Welcome friends! As I sit and write, I can’t quite get my head round that we are already two thirds the way through January! The last several weeks have been somewhat of a whirlwind with the holidays, family coming in from overseas and the onset of a frigid winter. While we have retired to winter quarters for the cold months, I’ve had little time for picking up a brush. I don’t know about any of you lot, but if I don’t get at least a couple hours a week at the painting table, I get cranky.
Hello fiends! As I sit here with the tempestuous skies closing in on Chicago, and the tumultuous rumblings of thunder, what better to get into the spirit than to post up my newly completed Ikiryo, one of the miniatures from the Cult of Yurei starter set for Bushido?
I have to say, that I’m really excited about the prospect of getting a painted warband for Bushido. Each of these miniatures has a lot of personality, and I’ll confess that more than once while I was painting Ikiryo, I wondered what her story was. On a whim, this was what popped in my head:
“Many nights she wonders alone with her thoughts, lamenting the day she gave herself to the Cult of Yurei. With each passing Autumn she loses a little more of what humanity she had left. Ikiryo serves a different master now.”
Now while the Bushido rule book is rich with background of the Jwar Isles, and of the different factions overall stories, there’s no actual details of the individual characters. I suppose this is a good and a bad thing, good if you want to create your own narrative for the characters, bad if you don’t, and would be happy using the supplied ‘fluff’. Your mileage may vary.
All that aside, I agonized for a while on what colors to use. I decided to keep the palette limited, with two main colors – jade and another whose name escapes me right now, but a very complimentary pink color.
Autumnal leaves succumb to frost…
I did toy with the idea of putting a pattern on her kimono, but decided against it, and opted for simplicity, and just going for a design on her parasol instead. I made her face slightly paler than the rest of her skin, as a sort of ‘it could be makeup or could be a mask’ feel, emphasizing the facial wounds and stitches. I painted the eyes completely over with a pale blue, and highlights white to give that supernatural feel to her.
I love that the miniature and the posing is so demure, but looking at her face you know that she is quite possibly terrifying to be up against on the field.
A few moments of tomfoolery on my phone and I added some fog for atmosphere:
Within the fog she waits…
Completing Ikiryo also knocked another dent in my D20 painting table. I also painted up a Deep Wars figured as well from the table, but haven’t had chance to get any pictures yet. Stay tuned, and thanks, as always, for reading!
When Cannons Fade... 