'East' from GregB: Mounted Samurai Warrior

For my submission to the "East" theme category, I decided to look into my pile of regretted purchased (which, regrettably, is kind of large).  Prime among that sorry segment of the hoard are a few packages of Samurai stuff from the Perry's mind-blowing 28mm range of Samurai metals.  I thought a Samurai, fabled warrior of Japan, would make a fitting submission for the "East" theme.

These figures have been sitting around my basement for years. At the time I ordered them, I had thoughts of maybe doing Lord-of-the-Rings-rules-style skirmishes.   Samurai are amazing, and those games would be a lot of fun.  Unique as well, as nobody in our group does this period or setting.

But I did not find Samurai easy to paint, and they were even harder to research, so I have ignored the figures and they sit unpainted and unassembled in my pile of shame.  I painted one figure years ago in a prior Challenge (veterans of the Challenge may recall the year of the '47 Ronin' for the Curtgeld) and I never wanted to paint another one.  But part of the fun of the AHPC is to try and push your boundaries a bit, so I thought I would try again.  This theme submission was the perfect chance to experiment a bit.

This Samurai was not much easier to paint...the sculpting is amazing, I love the Perry's work, but the bottom line is that I was just not too sure what I was doing...so I squinted a lot at some photos on line, and gave it my best shot. At one point I wanted to just throw the damn thing into the nearby Red River, but I'm glad now that he is finished that I ignored my inner-juvenile frustrations.  He looks pretty scary on the horse, ready cut someone down to size.  Damn, it would be fun to game this stuff.

This was an interesting diversion - but who knows, maybe I can at least finish the other two Samurai from the package as part of this Challenge? We'll see..