Painting for a Friend

Painting Napoleonic Austrians is draining, especially when you paint 204 of them in a row...all that white. So, when a friend of mine became keen on Samurai and as a part of that interest ordered a bunch of Japanese terrain pieces from Mad Miniatures, then asked if I would be interested in painting them for him, my answer was :yes"!. Upon my answer he presented me with a very large box of 3D printed ponds, bridges, a castle, walls, a couple of buildings and various lanterns, plus four of the old Hovels Samurai range.

Here are the first pieces. First of all the Hovels buildings. The first thing to note about these is how small they are by today's standards, but they will suit for smaller village buildings. The second thing to note is how poorly cast these resin pieces  are, with evidence of mould tears, damage to original masters and bubbles - both in the mould itself and in the casting - that simply cannot be filled or cut away.

By contrast to the resin castings the 3D printed pieces are clean and precise. Yes there are a few things to clean up, but it is minimal. I was really surprised how easily the PLA plastic took the paint. I attacked the smaller pieces first, needing time to work up to the buildings. First was the stone Torii gate, a simple yet remarkably striking piece.

Continuing with the smaller pieces, this is this very nice Guzei Bridge and pond, complete with Coy Carp.

The bridge...

The pond...

And the bridge over the pond.

Then there is the smaller pond and bridge...

...and the long span bridge.

The final group for this post is a collection of lanterns.