Ronin/Daisho, a return to the East

[Modhail]

Years ago, as many of us do, I bought a lot of Samurai. They were atrocious lumps of metal from a company I cannot remember, I shall speak of these no more, as soon they were replaced with a batch of The Assault Group and Perry miniatures. Then the project stalled and a couple of Samurai and a Torii were left in a shameful half-finished state.
Today, thanks to Gunbird's sudden spurt of building Japanese village buildings, I decided to correct that stain on my honour:


And a more close up of the two Samurai:


No master plan, no painting goals for my Samurai at the moment; just painting them when and as long as I feel like it. Hopefully this will end up a warband or two for Ronin and/or Daisho (Maybe even Frostgrave, I never intended my Samurai wargaming to be purely historical, and I'd planned on adding some mythological stuff as well.)

[Craig]

Hopefully this will end up a warband or two for Ronin and/or Daisho (Maybe even Frostgrave, I never intended my Samurai wargaming to be purely historical, and I'd planned on adding some mythological stuff as well.)

Fortunately, Daisho comes with a full set of legendary options including weapons, armour, mythical beasts and even three legendary buntai.

[olyreed]

Daisho would be ideal

[Modhail]

Fortunately, Daisho comes with a full set of legendary options including weapons, armour, mythical beasts and even three legendary buntai.

I know...  It should arrive the coming week. Already a fan of IHMN, I'm sure I'll like it.

[Craig]

I know...  It should arrive the coming week. Already a fan of IHMN, I'm sure I'll like it.

Let us know what you think. All feedback, whether it be weal or woe, is useful.

[Modhail]

I've only skimmed it so far, not yet a proper cover-to cover read through, but so far it seems to be up to your usual standards of excellence.
I like the Ki powers, they seem to be great addition, I'm looking forward to using those in anger.  The point system seems to be a direct match for IHMN, so I have the option of chucking all the rules in a blender and doing crazy cross-over games, always a great plus. (Will you be doing sci-fi rules/add-ons at some point? Or are there any fan conversions?)
I'm a smidge disappointed in the limited options (especially weapons and gear-wise) for certain magical buntai (Mainly because they don't match the mini's I already have), but nothing a little gentleman's agreement between players can't fix.
I'll let you know if I have any further thoughts after a proper read-through and game. (Mind you, I still have to finish painting enough figures for a Buntai or two!)

Spent some time today, as I was assisting/supervising my son with his homework:
Cleaned my two sets of Perry Miniatures Townsfolk:

And then based them:

Who says good parenting can't be fun/productive? 
Now, the basing can dry the rest of the day, and hopefully I can primer them tomorrow and start on the first batch. It's a bit of a spontaneous collaborative effort with Gunbird/Johan, as he is building a lovely samurai village, I might as well provide the population.

[Modhail]

This week the scale bamboo I ordered arrived. It was however a bit smaller than I had anticipated:

There's a fair bit of flash, so this week, whenever I had a few spare minutes, I would trim a few stems of bamboo:



Also, I painted the skin on the first five villagers:

A bit rougher than I would have liked (I'm apparently a bit out of practice..., plus I was still a bit shaky from the flu earlier this week), but I'm not too bothered as they're essentially set dressing/objective markers.

[Modhail]

Did some more on the trial bamboo stand today:

Now to figure out how to paint it...

[SotF]

With bamboo stands, normally it's easier to paint the bamboo separate from the base.

[Modhail]

Well, the trial set of bamboo is done, except for some growies (flock, some small plants, such things)  on the edge of the base:

Looking at this, I'm ready to go into mass production, I think.

I misted the bamboo stalks with some matt varnish and then spray-primed the base in black. Naturally, this hit the lower part of the bamboo as well, but this wouldn't be a problem.
Then I painted the base with Vallejo Burnt Umber and drybrushed German Camouflage Orange, Desert Yellow and finally Iraqui Sand. Again, this hit the lower sections of the bamboo, neatly covering up the primer overspray, as I had planned. There was some minor flaking of the paint on the thinner bamboo stalks, but nothing too noticeable. Finally I roughly hit the bamboo stalks themselves with very watery English Uniform, to get rid of the uniform green colour.
Looks good to me, I'll be cutting bases for the larger bamboo bushes tonight or tomorrow, hopefully I'll have a complete grove by/over Easter.

[Modhail]

And mass production occurred:


Since I was on a roll, and had some time to spare (Once you get a workflow, bamboo assembles fast!) I build a quick little extra:


With an extra long weekend coming up, paint should occur soon. 

[olyreed]

Looking great

[Modhail]

Thanks Oly!

They have encountered paint this weekend:

              Daimyo Yakitori finds his entry into Miso-Ji has been barred...
I'll put some greenery on the very edges of the bases sometime soon, to blend them into the table a little bit more.

And a baggie of (very) bright blossoming cherry trees has arrived:

I won't be able to finish them before Hanami ends, but still, nice to have. I'll put them on low-profile bases and fixate the flock blossom. (As it seems they are a bit prone to shedding. And I want my trees to last longer than actual cherry blossom. 

[Modhail]

Guess what, I managed to steal away on the second day of Easter to do little painting:


Yesterday I spent painting minis alongside my wife. It was a very lovely day, as she hadn't painted in years and were both enjoying the activity and time spent together.
I didn't quite manage to finish the first five villagers, but I should be able to get them done next weekend, providing I can find time to actually paint then.

[OSHIROmodels]

Great thread 

cheers

James