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May 24, 2013, 6:05pm

Cardboard Warriors forum :: MEMBER PROJECTS :: poptarticus' PROJECTS :: Samurai Commander w/ Katana

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Topic: Samurai Commander w/ Katana (Read 1,598 times)

poptarticus
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Samurai Commander w/ Katana
« Thread Started on Mar 16, 2010, 12:31am »

Okay,

So I went back to the drawing board, so to speak, and worked out the first official figure for my "generic" Samurai army. Before anyone says anything about the armor, most of the details will be in the coloring. I opted to avoid a lot of the gratuitous fluff that harumaki-do could easily have because I don't really think small miniatures handle lots of detail well. I may change my mind later and add some in, but we'll see.

As a result, there are no ties for the kabuto (helmet) or the sode (shoulder guards), no haidate (leg guards that sit under the "skirt"), no sheath, and no odoshi (lacing) aside from what holds the kusazuri (skirt pieces) on to the do (breastplate). The suneate (shin guards) are very simple and I opted to give him bracers instead of proper kote (arm guards). He also doesn't have a sei-ita (literally "coward's plate," a piece that covers the opening up the back) because I felt it would be too much going on. Not to mention the fact that there aren't enough kusazuri, as there should be five, but a two dimensional figure takes a lot of width out of the armor.

You might be able to tell that I'm a costume designer (even got a degree for it!). It's actually kind of a pain when it comes to things like this, because it makes me question all of my choices over-much. :-[

So what do you all think? Does it need more detail? Less? Does it look strange without eyes? (I tried the helmet every which way until I settled on this one as looking best, and the most menacing.)

Other miscellaneous information: All of this artwork took me approximately 5 hours. I worked entirely digital, using a variety of sources. I did the artwork itself in GIMP with a Wacom Intuos 2 on Ubuntu (Karmic) Linux and traced it in Inkscape.

[image]

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squirmydad
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Re: Samurai Commander w/ Katana
« Reply #1 on Mar 16, 2010, 1:10am »

I like it a lot. However...

I think you can put the ties on the sode without the detail becoming cluttered. I think you need to pull the sword arm up a little, due to the flat perspective it looks like the sword is resting on the helmet. Nice dynamic pose and the shadowed eyes do work well for menacing.

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poptarticus
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Re: Samurai Commander w/ Katana
« Reply #2 on Mar 16, 2010, 10:05am »

I looked at it so long I didn't even notice the sword! But you are totally right, in the harsh light of not 1AM he looks like his arm got tired.

I'll fix that and try adding the sode ties and repost for further inspection.

Glad you like it, and thanks!

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agelessone
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Re: Samurai Commander w/ Katana
« Reply #3 on Mar 22, 2010, 3:51am »

Typically the blade would be oriented the other way...with the edge up.

Just nit picking..but this looks awesome!!

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Sirrob01
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Re: Samurai Commander w/ Katana
« Reply #4 on Mar 22, 2010, 6:52am »

How's this guy coming along? He looks real nice above, any plans to do a few different poses?

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