Our Soldier of Fortune figures are always a highlight of each month, particularly for our Studio Painters who get to really go to town on these awesome models. I sat down with the award-winning Kirsten Williams to get the low-down on how she painted this month’s Samurai-themed special miniature – The Second Great Unifier!
What is Soldier of Fortune?
Each month, a different, unique special figure is available to purchase exclusively through The Warlord Games Webstore, for that month only. At the end of the month, a new special figure takes its place. Once gone, those figures will be unavailable for a minimum of two years thereafter, by any means.
Numbered sequentially, it’s easy to keep track of your whole collection of these Warlord Webstore-exclusive figures. Remember that each figure will only be around for a month; don’t miss out on getting hold of the complete collection of Soldiers of Fortune!
How did you feel when The Second Great Unifier came across your desk?
Having recently finished the Daimyos and heroes for Wars of the Samurai and thoroughly enjoyed the colours and variation in the models for that project, I was pleased to see another Japanese model arrive on my desk – especially given the hugely dynamic posing of this one. He’s got such an incredibly mobile stance, which adds so much character to the model.
This is a model that, while it doesn’t have a single specific reference image, comes from a period with a huge range of depictions and sources for colours. How did you go about deciding on a scheme?
Having recently painted the mounted version of this model, I already had my colour scheme more or less settled. Getting to that point wasn’t originally straightforward, though! My knowledge of the time period is limited at best, and whilst my Google-fu is strong, I had no idea which of the myriad of images I found online was even vaguely accurate. So I sat down with a colleague who’s very knowledgeable on the subject – Steve Morgan, the author of Pike & Shotte – and got his advice.
He suggested I look at the images from the Jidai Matsuri (or ‘Festival of the Ages’), and compare those to colour plates of historical paintings from the correct era. Aiming for somewhere in the colour palettes those two sources would get me an appropriate scheme. I made a drawing of the figure, block-painted in the colours by hand, and we checked it together. Once everyone was happy, I started on the figure itself – this is the kind of prep work I often find myself doing for projects, whether trying to faithfully reproduce a 2000 AD character or replicate a historical image.
What were you most excited about to work on on The Second Great Unifier?
Unlike many of the other Samurai characters (and his own mounted version), The Second Great Unifier model has a completely uncovered face with a lot of detail. This meant I could go to town with his expression and eyes in a way I couldn’t previously! The eyes are very important in setting the tone for a face, especially on a mobile model where bodily direction is important, and it took me quite a while to get them balanced correctly. His entire body flows in a specific way, and if he was glancing off in the wrong way it would throw the entire sense of motion off. This is a really interesting challenge for me as a painter, as it lets me literally bring a model to life!
What part of the painting process challenged you the most?
Other than the aforementioned eyes, the armour panels were the next big challenge. They are made up of so many tiny squares, each of which needs to be separate and distinct, whilst the highlighting across them needs to be even and consistent. They took absolutely ages!
Additionally, the colours of his clothes are meant to be vibrant, but also not comic-book bright. This meant making them just muted and pastel enough to appear realistic, whilst not losing the vibrancy of the period artwork and dyes, which is a real test of any painter’s ‘eye’ for colour.
The base of this model is hugely important to its sense of dynamism. How did you go about painting and decorating it?
Almost all of the decoration comes built into the base, which made my life nice and easy! Working around the need to match the rest of the samurai figures with the base gravel colour, I researched the colour of freshly-cut bamboo (thank you House Of Flying Daggers and its fantastic bamboo forest fight scene!), and made that the basis for the rest of the colour palette. Inspiration for the rocks came from various old Japanese monuments and statues, specifically in using a brown base for the rock rather than a traditional grey.
What advice would you give to someone about to paint The Second Great Unifier?
There is a lot of historical inspiration out there regarding The Second Great Unifier. You don’t need to follow the same plates and inspiration I did, as there are plenty of others to choose from! I would advise picking a main theme for the colours though, as with so many different sections to the clothing it’s easy to accidentally go overboard. I went for warm autumnal reds, offset by one main green and blue.
Also, this figure has a lovely wide flat back, so if you’ve ever considered trying your hand at freehand patterns, this is a great model to have a go with. Japanese design lends itself well to long, flowing floral or wave-based designs, and the model will support that. Other than that – enjoy yourself, and always remember which mug is tea, and which is paint water!
Rules for fielding The Second Great Unifier can be found in the Wars of the Samurai supplement for Pike & Shotte. This mighty tome gives you everything you need to fight the battles of the Sengoku Jidai (warring states) era of feudal Japan, and the accompanying range of miniatures allows you to assemble a mighty host, ready to do battle. Remember, though, that the Second Great Unifier is only available during the month of March, so make sure you don’t miss out and…
