This is part two of my web pages that focus on military modeling, painting and detailing.

 I have not painted this one up as much as the other one as I wanted it to have a different appearance and keep its Bronze look.

This warrior is also made of cast resin, then painted up to give the impression that it is made of bronze, but I thought that a dash of paint here and there would bring the figurine a bit more to life.

Again, the attention to detail on this figurine is quite outstanding, leaving lots of areas to paint up and bring out the full glory of the model.

You have to be careful though not to overdo a model such as this as this particular figurine in my view did not warrant too much paintwork on it that would distract the battle readiness of his stance.

"About to strike" would be a good title for the images and I for one would not have liked to have fought a guy like this back in old Japan.  By the way the figure is standing I can't see how I could get a good clean swipe at him with my sword as it would just hit his armor side plates and not be enough for a fatal blow.

I only dabbed a bit of paint onto these side plates to illustrate the cotton stitching that would have held them in place.  Although shiny by appearance, these plates would have been made of wood or leather, designed to be lightweight and maneuverable and offer just enough protection as to stop a swords glancing blow from completely entering the arm.  A well directed swipe or thrust though and the leather would offer about as much protection as a piece of tissue paper against a Samurai sword.

Mobilty - Firepower (sword) - and Protection are the three key elements to armored warfare even on foot, and the Japanese Samurai Officer chose a mixture of mobility and firepower ( the Samurai razor sharp sword was the firepower ) over that of protection.

His fighting technique relied on speed and first strike to the opponent rather than accept blows, as a Samurai sword would slice or puncture though steel plate anyway, so what's the point in slowing yourself down by wearing it !

The Samurai Officer in these pictures can be seen wearing shin protection and also protection around his wrists.  In this case the protection is made of bronze with a leather skin under-wrap and could stop a glancing blow from slicing too deep during a duel with an opponent and perhaps give you enough time to render that killer strike by your own defense.

Samurai Officers of the day also carried a 'Tanto' or knife in their belts as a back up weapon incase their sword got knocked from their hand or they dropped it ( heaven forbid ) during some excursion.

As stated earlier, this figurine was not painted up too much by myself as I though that it was quite complete 'out of the box ' I only painted the face and highlighted some of the cord that ties the armor with yellow paint......Also the leggings , the knife handle and the sash had my treatment....

...As did the hands and the sword handle.....And the sash that ties on the Sword Saya (scabbard)......And the eye's of course along with the moustache and the chin strap and some gold work around the cuffs and shoulder plates......And the leather strap that holds on the back plate, the steel studs and gold work on the helmet. phew !!

I hope that you have enjoyed seeing this additional web page about my cast resin Samurai Officer.

Its quite cool that there are so many different figurines like this to collect, there are many other Samurai Officer Figurines available on the internet in different and varying stances from different periods of Feudal Japan but its finding the space to keep them all.  I will be satisfied with the two that I have got.