha statue. I was given this by Jaz, who found it in a gift shop and I think that it is more of a lucky charm or gift item. Although bit gaudy, I was happy to leave it as supplied and based it up with a random blossom tree that was also ‘kicking around at the back of the display cabinet. Once again, I just ‘plonked’ it onto the base and finished it as above. I added some nice red flowers to keep to the rather bright theme and another piece is ready for a game.

Happy Buddha and blossom tree.

Here’s a picture of all the pieces together with a Sarissa Temple and some of my other scenery and figures. I think that they all work together and should I find my way back to my Samurai project, or play Test of Honour, they will look good on the wargames table.

Temple Shrine and Garden

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They think it’s all over…..

Well, it’s the day after England were knocked out of the World Cup by Croatia and I am somewhat melancholy as I sit to write my blog. To be fair, I haven’t much to write about. The World Cup gradually became all consuming for me and for once, my priority wasn’t the models on my work bench. Football combined with the hot weather meant that I have been spending less and less time on my modelling projects. Indeed, the last blog that I wrote showing my own work was dated 14th June, a month ago.

The last of Daimyo’s Retinue on the work bench

In that time, I have managed to finish painting the last of Daimyos retinue. One mounted Samurai completed in a month is hardly something to crow about but I suppose it is progress. As I have been nipping out to paint and base in ever shorter bursts, I haven’t recorded my progress but six of the retinue are now complete.

Daimyos retinue

Retinue showing detail of Arrow catcher.

As you can see, the last mounted Samurai that I completed has the Arrow catcher or Horo in place. I painted a very simple design on it to add some interest and based him in my usual style.

My Work bench is somewhat neglected…

Another indication of my neglect of my hobby is the state of my work bench. If you look closely you can see another mounted Samurai – this is the spare Samurai that you get in the set mounted on a Warhammer horse. I’ve actually gone backwards here as although I have added some green stuff to make the horse look more ‘Samurai’ I have managed to break the model.

Green Stuff added but the model is a bit fragile…

In trying to make the pose dynamic, I have created a somewhat fragile model that I doubt will stand the rigours of gaming – if you look closely, you can see that the one standing leg is threatening to snap as well – the white line above the hoof showing where the plastic is weakening.

So, the football is over for England (the play off for third place doesn’t really inspire me) and it’s time to get back to enjoying my modelling, hot weather or not. I will probably watch the Final but will find it hard to cheer for either side. More likely, I think I will tidy up my work bench and listen to it on the radio. As well as getting on with the final mounted Samurai, I can reorganise my lead mountain and decide on the next project.

Samurai Cavalry charge!

In the meantime, just to cheer myself up, I got all of the samurai cavalry out of the cabinet for a photo shoot! I’m actually quite pleased with how they look. The football may be over but there’s plenty to keep me busy!

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Daimyo’s Retinue – Progress?

Sometimes things don’t work out the way you would like them to, and for me, that seems to be the way it is with Daimyo’s retinue. Of course, it could just be a case of familiarity causing the dissatisfaction – this is the second batch of plastic cavalry that I have painted. For some reason, I am not feeling the love for this project! I now have two of the Retinue more or less complete and painted in a similar style to my other samurai cavalry. However, they just don’t look as good as I want them to!

The first of Daimyo’s retinue

Now to be fair, they are not yet finished. I need to complete the basing and I know that once the base has been painted and some nice grass tufts added the models will look substantially better. I also will be adding a Decal to the flags and tidying these up a bit, all of which will help.

In the meantime, I carried on with the retinue and painted the Daimyo himself. I had a clear idea in my mind as to how I wanted him to look and the colour scheme that I would use.

Daimyo ready for basing

However, I am disappointed with the result! The colour scheme just hasn’t worked – he looks like he is sponsored by JCB! Once again, I have made the mistake of adding green trim to his cloak. It didn’t work when I painted my Geisha spy so why I made the same error is a mystery! I also think that yellow is a difficult colour to get right and in trying to use such a bold finish with a primary colour, I have made it difficult to achieve the look that I was after.

Daimyo repainted!

The picture above shows a few changes that I have made to try and improve the figure. The trim on the cloak is now Turquoise, to match his trousers. I’ve added some white socks to the horse and given the horse a white mark on it’s head and I’ve added some highlights to the Daimyo’s trousers. The base has the textured paste applied and will of course benefit from being painted.

Daimyo Charge!

So I think that he looks a bit better but the feeling lingers that it is not quite the finish that I had in mind.

It is easy to be over critical and often the answer is to put the models to one side and come back to them a couple of days later. For now, though, apart from the basing, these are done. I console myself with the thought that these are table top pieces not entries for the Golden Demon Painting competition. They don’t look too bad with my other cavalry.

Samurai Cavalry charge!

Daimyos Retinue grows!

So I have another four more Samurai cavalry to paint before the set is complete. With the World Cup about to start, it will be a while before I can show you the finished result. Perhaps watching the football will give me the break that I need from painting….

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Daimyos Retinue is on the Work Bench!

After more or less completing my Napoleonic Nassau Infantry, I thought that I would have a change of period and complete a Test of Honour Boxed set, Daimyos retinue. I had decided to build the retinue as a continuation of the other Samurai cavalry boxed set and would be using a similar colour scheme for the armour. At some point in the future I’m sure that I will start to play games with larger formations rather than just individual figures and having a degree of coherency in the colour scheme will help.

Daimyo’s retinue ready for priming.

There are actually six plastic Samurai in the set and a metal figure of Daimyo, so with only six horses, I was left with a spare Samurai. It was a straight forward option to find a spare horse in my ‘bits box’, so as you can see, there are now seven riders to paint! The spare horse is actually an old GW ‘Elf horse’ but I will add some green stuff decoration to make it a bit more Samurai. You can see that I have done this before with the other cavalry set by checking a previous blog here, so I will have 14 Mounted Samurai rather than 12, when everything is finished.

Assembly is the usual fiddly process with these plastic models but it is worth using a good plastic glue and of course with patience, the models do look nice once put together. I usually paint the riders separately from the horses but I managed to glue two of the riders onto the horses whilst test fitting everything…What was I saying about patience… To be fair, I had decided to use the arrow catcher on one of the models and it was quite tricky figuring out how it actually fitted to the model. I’m confident that I now have it right but as you can see from the picture below, once primed, it was clear that I had some filling to do before painting! I used the Vallejo putty. It’s fairly quick drying and sands well.

Rider with arrow catcher fitted .

I will have to paint these as one piece models but I don’t think this will be a problem. The other models were primed in black as separate horses and riders

Horses primed

Riders ready for painting

I used my airbrush and Vallejo primer for these models. I am still very much a novice when it comes to using an airbrush but it means that I can prime my models indoors, unlike using spray cans. To be fair, it’s just as easy, and I’m finding that I get better coverage without ‘soaking’ the model.

So I’m ready to start painting. I thought that I would show a step by step guide to how I paint horses. It’s not a strong point for me and there are plenty of great guides out there to help you but here goes with my method that I have put together from watching and listening to other far more talented painters than I!

German Cam. Black Brown – first coat.

I use three colours layered on top of each other and as I want a brown/chestnut horse I’m starting with a dark brown, German Camouflage black brown 70822. Paint as much of the horse as you can see, leaving the saddle cloth etc. and the mane and tail.

Flat brown 70984

The next step is to dry brush the horse flesh with Flat brown 70984. It’s inevitable that the dry brush will stray onto the saddle etc -I don’t worry at this stage as it will be cleaned up later.

Orange Brown 70981

The next stage is a dry brush of Orange Brown 70981 – again you can see that I haven’t been too careful and over painted painted the reins. The idea is really to ensure that what texture there is modeled into the horse itself, is picked up by the dry brushing.

Mane & tail Black 70950

The next stage is to paint the mane and tail black. I also painted the forelegs on the left horse black as he is going to have socks! You can see that I have made a mistake with the right hand horse and been too heavy with the orange brown on his rump and by his front. The front can be tidied and I might tone down the rear with some ink but for now I’ve stuck with it!

Saddle cloth and furniture Dark Prussian Blue 70899

I’ve now painted the saddle cloth and horse furniture with Dark Prussian Blue – things are looking a bit neater now! I’ve also given the mane and tale a very light dry brush using a light grey to bring out the texture.

Lining on the horse furniture!

The next stage was to paint the white socks on the left horse and I added a white patch to both horses heads. I’ve also painted the eyes black. The Horse furniture is lined with a sky blue 70961. I found it a bit stark so I’ve toned it down with some of the dark Prussian blue. The effect is not subtle, particularly close up but it works for me and the lighting is exaggerating the contrast.

Both horses complete!

That’s just about finished for now. I’ve painted the ‘bits’ in steel and done a bit of tidying. After this picture was taken, I painted the hooves black for a bit more contrast. Once the riders are in place and the bases finished they will look fine for the table.

So that is it. I hope that you will find the article useful and it will help you with developing your own technique.

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There’s always time….

With my attendance at Partizan and all the preparation that goes with it (and of course, the tidying up afterwards) my hobby time has been at a premium – but when have I said that before! To be fair, I have made some progress since my last blog. Due to the way that I work on my hobby there is always something on the work bench and I will use any spare time that I have, even 10 minutes to keep things moving along. I am lucky in that I have a permanent place to paint and model, so it is easy to pick up where I last left off and do a bit more to a model.

I was chatting to someone about this at work. Paul, was saying how he was so busy that he didn’t have time to do any painting. The problem was that he was looking for a spare morning or afternoon or even a day when he could really get stuck into his project. I find that such blocks of time are difficult to come by these days and I tend to work in short bursts – sometimes just 2 minutes! Yes, seriously. If the next stage of a model is to slap some texture paste on to the base, then it only takes a couple of minutes to do this. It will take 2 hours for the paste to dry but if I can get this job done just before I leave for work, then I know that it will be dry when I get home and it will take another two minutes to paint the base and so on.

The same goes for the evenings. I may be too weary to spend the evening modelling but just half an hour or an hour gets a lot done, so I just focus on the next step in the modelling process rather than what needs to be done to finish the model, if you see what I mean. So since the last blog, some 14 days ago I have only finished one model/project. As you can see, Kojiro is now completed

Wargames Illustrated Special Edition Models now completed

However, I have made progress on a whole lot of other projects. I mentioned that I would be working on another unit of Nassau infantry. Well over the 14 days they have gone from bare castings, primed and the start of the batch paint.

Nassau Volunteer Jaeger on the work bench.

The (poor) photo above shows the figures 7 days ago. The back rank is primed green and the flesh and hats painted. The front rank (out of focus) shows that I have yet to add any black.

Volunteer Nassau – next step

This photo shows as they are now. ( I promise all 12 are at this stage!). Yes, they are a long way off being finished but I’m happy that progress has been made. I know the next step to be painted – I’ll be painting the gaiters dark grey and then I’ll start the straps with yellow ochre. It wont matter to me whether I do both colours on all figures or just paint the gaiters on just two of them. So long as I am moving forwards, I’m happy. Now I know that 14 days to get to this stage seems like very slow progress but it is progress and I will soon have another unit for my Napoleonic Army.

But that’s not all I’ve done. Taking a break from painting, I’ve assembled the next set that I would like to complete in the Test of Honour Range – Daimyos Retinue.

Daimyos retinue, under construction

The majority of these were assembled over at Jaz’s house one evening. We took a break from gaming and just had a hobby night. I had never thought of modelling as being a social hobby but I was once again surprised as to how much I managed to get done whilst chatting away with my war gaming pals. So Seven mounted Samurai are nearly ready for priming.

Musket men and Sergeant of archers

Building the Samurai cavalry gave me the urge to go back to some spare plastic ashigaru and assemble them as Musket men and I also needed a Sergeant of Archery to complete all the figures that appear on the cards. The musket men will be to go with Nobunaga – as this figure allows you take musket men for just 2 points each, I decided that I wanted at least two bases of them. I also decided to add some extra pouches using green stuff. I’ll never make a sculptor but they look passable enough. Interestingly, I ran out of time and rather than waste the green stuff, I used the excess to make some rocks on the Sergeants base. These models were actually assembled while I was sitting out in the garden with a glass of something cold and chatting to Julie.

British Artillery

Finally, on the work bench are a couple of cannon that I am planning to add to my army. They were kicking around in my lead pile and it wasn’t a long job to get these assembled and ready for priming. I’ll probally prime these at the same time that I prime the Samurai horses, so they will be ready for painting.

So as you can see, I haven’t done much in the last 14 days…

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More for Test of Honour – Scenery & Musashi!

Having just finished my latest Napoleonic Battalion, I fancied a change. A recent post on the superb Test of Honour Facebook group had inspired me to send for some plastic Bonsai trees from China. The Bonzai trees make excellent full sized trees for a Test of Honour game. As a bit of a digression, I am usually not too fussed about the scale of my trees in war games, particularly when playing the larger battles. The trees on a wargames table are there to represent an area of wood, not to be a scale model.

However, Test of Honour is a skirmish game and a tree that is more in keeping with the scale of the figures and buildings seemed attractive. Even if the leaves are a bit on the large size, the overall impression would be of a specimum tree, as seen in Japanese gardens.

Plastic Bonsai tree

As you can see, the tree comes in a nice plastic pot so it was a simple task to cut it out and using a glue gun, stick it to an old DVD. I used ‘Seven Steps to a Better Life’ a free DVD from a newspaper and clearly nonsense, as none of the steps included ‘spend more time wargaming’. You can, of course, use any suitable DVD or CD…In fact, I think that would be an interesting survey…’Which DVD/CD is more suitable for scenery bases than watching/listening to! I digress once again, but at least I am recycling my rubbish!

Tree attached to DVD

The next job was to slap some filler (Polyfilla or other decorators filler is ideal) over the base and when dry, I covered this with Vallejo Dark Earth Textured paste. Incidentally, the temple dog in the picture is from the Ainsty Castings range. They do a set of two of these and also make a very nice Sampan – if you haven’t discovered Ainstey Castings the link is below and they have some very useful stuff! Once the paste was dry, I gave the whole thing a good coat of paint – I use emulsion for scenery, it’s cheaper. The base is now ready for detailing.

Bonsai tree based and ready for detailing

The next stage is to dry brush a highlight onto the textured earth and to add some scatter and of course, some grass tufts and flowers. While I was highlighting the base, I also used the same mix to dry brush the tree trunk to bring out the detail. You could really spend a bit of time improving the tree with a quick spray or dry brush but time was at a premium and I’m happy with the overall look for a piece of wargames scenery that I hope will see plenty of use.

The completed bonzai tree based and ready for the table.

Each of the stages above only take a few minutes but the drying time is the issue. So I tend to have another project on the go when I am making a piece like this. As you can see from the picture above, I am working on a set of ‘Giants in Miniature’ figures from Wargames Illustrated. The figures represent the famous duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro and are a limited edition of 500 sets. If you would like one the link to Wargames Illustrated site is below.

Miyamoto Musashi on the work bench

The figure is straight forward to paint as he is all in black, so while waiting for my scenery piece to dry, I got on with him. Sasaki is in the background. ready for his coat of paint! You can see the finished Musashi in the picture above based and ready to fight his rival Sasaki. The final picture is a very poor shot of the two of them fighting in front of the Sarissa shrine, with the Geisha spy looking on. Sasaki is yet to be finished, requiring a coat of matt varnish, some extra highlighting and of course, basing.

Musashi and Kojiro clash!

As I have said, modelling time has been at a premium these last couple of weeks but I should have Sasaki Kojiro finished for the weekend and he will complete my triology of limited edition figures from Wargames illustrated. I’ve also got a couple more of the Bonzai trees to base, but now that I know what I’m doing , these will be a quick little project. It’s back to Nassau Infantry after that!

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As regards the Bonzai tree, you will have to search ebay! However, we are looking to import a batch from China – they will be a little more expensive but we are looking to see if we can bundle them with some buildings. If you follow us on Facebook, you will be the first to know!

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Toranaga San!

I’ve been away on a short break over Easter, so progress on my various projects has been limited. A holiday, however short, is a good time to refocus and think about what will be next onto the workbench. Whilst idling on a sun bed in Gran Canaria, my mind wandered as I considered the unfinished projects back at home.

Oda Nobunaga primed

Before I went away, I had cleaned and primed a Wargames Illustrated Limited edition model of Oda Nobunaga. The original plan was to pretty much copy the colour scheme the the Wargames Illustrated painter had used.

Wargamies Illustrated Oda

The Oda model had been produced by WI as one of their ‘Giants in Miniature’ series but was also given a special card for the Test of Honour game that I am such a fan of at the moment! The card allows players to recruit groups of musket men for just 2 points a group – an interesting option for my next warband. You can download the card from the Wargames Illustrated site here:

http://www.wargamesillustrated.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/nobunaga2.pdf

To read more, you will need to get hold of a copy of WI335 or join the WI prime club – this will give you access to all of the WI articles and is particularly useful to recover older magazines and articles from their vault!

https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/?s=Oda+nobunaga&post_type=

Rather than copy the WI colour scheme, I decided to use a colour scheme based on the description of the fictional hero, Toranaga, from the book ‘Shogun’ by James Clavell. In the book, the ‘goodies’ wear a brown uniform and I thought that this would make a change from the usual bright colour schemes that I tend towards.

I also decided to use a slightly different Flesh colour scheme. It’s one that I have used before and is simply a case of starting with Vallejo 70804 Beige red as a base, adding in 70927 dark Flesh and then using off white 70820 to top off the highlights. I also tend to use at least one or two washes of Army painter soft tone ink to help with blending.

Toranaga Work in progress.

For the robes, I started with 70822 German Camouflage black brown, followed by 70872 Chocolate brown, with a top highlight of 70983 Flat earth. The Under shirt was simply Iraqui sand. It all looked a bit stark so I gave these area a good wash of Strong Tone, the dark brown Army painter ink and the result is as shown above.

Toranaga almost finished?

I then went back and using first a mix of Flat Earth and Chocolate brown re painted the highlights and then gradually added more Flat earth, with a touch of Iraqui sand to add in the top highlights. I also added some grey to ‘Toranaga’s ‘ hair, painted the Katanga silver and brass and added some red details to the scabbard and the under shirt. The socks are off white and the sandals German Cam Black brown.

Unusually for me, I’ve painted the eyes on the figure – I don’t usually bother but these are quite well sculpted and fairly easy to paint in. That said, by now my eyes were getting tired and as you can see, eye’s are not my strength when it comes to painting.

Toranga ready for battle - well, nearly!

Toranaga ready for battle – well, nearly!

Not much has changed in the final picture, I have added some ink to the Katana handle to bring out the detail but as I mentioned above, by now my eyes were tiring and I always find that a break from painting and a look at the pictures gives me a chance to assess if anything else needs changing. I can see that the Katana handle will need a quick touch up with white and the red stripe on the under shirt needs a bit of definition – either a black line or careful wash of ink.

The most significant improvement will of course be a proper base ( without the blu tack!) and some grass tufts or flowers to add a bit of interest and Toranaga will be ready to take to the wargames table. Of course, I will still use the Oda Nobunaga card!

So the plan is to have him finished over the weekend and then it’s on to the next part of the Test of Honour project, nine Ashigaru armed with Teppo!

If you would like to read more about Samurai Arquebuses , or teppo, click here:

https://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Teppo

To read about Oda Nobunaga, click here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oda_Nobunaga

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Pauper Paint Job

Having finished assembling the Pauper archers (see last weeks blog) the next job was to paint them. I had an idea of the colour scheme that I would use and decided to ‘batch paint’ all nine in one go. The deadline was to have them completed by this weekend as I have a big Napoleonic project that I has to be completed by the end of February – more on that in future blogs!

So the first task was to prime them with Army painter matt black spray.

Pauper Archers primed and ready for painting

Senzo was put to one side for now – he will get his own special paint job! Next, using a large brush, I dry brushed them with Vallejo Sea Grey to bring out the detail. With hind sight, I should have given them a heavier dry brush, a lesson for the next batch as it not only highlights the black armour but brings out the detail making it easier to paint the models. It also helps to show any imperfections that I had missed before they were sprayed.

Dry brushed models ready for the next stage

The next stage was to paint the face and hands with Dark Flesh and the straw hats were painted with Flat Earth.

Faces and Hats done

Rather than give all the archers the same uniform, I wanted them all to be slightly different. They are supposed to be a ‘rag tag’ band not a cohesive unit. That said, I still wanted them to look similar so when it came to painting the tunics and trousers, I used five different ‘earthy tones’ and using a trick learnt from painting my Dark Age War Bands, applied these colours randomly across the nine figures.

Tunics and Trousers painted

The next picture shows the bows painted using New Wood, The socks, arrow flights and trim on the bows are off white, and the arrow shafts are painted using Old wood. I’ll list all the colours with their numbers at the end of the blog.

Bows, arrows & socks done

The next picture shows a bit more progress. I’ve dry brushed the hats with buff to lighten them & bring out the texture. The straps on the sandals, Katana hilts and detail on the quivers have been painted using German Camouflage Black Brown, the arrow heads and Katana hilts have been painted in natural steel, The katana scabbards have been painted in burnt red. The idea has been to stay away from using any more black than is necessary (the armour and gloves) and to keep to the earthy colours.

Main colours now blocked in

I also gave the figures a thin coat of Army Painter Strong tone and added texture to the bases. The figure are nearly done but I’m not quite happy with the finish yet.

Reinforcements arrive at Papelotte!

I’ve added a simple pattern to the archers tunic, tidied up the arrow flights and painted the base chocolate brown ready for highlighting. The tuft is just to see how it looks before I finish the basing. I was also having problems with the figures being top heavy. Because they all have metal heads there is a tendency for them to be top heavy and to fall over easily. I fixed this by gluing a penny into the base of each model – this also had the effect of increasing the value of my collection!

Weighting the base makes the figures more stable

You can also see from the picture that I have dry brushed the bases and added some green scatter. I’ve also added the bowstrings using the stretch sprue technique outlined in a previous blog here. One further tip. I attach the bow strings using super glue, applied with a cocktail stick. Don’t put the wrong end of the stick into your mouth when manoeuvring the model. Super gluing a cocktail stick to your lips is not a good move and it hurts when you take it off!

I finished off the base using some of the new Gamers Grass spikey bushes. I think that they look great!

bases complete with spikey grass!

And so another unit is finished. If I’m honest, I’m not as pleased with these as some that I have done. The faces are not good – perhaps an ink wash will hide some of the problems and help to blend some clumsy highlights. In truth, I have rushed them over a week, rather than take my time. That all said they make a nice band and once the bases are tidied up and they are in the triple bases supplied, they will look fine on the table.

Nine Pauper Soldiers ready for action!

I now need to paint the leader,Lord Senzo ‘The Thorn’. However, he might just have to wait as I have Papelotte to finish and about 60 Nassau infantry to paint, ready for the end of the month!

The Commercial Bit

Nearly all of the materials that I use are available from the Arcane scenery shop and at the time of writing are supplied post free to most worldwide locations.

here are some of the links:

ARCANE SCENERY SHOP

SAMURAI SECTION OR CATEGORY

VALLEJO PAINTS AND TEXTURES

GAMERS GRASS AND OTHER BASING PRODUCTS

The paints used were as follows. Face & hands; Dark flesh 70927: Hats; Flat Earth 70983, dry brushed in Buff 70976: Trousers and Tunics; 70923 Japanese uniform, 70877 gold brown, 70977 desert yellow, 70821 german cam. beige, 70914 green ochre: Bows, 311 New wood: Quivers, saddle brown 70940: Socks, bow trims, arrow flights, Off white 70820: Arrow shafts, Old Wood 310: Sandals, sword hilts, quiver ties, Germans Cam. Black Brown 70822: Arrow heads natural steel 70864 ( silver highlight), Dry brush on armour, Sea grey 70870: Sword Scabards & patterns 70870 burnt red. I have used army painter inks & Strong tone as described above.

I hope that helps!

Pauper Soldiers

I am gradually working my way through the Test of Honour boxed sets. Having completed all the figures in the Starter Box, Bandits and Brigands and most recently, the Samurai Cavalry, my next project was the Pauper Soldiers set. I very much like the main metal figure, Lord Senzo ‘The Thorn’ although I have to mention that the couple of occasions that I used him in a game, his accuracy with the bow led me to christen him something else – nothing to do with my dice rolling of course… I digress, back to the modelling!

As well as Lord Senzo, the box contains two sprues of ‘Missile ashigaru’, enough to build ten bowmen and musket men. The cards supplied also enable you to field groups or single models of Bowmen or Musket men. I decided that I wanted to build 9 bowmen to go with Senzo. It seemed logical that as he was armed with a bow, his retainers would follow suit. A sort of Japanese version of Robin Hood and his merry men! The tenth model would be used as a musket man but I have plans for fielding a force of Musket men and if they come to fruition, I will post these in a separate blog article.

Lord Senzo ready for priming.

Lord Senzo himself was pretty straight forward to put together as he is essentially a one piece metal moulding. I made a couple of changes though. By carefully cutting an arrow away from one of the plastic arms on the sprue, I was able to add an arrow to his bow. I also wanted to alter the angle at which he was firing, so by adding a small piece of slate to the base, I super glued Senzo to this. as with the other archers that I have made, I will add a bowstring once painting is complete.

Kneeling Archers

The Pauper Soldiers come with a selection of metal heads – some with hats and some with separate hats. I decided that I would leave the ones without hats bareheaded and hang the hats from the belt. I’m not sure whether this was the idea, but I quite like the effect. Two of the kneeling archers are aiming high. It was a case of finding the bow arms that looked about right for this pose and slightly modifying the arrow arm by adding a sliver of sprue to the shoulder to adjust the angle. Any gaps were filled with Vallejo plastic putty, which is easier and faster to use than green stuff for this small job.

Adjusting the angle of the draw!

You can just about make out the inserts in the picture above – it looks messy but cleans up OK! Incidentally, I’ve cheated as you only get two kneeling figures in the set – I had a spare donated by a friend who didn’t build everything in the starter set.

Standing archers

The standing archers are fairly straight forward to put together but I have made some slight modifications. I’ve used the legs that are have feet at right angle to each other and made sure that they are spread as wide as possible. There is no need to fill the slight gap but I did need to flatten the waist area slightly. The middle figure is holding a second arrow, ready to reload quickly! It’s a pose that I have seen in many pictures of Japanese archers. The spare arrow came by carefully cutting it away from the arm on the sprue. I’ve used that arm, now without an arrow, with the man on the far right. The idea is that the arrow has just been fired and when I fit the bow string this should look more obvious. I’ve also tried to tilt the bow down as though the tension has now gone.

Bowmen Reloading

The two bowmen reloading have been made using the left arm that is designed to be used to hold the musket. By simply glueing it so that it is positioned reaching over the shoulder, it looks convincing enough. Of course the other trick is to glue the quiver in place right under the hand! The bowman on the left has had a bit of surgery on his leg to make it look as though he is supporting his body as he leans back to get an arrow. It’s a small modification to cut off the legs and re-join it at an angle. As before, I have used Vallejo plastic putty to fill the gap. If you are not familiar with this product, it is idea for filling gaps in plastic models, dries quickly and is easily sanded and primed. You use it straight for the bottle or tube with no mixing and the drying time is very fast. The final note is that I have again used a piece of slate on the base of the right hand figure to change the angle of his pose.

Running bowman.

The final figure of the ninth bowman is pretty much a straight build except that I have altered the angle of the bow arm to one side and as a result, the arrow is resting on the ‘wrong’ side of the bow. As I’m not an archer, I’m not sure how realistic this is but it makes the pose more dynamic. The other point to note is that I have given him just one sword. This is true for all of the plastic pauper archers that I have made. I had originally thought to leave the swords off but decided that even paupers would have some sort of sword, so I have either given them one of the ‘extra’ short swords from the samurai sprue or simply cut the small sword away from the double Katana that is supplied.

Pauper soldiers, primed and ready for painting.

Here is the finished group, primed and ready for painting. I’m sorry that the picture doesn’t show the detail but it gives you the idea as to how they will look. I have a colour scheme in mind that will hopefully make them look a bit like pauper soldiers – more of a drab scheme than I have used for my other archers. I’ll update you with my progress in a future blog.

The Commercial bit.

If you would like to have a go at building your own Pauper soldier warband, all of the products that I use are available from the Arcane Scenery shop and with the exception of aerosols are supplied post free to most worldwide locations at the time of writing. Here are some links:

SAMURAI AND TEST OF HONOUR CATEGORY

GLUES AND ADHESIVES

FILLERS, INCLUDING VALLEJO PLASTIC PUTTY

BASING MATERIALS INCLUDING SLATE

Samurai Cavalry

If you have been following the Arcane Scenery Facebook page, you will be aware that I have been working on the Test of Honour Mounted Samurai set. In this picture heavy blog post, I’ve pulled most of the pictures together to give a running commentary on how I finished the band. I haven’t detailed all the paint colours but I use Vallejo model colour throughout combined with the Army painter ink wash range.

Mounted Samurai set assembled

You can see that I have assembled the full set before I started to paint them. I already had an idea as to how they would look. It might sound a bit daft, but when working on a project like this I have a sort of story or narrative in my head as to how the warband should look. You will get the idea as the finished warband appears. Just as an aside, I have made a mistake when assembling the horses tails – I’ll leave the reader to figure out what it is but I decided to leave things as they were…

I modified an GW Elven horse with green stuuf

I modified an GW Elven horse with green stuff

The mounted Samurai set comes with six plastic samurai and their horses plus an extra metal character model, the widow Takeda Naoko, which means that you have a ‘spare’ samurai. I decided to use a spare GW horse and using green stuff, it was a simple job to add some samurai trimming! There were now seven Samurai in the warband.

Onna Bugeisha Takeda Naocko

I started the painting with the Widow Takeda Naoko. It’s worth pointing out now, that my research regarding colours is limited to the warlord web site, my pinterest board ( link below) and googling ‘mounted samurai’, so don’t take any of my colours as ‘accurate’. I save all that malarkey for my Napoleonics and just want to have fun painting these models as the mood takes me. In my mind, I decided that a widow should have black armour and I put her on one of the more sedate horses. Her pose is not as dynamic as some that Warlord produce and it looked to me as she was watching over proceedings as her retinue wreaked vengeance!

Onna Bugeisha Takeda Naoko complete

The next two models that I painted were the widows immediate bodyguard. In my imagination, she would have two faithful retainers who would put an arrow through anyone that came too close! I also wanted a bit of Hollywood, so one of the archers is firing from a rearing horse.

Samurai mounted archers

To contrast against the Widows horse, I decided to paint these two on matching white horses. I am also using my new favourite red, Vallejo burnt red 70814. The archer on the rearing horse just needed a bit of filling at waist level to get him to sit upright in the saddle.

Samurai Archer on rearing horse

The next picture shows the three models together as I had imagined them. The bowstrings on the archers are made using stretched sprue – its an old modelling technique that I have covered in a previous blog – again, the link is below.

Takeda Naoko and bodyguard.

The next model was the ‘lead’ Samurai in another group of three that would make up the retinue. I planned to have these all in Black Armour with gold trim. The lead model is on a rearing horse and I thought that a light brown horse would look good.

The next samurai in the group

This picture also shows my preferred basing method. I use Vallejo dark earth textured paste and add some small rocks as detail. I then paint the whole thing with Vallejo chocolate brown and dry brush with chocolate brown and Iraqi sand mix. For the rocks, I also added some white to get a brighter finish.

Five mounted samurai in the band.

The basing is finished with some woodland scenic scatter, some Noch flowering tufts and my new favourite thing, Gamers grass long tufts. You can see the fifth Samurai on a brown horse, and in the next picture, the sixth on a similar horse.

Now six Samurai in the warband

It’s not clear but I have added the flags on the back of these three Samurai and using decals, added the Takeda mon to show their allegiance. I also used different colours on the horse decoration as what I hoped would be a subtle way of differentiating the different allegiances in the warband.

The final horse in progress.

I wanted the final or ‘bonus Samurai’ to be different again. With a bit of a nod towards the movies, this one would be all red on a dappled grey horse carrying the Takeda Colours into battle. Perhaps he is the Brother or son of the Widow Takeda Naoko charging to avenge the death of his Father/Brother in law?

Takeda Charge!

I was worried that perhaps I had used too much red so decided that the banner would have to be a different colour – a picture on google helped here.

Takeda banner added

The last couple of pictures show the warband complete.

Takeda Naoko’s warband complete

Takeda Naoko’s warband ride out to seek vengegance!

I started the project on 23 December 2017 and finished just this weekend. Painting these models have given me a great deal of pleasure as I have lost myself in the stories that I have imagined as I painted the models. I’m now looking forward to the battles that they will fight!

Below are some useful links, including links to products in the Arcane Scenery Shop. Remember we post free to most countries in the world.

SAMURAI RANGE

VALLEJO RANGE

ARMY PAINTER INKS

GAMERS GRASS

The joys of Sprue Stretching

MY PINTEREST SAMURAI BOARD

Another year over, A new one has begun

Not quite John Lennon, but a good intro to my first blog of the year. I had intended to do a review of the year but to be honest, I’m not in the mood to look back, I prefer to look forward. If you would like to know what I have been up to, there are over 40 blog entries from last year to peruse! That said, I’m not one for making New Years Resolutions as such. I prefer a 90 day plan. A year is a long time and there will be plenty to distract me. Test of Honour is a great example. I had never planned to model and paint Samurai or come to that anything Japanese. My focus was very much on building a Napoleonic Army with Saga Dark Age warbands as a happy distraction from churning out battalions of Brits.

My latest addition to my Warband

But along came Test of Honour, and I was hooked. I think I know why and bear with me whilst I explain.

Now, first of all, I had been stocking and selling the original Wargames Factory Samurai kits since their release. I had always been a fan of their sets long before they moved across to Warlord Games. I thought that in terms of value for money they were excellent and the sculpts were improving all the time. For those that doubt me here’s a couple of links to earlier blogs written in 2010 and 2011 respectively:

WARGAMES FACTORY DARK AGE MODELS

WELCOME BACK WARGAMES FACTORY

Despite my enthusiasm for Wargames factory, the Samurai kits didn’t really appeal, I was too involved in Napoleonics to consider them as a hobby project. Just to further name drop and show how I missed the early boat, Andrew Chesney, who was working at Warlord at the time, mentioned that he was playing a Samurai game with a couple of other guys from Warlord, a certain Andy Hobday and Graham Davey, did I fancy joining him in a game? At the time, I was again, too wrapped up in my own agenda and politely declined, although I did sell him some nice Japanese buildings that were being produced by Sarissa….

The rather Superb Sarissa Buildings

I nearly got hooked on the Samurai vibe when Zvezda released their 1/72nd range but 1/72nd is really not my preferred scale and although we commissioned some Japanese scenery in this scale, it didn’t take off either as a game or a range. Zvezda seem to lose interest quite early on as well and although some of the sets are still available, as far as I can see the range is not included in their latest catalogue and is disappearing fast.

The release of Ronin by North Star and Osprey books was also tempting. The miniatures are lovely but the rules didn’t quite capture my interest, nor more importantly, that of my gaming buddies, who like me were focusing elsewhere. So, no Samurai for me then…until Test of Honour was released last year.

New from Warlord Games, Test of Honour

I wrote about the initial release in my blog here:

A TEST OF WILL POWER

and my conversion to the game here:

TURNING JAPANESE

It would appear that I am hooked. The appeal for me is the simple game mechanics that expand with each supplement that you buy. This results in the game having collectability as well as allowing you to field all sorts of variations in your warband. Of course, this also means that there is depth to the game. As you build your warband, more tactical options are available. The game doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s not designed to be an accurate historical recreation of Samurai Warfare and this is quite liberating for a Napoleonic Wargamer. It’s simply a game using Samurai figures with just enough flavour to make it feel authentic. You can get through a game in an hour or less. This seems to ensure that nobody takes winning or losing too seriously – you can always have another chance to win if a game goes against you.

My own take on the Widow Takeda – Black seemed appropriate to me.

As you are encouraged to build your own retinue, you can either research a historical clan or simply design your own – again, a very liberating process for a historical wargamer. I guess as my collection grows, so will my very limited knowledge of the period but for now I am happy to focus on the modelling and painting and enjoy the freedom of creating my own collection of both models and scenery.

So no New Years Resolution for me as such. Don’t get me wrong, I do have a list of Projects to get on with but filling a year would be silly. I know what’s coming later in the year and it’s going to be brilliant… and I’m not just talking about Samurai!

So watch this space, or even better, follow us on Facebook. We will let you know what’s coming as soon as we can but for now, just leave a bit of space in your modelling schedule. As for those of you yet to try Test Of Honour, if you have a like minded gaming buddy, give it a go. The boxed set has pretty much everything that you will need for two players to get started for just £35.00 and we ship post free worldwide. But, don’t blame me if you get hooked!

TEST OF HONOUR

SAMURAI CATEGORY IN SHOP FOR OUR RANGE

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK!

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Category Archives: Samurai

Lots of Painting Time….

Samurai Scenery.

They think it’s all over…..

SAMURAI BLOG

ARCANE SCENERY SHOP

Daimyo’s Retinue – Progress?

ARCANE SCENERY

Daimyos Retinue is on the Work Bench!

The Commercial bit

ARCANE SCENERY

GLUES & FILLERS

VALLEJO PAINTS

SAMURAI

There’s always time….

ARCANE SCENERY

FACEBOOK

More for Test of Honour – Scenery & Musashi!

Ainstey Castings

GIANTS IN MINIATURE

ARCANE SCENERY

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK

Toranaga San!

SAMURAI

VALLEJO PAINTS

Pauper Paint Job

Pauper Soldiers

Samurai Cavalry

SAMURAI RANGE

VALLEJO RANGE

ARMY PAINTER INKS

GAMERS GRASS

The joys of Sprue Stretching

MY PINTEREST SAMURAI BOARD

Another year over, A new one has begun

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