West Wind Samurai

I managed to pick these up off of ebay for a great deal. I had wanted to sample some these figures as the lower ranking foot samurai look just like the Minamoto samurai on the period scroll depicting the raid on Sanjo Palace. These are bare-legged and without armor for their arms as in the scroll. I painted them up today using the block painting technique followed by Minwax Tudor Satin Stain. These are the first figures I've painted in some time, as I've been in a sort of painting slump.

The two on the left in the photo above appear to be in armor from a period a bit later than Heian, but not too far off. The three on the right are carrying naginata which many of the foot samurai in the scroll are armed with.

The image below shows them block painted over a black undercoat.

Next, reshly stained with Minwax. The can of stain is several years old and only a few drops are left and had to be refreshed with thinner.

Here are a couple of images from the scroll - note the bare legs and lack of sode (upper arm protection) on some.

The samurai in the scroll are from the Minamoto clan and were considered uncouth by the opposing Taira clan. In fact, the scroll shows many of the Minamoto whiskered and bare legged - as well as doing very vulgar things like decapitating unarmed individuals, and parading the heads on the blades of their naginata.

Here's a comparison shot of various 28mm miniatures for the Heian period.

For the record, I like the less-armored West Wind samurai over their more armored ones. The more armored ones (with sode, etc.) seem to be wearing later period armor which would work fine in Sengoku era, but look a bit advanced for Heian. All of them come with separate heads, which allows for slight variations of poses. Overall, the West Wind figures aren't bad figures and painted up quite quickly.