Heaven and Earth a Samurai Project

I only finished two of mistress Yae’s retinue I was hoping to finish four but I think I am getting better at painting female faces.

Well I started to paint the last of mistress Yae’s war band to night I think I will break them up to two sets of four just to make it easier to paint.

So I was playing around with some trees and minis.  The trees are bought from XtrainsModelTrains.com They are located in Washington State USA. The tree trunks I made using Balsa wood.

Oh I have not forgotten Mistress Yae and her female Samurai unit. I finished up three and have eight more to go. The first two I had a bit of trouble getting the eyes and skin tone down. I asked Dallas Kemp for some help and I think it paid off for Mistress Yae.

I needed some building so I made some out of coffee stirs and craft sticks I wanted to make a fishing village so I also need fishing accessories as well. I made the nets out of cheese cloth that I died using black tea. The fish I sculpted out of putty.

Check out these blasts from the past first is a Dragon from the Grenadier company circa late 80’s and a  1/35th scale Samurai from the Tamiya circa early 70’s

I also wanted to do another conversion using the new Ninjas of Iga and the heads that you get from the Masked Men set both are from Test of Honour.  The conversion was simple I just cut off the heads of the Ninjas and replaced them with the Masked Men heads. I also used putty to hide the seam where the heads meet the body I tried to make it look like the hoods of the Ninja suits.

This was something I saw when I was a kid and it stuck with me till this day. Ninjas with demon masks.

I the Samurai movie heven and Earth (1990) Tekeda had a warrior mistress named  Yae she commanded a small unit of female Samurai. so I decided to make it for my Tekeda force. Now I know we should not make units that we saw in a movie for it is usually not accurate but some times you have to go with the rule of cool.

basically female Samurai look just like their male counter part because of all the armor that they are wearing. I found some bald female heads from Statuesque miniatures and I found out that I am not that good of a sculptor so I decided to use horse tails for there ponytails. that was quick and easy. then I sculpted some bandanas and hair which was easy but you need to have paitcents and take your time.

At this time I wanted to add some civilians so I got some of the Perry’s to add a little flavor to the table. I also painted up a limited edition unarmored Samurai and monk as well as a palanquin from A W Miniatures.

I painted up two clans first was the Shimazu clan then the Okubo clan the one that I play. For the back banners for the Okubo I used post it notes and it seemed to worked out.

At this time I was introduced to Test of Honour and was I hooked I found a clan I wanted to play the, Okubo clan.  Their Samurai had butterflies as sashimonos and Ashigaru had the wing of a butterfly. I also painted a miniature for my friend that wanted to give away prices for his tournament  so I obliged him.

I also painted up Samurai squads for Tekeda as well and I was able to finish these in a week. Painting at least a half hour a day really is a great way to bulk out an army.

I also decided to paint up Tekeda’s allied generals as well.

Being a very honorable Samurai Takeda was not one for Arquebus so archers is what he would be using.

I decided to make some barricades for Uesugi’s Arquebus squads. I used bamboo skewers and it did the trick.

So painting 20 Cavalry stands even using assembly line techniques took me almost three weeks but the results look pretty  good in my opinion.

I started to build 20 cavalry stands.

As I stated earlier I was going to have to paint up two armies so I decided that Tekeda needed some love too so I painted up the rest of the 40 man squad of Ashigaru spearmen and I also added decals (water transfers) I used Veni Vidi Vici decals and I love them the only problem is that they don’t make a large selection for Samurai.

Tekeda loved his Cavalry so I started to collect more for his force.

And here is my Samurai Kingdom of Men for Kings of War. I think we only played three games. Don’t you love friends that go “Oh look a new Shiny” ! Well it got me to start painting up my Samurai armies and yes you heard right. I am painting two Samurai armies because I know none of my friends will paint one up on there own.

And every general needs a friend so here is a Dragon. In Kings of War you can have War Beasts so I dug out this old Clan War miniature . It is an Earth Dragon I painted back in the late nineties.

Damn I am old =P