Making a samurai diorama for my father's birthday
Once in a while it’s a good idea to try something new and in this article I try three new things. I paint samurais, I make a diorama and I let my five year old daughter beat me at my own game.
Two rivaling samurais settle their differences with violence. North of the city of Okayama, Chūgoku region, 1562.
I’m not very good at gifts but when my father celebrated 75 years this year I wanted to give him something special. I’ve also never given anyone anything I have painted besides the odd unit or miniature here and there but nothing I’ve done specifically as a gift. So I thought it would be fun to make a little diorama to give to my father on his birthday. He used to train a lot of Japanese martial arts and was really into a lot of aspects around that so my first thought was to do something with that. I browsed around looking for cool samurai miniatures and eventually found a pack from Perry Miniatures with samurai in everyday clothing. One of the martial arts he did was Iaido and the clothing you wear while doing that looks quite similar to what the miniatures wear.
The two finished samurai.
Painting was kept simple and straightforward because I didn’t have too much time. I started by basecoating the models in Black Vallejo Surface Primer. For the red parts I used one of my favourite reds, Deep Red from Scale 75 as a base coat. This was recess shaded with Citadel Agrax Earthshade. I cleaned up the shade with Deep Red and then added Blood Red, also from Scale 75, to it, around 50/50 and made a highlight. I continued to add Blood Red until I made a final highlight of pure Blood Red. The undershirt (sorry for my lack of knowledge about samurai clothing) was base coated with Light Brown, a Vallejo Model Air colour. I know those are meant to airbrush but I mostly use them with my regular brush since they basically come pre-thinned. Obviously on top of a black basecoat you might need a couple of coats to get good coverage. This was then washed with Citadel Seraphim Sepia. I reestablished the Light Brown as a highlight and then added more and more Vallejo Model Air Aged White for the highlights. The final highlight was pure Aged White. I also painted in an orange stripe around the sleeves and neck using Vallejo Model Color Orange Brown. This wasn’t washed, I just added Aged White to it for a highlight or two.
The blue on the other samurai was based coated with Vallejo Model Colour Dark Prussian Blue. This was then recess shaded with Citadel Nuln Oil to create some very dark shadows. I reestablished Dark Prussian Blue as the first highlight and then used Prussian Blue, also a Vallejo Model Colour paint, as a very broad highlight. I then added Vallejo Game Colour Dead White to the Prussian Blue and used it as highlights. Be very careful with this as just a little Dead White can make a big difference. I think the highlights on my samurai came out a little too strong. The white shirt is my usual bleached white recipe with a base coat of Citadel Ulthuan Grey washed with Citadel Contrast Apothecary White. Then reestablish highlights with Ulthuan Grey. First highlight is a 50/50 mix of Ulthuan Grey and Dead White and the final highlight is just Dead White on its own. If I’d paint some more I’d add some patterns on the clothing to make them look a bit more intricate.
The black parts of the miniatures, like the sword scabbard and hair, were painted Vallejo Model Colour Black and highlighted first with Vallejo Air Dark Sea Grey and then just Sea Grey. The skin was painted Cadian Fleshtone from Citadel which was then washed with Reikland Fleshshade, also from Citadel. This was then highlighted with Cadian Fleshtone. I added Kislev Flesh, also from Citadel, to the Cadian Fleshtone for further highlights.
The models were then varnished with Ultra Matte Varnish from AK Interactive. I applied this with my airbrush, two layers just slightly thinned. It works just as fine to brush on, just watch out for pooling in the recesses.
Lastly the sword was given two or three thin layers of Citadel Runefang Steel and then the sword edge was given a layer of Stormhost Silver, also from Citadel. The hand guard and butt cap of the swords were painted Vallejo Model Colour Brass, washed with Citadel Seraphim Sepia and then highlighted with Vallejo Model Colour Old Gold. I paint the metals last to keep their shine and I thought that was especially important here.
For the diorama itself I bought a glass jar with a lid made out of cork. The miniatures were simply glued on to the cork using superglue. This was then based using Vallejo Earth Texture, some weathering powder and plenty of grass tufts.
This was an incredibly hard photo to take because the glass reflected all the light I lit it with. So this is actually three photos stitched together. Two where I lit one side at a time and then a third where I removed the lamps. Everything for art I guess.
The symbol in the back is the word bushido which means “the way of the warrior”, written in Japanese characters, kanji. Or at least it should be, I can’t read it so I really really hope that is correct!
Anyway, I found an image of that online, scaled it to size, printed, cut it out and taped it to the inside of the glass making sure it was not mirrored while looking at it from the front. I then used a black paint to simply trace the characters on the outside of the glass the best I could. It took a couple of layers to achieve a solid black and I think it came out quite good. I needed a background for it though since the black characters would disappear into the background if left alone. I decided to make a white background (good contrast) but was afraid it would look too plain. So I decided to make some red stripes and then paint the white over that. Looking back at it I shouldn’t have done the stripes as I think it turned out to be a bit distracting from the scene itself. Well, you live and you learn.
My daughter, soon to be five, was very interested in this whole process. She has painted miniatures before and likes to look at dads “little men” and sort through my paints. Eventually she wanted to do her own gift for grandpa and since I had four samurai left I let her have her pick and she painted and based and painted the glass just as I had (with some help). Quite proud of her to be honest, she’ll be a wargamer some day I think. My dad was very impressed with his gifts and they now stand side by side at a prominent place in his home.
My daughters diorama, I hope you can see where she got the inspiration from. The clothing were painted in some of her favourite colours and she didn’t want to write the word bushido on the glass but instead painted a popular children’s tv-character here in Sweden, Sommarskuggan.
This was a very fun little project not least because it was a gift for someone. It’s also nice to paint something a little bit outside of my normal comfort zone. This has also sparked my creativity and there’s a risk other family members will be tired of dioramas in glass jars before I’m done with this.
More and more of the classic Space Marines seem to be passing the "Rubicon Primaris", which is corporate lingo for "the kids want the new stuff". But I find myself eternally stuck in the closing months of 1998 and the release of Codex: Blood Angels.