Ashigaru w/ Nagae-yari

Doing this unit reminded me why I took such a long break from adding more units to my Shimazu clan project.......because they are extremely hard to paint!! Granted the finished effect is very satisfying because of the pay off which is if you put the effort in Samurai armies will rewarded you with spiffy looking units because of the detail they have. I suppose I look at it as the wargamers version of running a marathon.

I've made some changes to the Ashigaru in that I lightened up the armour a shade as I felt my previous ones were a little too dark. I'm very happy with the change and I'll need to go back over the other Ashigaru and update them to look the same as these ones. I also decided to go for a slight bamboo effect on the Nagae-yari which I rather like. I mean if ones already going to paint all the darn lace then why not go the extra mile on the yari....right?

Impetus bases (my favourite btw) are great fun so I took the opportunity to pose this unit as if preparing to receive or hoping to receive a cavalry charge. Not sure how many units I'll do like this as it's not very practical on the tabletop with the extended yari, but hey I like the effect and I'll either add a spare base in front when units meet or turn them around briefly in the melee.  

Not sure when I'll do my next unit as like I said it's a marathon, but I will for sure do some more.:-)

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Perry Miniatures

Samurai charging again,but now with scenary

Working on lighting and background and thought I'd show it using the Samurai from my previous post. Photography is always the area I'm most unsure of myself. What looks better a white background or scenery background? White background helps show detail, but scenery shows more colour.
Do you think I should in the future:

1. Keep the white background.

2. Go with scenery backgrounds.

3. Mix it up with both white and scenery backgrounds.

Thanks for viewing and your help.:-)

Samurai Charging with Katanas

Next base for my Shimazu Impetus army is Samurai charging with katanas. I painted my Samurai in strong individual colours which is in contrast to my Ashigaru's more neutral uniformed look in order to distinguish them as the true elites of my army. However, I still wanted them to look like they belong to the same army and so the shimazu mon(heraldry) remained on the sashimono's(back banners) and Nobori(large Banner) and also in the same colour which I hope succeeds in tying them together.

I won't beat around the bush and will simply say these guys were flat out the hardest miniatures I've ever painted and made the Ashigaru seem like a walk in the park. That said, I'm pleased with the results and feel the time spent was really worth it. Now that I know what is required of me in terms of time needed to complete Samurai bases I really need to pick up the pace when painting Ashigaru bases to make sure I meet my goal for 300pts by September which is roughly 11 bases plus a camp.
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures

Ashigaru Arquebusier

It's been a bit since my last post, but there were reasons starting with I was in the states on vacation for a couple weeks visiting relatives plus the amount of work to paint this unit was more then I expected and lastly I have the man flu and the world is coming down around my ears!!(moan,sniffle)

So now that I'm done with my lame excuses I'll talk a bit a bout the unit. It's my first unit for my Shimazu Clan 28mm Impetus Samurai army. I knew they were going to be hard to paint, but not as hard as they turned out to be. They are Perry figures and hands down the most difficult figures I've attempted to date and these are just the Ashigaru and not the Samurai who are ever harder which has me concerned. Mainly because the Perry's added so much fine detail it's hard to paint and highlight(darn near snapped a brush in frustration). That said, I won't give up because for years I've wanted a Samurai army and in the end I think I'll be very happy I persevered.

When starting I soon realized I had to first study how all the armour was put together before even trying to paint it as you will make mistakes if you start assuming things(like I did) making you start over(like I did 3x!). I decided for a brown armour for my Ashigaru for reasons like-

-Shogun-Loved the movie and Toranaga's Samurai were brown which I liked.
-Earthy colours- I really enjoy earthy tones so I thought since I'll be painting Ashigaru more then Samurai  I should use colours I really enjoy the most.
-I wanted something different then Red and Black which are the most used colours
-Really like the Samurai and Ashigaru in brown armour by Angus McBride

I wanted a nice contrasting colour to the brown, but again opted out on the more common black,white,red and instead went with a light blue which works out very well for me.
Overall I'm reasonably happy with the results, however I do need to add some improvements that I didn't really see when I was painting that have come to light when I viewed the pictures.

You would think I might want to take a break after complaining about their difficulty, but actually I'm already looking forward to the next base with the only thing being do I add another Ashigaru  or attempt a Samurai base. I'm also doing a couple SCW figures, but they won't take to long and ACW.....

As always thank you very much for taking time out time see what I'm doing as I really appreciate it!
Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures

Shimazu Samurai

I've been contemplating doing Samurai for many years, but haven't started them due to not having the right rule sets or lists, intimidation of painting them and just not finding the clan that really nailed it for me completely. All that has changed now with Impetus which I believe is a perfect rule set for Samurai and the Shimazu clan that totally fits the bill for me. As to painting intimidation I've decided just paint them and see how it goes instead of worrying about it all the time.
Recently I've seen fantastic Samurai armies coming from folks like Saxon Dog, Fig Man 1, Hetairoi Wargames and perusing the awesome pics on the Perry site again has really restarted my imagination for the period.
I'm not saying I'll be starting them immediately, but they have moved up on my to do list into the top 3 with ACW and Arabs. Since I don't have a imminent project due I'll likely be jumping around mostly between these three projects for the foreseeable future with a few things else here and there. 
Why choose the Shimazu clan? The reason is I really like their background as an underdog clan that is tough as old boots. While they are not a tiny clan or even what I'd term small, they are also not what I'd call a super huge clan either and this really appealed to me as I like the smaller or less well known clans more then the really big well known powerful ones. The clan will include allies from the Arima clan which is a small clan they teamed up with to defeat another larger clan. The colours and mons from these clans I also like. Some good information on them can be found here:
http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Shimazu_clan
http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Arima_clan_%28Hizen%29
It will mainly be under the leadership of Shimazu Yoshihisaand and his very capable brothers
http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Shimazu_Yoshihiro
The picture featured above isn't the Shimazu clan, but is a picture I like and so I featured it.