After painting all that intricate laced armour on my Kingsford samurai, I decided for a change of pace by doing some unarmoured samurai by Perry Miniatures.
Well, there might not have been any tricky lacing to paint. But that was more than compensated for by the steady hand required to paint the pattern on the kimono (correct term?) each man is wearing.
These 28mm Perry figures are exquisite. I’d admired this set for many years. So although I have settled on Kingsford for my armoured samurai, this set by the Perry twins (and several other sets in Perry’s samurai range) will not escape my clutches.
There are three things I particularly like about these figures:
- The way they look so Japanese – something indefinable, but definitely there.
- The realistic poses imbued with so much flowing movement.
- Their wonderful facial expressions, straight out of the TV series ‘Shogun’!
In the above photo we have the chap with the cherry-blossom pattern who is fighting the man in the striped kimono. I’m actually not 100% happy with the cherry-blossom pattern, so may redo that once all the other figures are painted. The striped guy, however, I’m really happy with. These bases, of course, are still waiting treatment.
I’ve painted just three of the figures from this six-figure set so far. Once all six are completed, with the addition of one more unarmoured samurai from their civilian set, I will have ‘The Seven Samurai’, as per the famous movie.
As you can see from the photos, my painting style is somewhat impressionistic. I find it impossible to obtain the fine brush control that is needed for close-up photos. My figures look their best when viewed from a slight distance.
DRESSING THE LINES 