Painting Update March 28 2011

I spent my Saturday at Gamers' Haven playing Warhammer Ancients, then Legends of the Old West, and finally I sat to watch a game of Ambush Alley. Two millenia of history in one day!

Sunday I did work on my painting. I managed to finish all eight of my Pathfinder goblins, minus the base (which I generally do when I have 10-20 minis and do a batch at a time). So I embarked on my samurai. I was in a bind, because although I expect those miniatures to be used in mostly fantasy setting, I planned to make them look as historical as possible. This meant research.

Research is a part I really like because I constantly learn a number of (mostly useless) facts. In this case, I spent a few hours browsing the web and going through old Osprey book and illustrations. After refreshing my memory on the exploits of samurai greats like Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, I came up with a few design and notes on how I would paint my five samurai.

The first thing is that base warriors, tended to have a more uniform look while Samurai commanders and leaders wore wildly colorful outfits. This served many purpose, but mostly it allowed them to be recognizable from afar. Another element is that it allowed them to display wealth. I see my samurai characters as "adventurers" so they would not be of the more uniform type. Each would have to be unique.

Next came the choice: what color to paint them? Samurai wore a variety of color, although a dark, lacquered red (close to GW's Scab Red) color seemed to be quite common. Black, gold, yellow and white were also common. That's a pretty narrow palette... However, one I can handle and make something nice with. To supplement and add extra color to the models, I took extra inspiration from Legend of the Five Rings, which has also produced awesome samurai art. Not historical, but it would work.

An hour later, I had my hand covered with black, red, green and white. But my samurai were on the way (at least two of them).

That's today's update folks!

JP