I am still hip deep in my Warmaster Nippon army project and decided it was time to paint up some more Samurai. I had finished three units in red and wanted a second group in a different color. I went back and further and decided to go with blue armor. The reason for the different color, is that I wanted the option to split the army into two, should I want to do Nippon wars!
The box set does not give you enough Samurai to do six units (which was my target), so I found a single sprue on Ebay to get my numbers up. Like my other units, I did include a few archers to give some variation, even if the army list does not include Samurai archers! You get so many in the set, so having a few sprinkled in is helpful (I still have a baggy full of ones I will not be using!).
I started these by priming them white and hitting them with a contrast blue paint, after I counted them on sticks for painting. The paint I selected was a bit darker and grayer than I untented, so I ended up dry brushing them with a light blue to brighten them up.
Next I went and hit the cloth, skin and weapons with various colors. I opted for orange shirts, to contrast the armor at the top of the figure, to focus the eye. All the other colors were subtle shades of grays, tans, browns and black. I then hit all the models with Agrax to blend everything together. This darkened the blue again, so I went back with a blue glaze and hit the armor, yet again… I then painted all the banners with their unit colors (Black, blue and white).
It was then time to pop them off their sticks and base all the figures. I realized I made a mistake in my back banner composition, so one unit has more and another has less, but no big deal. I attached the steps with white blue to the Shogun bases I bought for the army. I had actually run out of bases and had to order more, so this unit sat for a couple of weeks waiting! I added my custom flocking as I was mounting the figures on the bases.
I let that all dry and spayed down the tree units with dull coat. Once that set, I added the decals to all the back banners. I then hit a few highlights, here and there on the orange. I finished up by painting all the metallic parts silver and brass, as needed. With that, I have three more units of foot Samurai. I think this will wrap up this troop type (for now at least). Now, onto the next unit!
- Manteuffel