3d-printable terrain for all your samurai wargaming needs
It's time to move on to the next terrain project, and I think perhaps a set of modular shops and market stalls might be rather fun!
So, what are YOUR ideas for some thematic shops for a samurai town? Let us know in the comments below....
Today's blog is just a quick video of the new Sumo Ring release, on a 360° spin!
We'll be moving on to new projects very shortly, so watch this space for more....
Happy Halloween everybody! We have one last release to show you all, before October ends. The new Sumo Ring is now available for download!
▲ How's that for colourful?! The new Sumo Ring comes in two versions, so you can choose whether you want to print it with or without curtains. I decided to print the curtain version, and had some fun painting this vivid splash of colour!
▲ The base section has steps on both sides, so your sumo wrestlers can enter the dohyo ring in style. The main section of the model prints upside down, which means the whole model can be printed without supports.
Didn't those homemade transfers come out well? They add a real sense of decoration to the battlefield - most of my samurai terrain collection tends to be quite subdued colours; faded woods, and dusty stones etc. So it was a real pleasure to brighten things up this time!
▲ This new battlemat, by the way, is actually an "American wild west" design by DeepCut Studios - but I think it fits perfectly as a dry, dusty setting for towns in the long, hot Japanese summer.
...which might give you a hint as to what other samurai terrain sets will be coming out soon, too!
▲ The roof of the sumo ring can be removed during play, and features authentic details like those miniature rice-bails sunk into the ring around the clay floor.
▲ Some of you will have seen these models on Facebook and Instagram already, but here's the finished set of 3 miniatures from Fish Creek 3D. They kindly printed these at 28mm scale (smaller than their normal scale), but they came out perfectly! I honestly can't recommend them enough - they are stunning!
The large areas of skin on the wrestlers were quite fun to paint, although it was hard to shade such wide, flat slabs of fat! The referee model is really worth going over the top with, and I used a colour scheme I found on Wikipedia to produce that eye-watering green and gold scheme, with garish orange tassles!
▲ One last pic for you, to show one more model I painted up specially for this sumo ring release. The middle model is an unarmoured samurai from Perry Miniatures, which matches the scale of these sumo wrestlers brilliantly. I'm going to use him as my sumo stablemaster, who instructs and trains the wrestlers every day.
He'll probably also double as the dojo master, when I get around to making that terrain piece!
The new Sumo Ring is available for download from today:
The second of this month's new models is released today - the new Samurai Dice Tower Pagoda is now available for download!
▲ YES, it's bright red! YES, it's super fancy! YES, you can use it as battlefield terrain, too!
This model is a 3-storied pagoda from old Japan, designed for use as an in-game dicetower and terrain piece.
▲ This building measures 210mm (8½") wide at the 1st level roof, and 430mm (17") tall from base to spire tip. It can also be used as a dice tower without the wood and stone base, at a height of 390mm. This model can be printed completely support-free!
▲ Removing the top centre section of the pagoda roof reveals a dice bucket, and dice will pour down the pagoda and roll out of the front entrance, down the wooden steps into the specially-designed bamboo fence area.
▲ If you have a super bouncy tabletop surface, you can print an extra bamboo stick or two to place across the gateway, to prevent dice from rolling too far.
▲ It also makes a great piece of playable wargaming terrain, and models can be placed inside the fence area, or on the steps and surrounding balcony.
Here's a short video of the dicetower in action, with closeups of some of the authentic building details...
▲ The new Samurai Dice Tower Pagoda is available for download from today!
It's been about 3 weeks since the Dice Tower Pagoda model was printed and assembled - sorry for the delay! You'll be happy to hear that both the Dice Tower AND the Sumo Ring have been fully painted now, and will be released over the next few days!
Here's a how-to-paint guide for the new dice tower model, which I decided to paint in a very bright RED colour scheme, just to make it different from its big brother, the wooden Temple Pagoda. 
£ You've got two main options for this dice tower - brown wood (either light brown or dark brown), or red painted wood. You can paint the roof in a variety of different colours (black, grey, red, brown, green, blue etc.), however, and also the bells and spire (gold, black iron, verdigris copper, etc.).
I've chosen to paint this dice tower red, which is a colour scheme found in both Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. I sprayed each piece in matt undercoat using rattlecans. The stone part of the base section was undercoated in black, the wooden parts in light brown, the roof parts in slate grey, and the spire and bells in gold.
I didn't have a red undercoat spray handy, so I had to handpaint each level section in red. It did take a while! I really recommend saving time by spray undercoating these pieces if you can!
£ Here's a handy tip for spray undercoating the bells - the best way seems to be to stick them all upside down to a strip of parcel tape. It's got enough adhesion to stop them from falling over during spraying, but they are still easy to remove when you're done!
£ You'll probably find it easier to paint each base section separately, and then glue them together. I started by brushing medium grey on the stone sections, then washing heavily in black wash, and then drybrushing up to light grey. I also added dabs of brown and red washes on random stones to add interest.
The wooden parts were washed in black, and then drybrushed with light browns. These sections were then glued together, and the bottom planks of the tower were painted in red.
I also dabbed green wash around the bottom of each post and stone, to add some weathering and age effects.
£ The dice tray was washed in black wash, and then the stone parts were drybrushed up to light grey.
Next I basecoated the bamboo fence in sandy yellow.
£ After a brown wash on the bamboo, I drybrushed up with a sandy yellow again, and then edge drybrushed with a flesh colour. Then I painted the rope knots with dark grey and washed each one with black wash.
When the whole model was assembled at the end, I also added area of brown and red wash to the stones, and then green wash in the corners and at the bottoms of stones.
£ The roof sections had been spray undercoated in slate grey, and I then washed each section with a heavy coat of black wash. When it had completely dried, I drybrushed with medium grey, and again with light grey, using a big 5cm-wide brush.
£ The red used on temples and shrines in Japan is actually a special orangey-red paint, also reserved for the wood-carved name stamps used on official and religious forms. I tried to duplicate this by giving a thick red undercoat, and then a thin brown wash on all the wooden sections.
This made it a little dark, so it took two drybrush attempts to bring those wooden areas back up to a bright red again, and I finished off by lightly drybrushing the edges with a red-orange mix of paint.
£ The stucco panels came next, with an even coat of very light grey. I then coloured in the middle of each panel with white, and I had to do this 2-3 times to get the white smooth(ish). At least each subsequent coat of white covered a smaller area, and got quicker and quicker!
£ I gave a light coat of brown wash to the gold spire and bells, and then drybrushed with the brightest shade of gold I owned. However, it still wasn't quite light enough, so I also gave it a very gentle drybrush of silver on the edges.
£ The last stage was to paint the underside of each roof section. This did take quite a few hours, because I had to paint using a brush - getting it into all the nooks and crannies is hard! I wish I'd had a red spray can available to save time!
I didn't bother washing this with brown (as I did for the 3 level sections), and instead moved straight onto drybrushing with the orange-red mix, just to make the edges pop.
£ Painting these white stripes was also quite time-consuming, especially as they'll be mostly hidden in the final photos! I painted them with 2 coats of white each, and a thin but flat brush.
One final detail that adds a bit of realism to this colour scheme is to paint the ends of each beam in yellow. It might sound odd, but it is commonly done on temples and shrines for this red colour scheme.
And that was it! Finally, my dice pagoda was painted. I glued the bells into the roof sections, and glued each room onto each roof section.
Time to roll some dice....
Samurai Sumo Ring 
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12 Comments :
Vaughan
2021-11-04 (Thu) 10:51AM
Everything in the photo plus sake bar, sword shop, sake brewery, sword smith, theatre (noh or bunraku etc), clothing shop, kite shop, general merch shop, stable, inn, geisha house, sushi/ramen/etc bar, weapon shop, and all the ones I forgot to mention!
2021-11-04 (Thu) 11:49AM
Thanks for the suggestions, Vaughan! All of those are on the list, although several of them (swordsmith, brewery etc) will be in their own sets later, I think.
Vaughan
2021-11-15 (Mon) 3:58AM
Not a shop, but a possible addition of interest could be an onsen. Great locale for impromptu conflict:)
2021-11-15 (Mon) 9:36AM
You'll be happy to hear that an onsen set IS on the list for some point in the future!
Chris Page
2021-12-06 (Mon) 8:44AM
I would like something like the farmhouse kit, but more upscale. Housing for wealthy samurai and other notables. Maybe like the walled compounds in the movie Sanjuro.
2021-12-06 (Mon) 9:22AM
Awesome, thanks Chris! A fancy samurai residence IS on the list, but not until later next year, I think.
Andy
2021-12-06 (Mon) 22:33PM
How about some Samurai Boats/Ships for those internal conflicts along the open sea? And the subduing of those nasty Wako fellows?
2021-12-07 (Tue) 8:25AM
Thanks, Andy. I'll add them to the list, but they'll be way down there for now, I'm afraid.
Russ
2022-01-04 (Tue) 18:21PM
How about a little sweet potato vendor?
2022-01-05 (Wed) 9:46AM
Brilliant, thanks Russ!
Ja
2022-01-23 (Sun) 0:17AM
A little late to respond here…
Assuming (based on picture) that we’re talking more of an open-air market than street shops. If we’re looking at street shops, then reflecting a transition time between Sengoku and Edo periods would be awesome (e.g., streets in Kyoto or Takayama.)
Sweet potatoes were a great suggestion. Daikon and eggplant would be neat too. Also might consider a moshio or oil seller.
The Yuzen-Nagashi step of cleaning dyed cloth would be a pretty cool option.
This might be more of a trades idea, than market, but it would be perfect with a modular system, since it would fit in certain scenarios and times of year, but not necessarily everyone’s setting.
As always, your work is amazing!
Ja
2022-01-23 (Sun) 2:55AM
Thinking about it, the Yuzen-Nagashi step might be really challenging to execute, but the suggestions were meant more to generate ideas anyway.
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