Redvers and Son Get Into Bushido

At Salute this year, while wandering past the TT Combat stand, the Eastern Empires mdf terrain called out and when I got home, I found that I had purchased a dohyō ring. Not sure how that happened.

The model took some time to build but went together fairly easily. The one area that I did want to change was the actual ring. The model has some small mdf plugs to mark it out but real sumo rings have rice straw bales, so I will replace the plugs with string instead.

Once built, I sealed the whole lot with two coats of mdf sealer before applying a primer.

The stones making up the base were flat and required some texture. I blobbed on some artist gesso for this which is fine enough to not look silly but has enough texture that it will dry brush well.

Painting wise, as terrain, you want to make it look good, but not spend ages on it. The stones round the base were Luftwaffe grey and then dry brushed with a light grey. The mortar was painted Iraqi sand (as was the actual sumo ring) and then given a brown wash. Given the large expanse of the roof and pillars, I used cheap acrylic paints on these to save some money.

The roof is flat but I wanted to create a ridged tile effect. The tiles had been engraved onto the roof but without any profile, it looked a bit off. To create the profile, I’ve painted what would be the ridge with a lighter green and where the ‘valley’ of the tile meets the ridge, a darker green. I’ve varnished the roof with a gloss to further try and recreate the glazed tiles found in Japan and China. The last step was to airbrush some sun yellow around the lantern to try and create a glow effect.

A bit of flock to recreate moss around the base helps set the terrain onto the table.

The fences were very quick, no shading and I couldn’t be bothered with dry brushing – life it too short.