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….
The Commercial Bit
Practically all of the models, paints, bases, textures and finishes are available post free to most world wide locations in my shop here:
ARCANE SCENERY