"Struggling to paint the lacing on Perry Samurai" Topic

I am pretty new to painting all in all. So in my wisdom I choose the nice and easy Samurai as my first big painting project.

The skin the clothing and the undercoat on the armour hasn't been too much trouble so far but now we come to the lacing and I am at a lost on how to paint it.

If anyone has any tips on how to paint them I would really appreciate it.

The model I am painting is one of the Perry Katana Charging models. The one unsheathing his sword if that helps.

Samurai as a first project eh? You have balls ;)

There is no really easy way to do it, but assuming my result below approaches the effect you're after here's my take on samurai:

Paint the armour a dark version of the eventual colour (black only if you aim for black/dark grey armour). You can always black-ink the crevasses later.

Highlight the plates with the mid-colour. Drybrushing might work here only if done very subtly. Better is just painting the middle colour on the higher surfaces. Use very little paint. It is better to have to paint the same surface twice than applying too much paint.

Highlight with the light colour. Dryrbrushing subtly here is the way to go.

Find a contrasting and preferably complementary colour for the lacing. See link for complementary colours.

Apply this colour to the lacing with a very fine brush. Use a magnifying glass. Don't drink too much coffee before trying this or your hand will not be steady enough. Time is on your side. Haste is the enemy. Just paint one knot at a time and take your time. When you are feeling brave you can highlight the lacings as well.

Success! Show us the results please.

Another thing to consider is that you don't have to paint the lacing per say but paint the armour as to suggest there is lacing. If that makes since.

And here is a tutorial on youtube.

YouTube link

I'll offer a suggestion. When I'm confronted with small details like lacing on a 28mm figure one of the first things I consider is dry brushing. That allows me to take advantage of the sculpting when I apply the paint. Apply the color you wish your lacing to be to your brush; then by using a piece of paper brush the paint off until it is almost gone. Once that is done, draw your brush across the lacing going against the grain so that the lace and not the area around it will capture the paint. So you won't have to accept or reject my suggestion based on nothing but my words, you can see the quality of my painting at warin15mm.com/Pirates.html or link

Thanks for the suggestions so far

@Pijlie
Thanks for the tips will give them a go, is that a northstar miniature?

@Whill4 yeah I understand what you mean and its very good advice.

@Warin15mm
I have used dry brushing to highlight the black armour a little. Not sure how well it would work on this particular sculpt for the lacing. But it may be worth at try, what do you mean by against the grain in regards to a miniature btw?

Your painting is very good

I sometimes find it easier to draw a long line along the laces first, and then "cut them off" by crossing off that line using the colour of the armour plates. You can try to use inks or washes suitable for the armour (so, dark red wash for a red armour) around the laces once you have painted them, to make them stand out more clearly against the armour. As a bonus, the wash will cover some of your mistakes if you accidentally get paint on the armour when you paint your laces.

Here's another way to do it that I tried when I needed to paint up a unit of Wargames Factory spearmen very quickly. Since I lacked time, I couldn't paint each one too carefully. I simply drew blue lines along the laces on each model. Then I put a small dot of lighter blue at the top of each lace, as a highlight. So, around 3-4 dots along each line.

It look quite horrible close up on an individual basis:

However, it looks decent enough on an entire unit at an arm's length:

Here's another time I used the same simple highlight trick:

[URL=http://s174.photobucket.com/user/lilljonas/media/samurai/DSC_0535_zpsc103ed78.jpg.html]

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Now, Perry's lacing is much more pronounced, so you should be able to combine this method with washes (which are less useful on these WGF minis), and get something that you are satisfied with. Be warned though, samurai lacing is something that a lot of long-time painters struggle with, so don't feel bad if you don't get it just perfect right away! Be patient, and don't give up.

Oh, and for some reason, I sometimes have an easier time getting the first layer on the laces done if I hold the model upside down.

Thanks for the tips. I recognise those minitures from the website that compares samurai minitures and sell the 6mm terrain. The name escapes me though. But I have it bookmarked.

You are very right about the difference. Lacing looks great from a distance and not as good up close. Achived exactly what you wanted out of it.

Holding the model upside down is interesting. I shall try that trick.

Carlos, when I said against the grain I meant that when dry brushing something like lacing, the brush should move across the lacing not along its length. By going across the lacings the paint is more likely to be picked up by just the lacing rather than what is below it. If you try dry brushing along the lacing rather than across it you will be hitting both the lacing and what the lacing is sitting on thus defeating the whole purpose of dry brushing which is to hit just the high points of an object with a color. Whatever approach you use, best of luck with your project. Richard

Thank you very much. Now I understand.

Tbh I will probably try each and every one of the suggestions here to see which one clicks for me personally. I thank you all for your help so far.

Incase you are interested this is the model in its current state.

Critique welcome.

Use very very small brush.

A sneaky trick you can try is prime white or gray, paint the lacing with a small brush (being a little messy here is OK), and black ink wash on the armor (which will cover up any painting oops from the lacing).

Intresting trick Lion. May have to give that a shot.

Small brushes hold very little paint and usually make painting details harder due to the paint drying quickly on the brush. Sounds odd, but true.

You need a good #1 or #2 sable brush with a fine point. (Brush number sizes vary among manufacturers and even brushes when handmade like the Escoda brushes I use.) I rarely use a #0 any more.

A tip I would give Pijlie is to paint his lace and other details black after done with the base color, such as the blue. Then paint the lace color but just across the top of the lace, leaving some black along the side. The lace color will look neater or tidier and have some shadow this way, even when using multiple layers of yellow and such. You can then pick out some highlights on the lace with a highlight color for nice effect as well.

I tend to lean toward the artistic side of painting more than the get it on the table quick army style, so always consider the source. LOL :-)

I plan to do the WGF stuff (Especially the Ashigaru) as quick to table and the better ones such as perry's as well as I can. Which admittedly isn't great.

Also using a wet pallet or adding a drop of extender to retard the drying time will help when working with fine details and tiny brushes.

I have been using a homemade wet palate.

Nice tip CPBelt. I'll try it on the next batch.

Mind sharing the rest of your Buntai Pijlie?

If you have problems with the paint drying too fast on the brush, you can also try adding a bit of paint retarder. You can find it in any arts shop, and it makes your paint dry slower.

As for critique, I think you'd be better off trying another way to attach the model while painting it. It looks like you are using blu-tac or something similar, and that you put part of it around the model. This is very likely to tear off some of the paint on the feet, and you'll have to spend extra time to re-paint those parts. I usually either base the miniature completely before painting, or I glue it to a piece of wood or cork.

I don't know how far along you are with the painting on this one, but I'd make some stronger highlights on it. For anything that you plan to put on the table, I'd use slightly bolder highlights than what you feel is reasonable when you hold the model up close. That is because any details that you want to be visible at a distance needs to be clearly highlighted. Otherwise it will look great when you hold it up just in front of your nose, but it will be more or less invisible on the table. So brighten those cloth areas and get a clearer definition on the black armour.

Another tip when you have a lot of black on a model like this, is to add a bit of blue to your black. I use the P3 paint "Coal Black", which is actually a very dark blue, for my black armour. Then I can add shadows through a completely dark wash, which is harder if you start out with a completely black paint. Then I add a light grey to the Coal Black for my highlights.

Can I suggest trying the techniques above on a couple of figures from the spares box or buy a couple cheap figures to practice on. The one thing I can guarantee is that your painting technique will improve with every figure you paint and that when you take a few days off painting your technique will suffer a bit. You really do need to remember that practice makes perfect.

There is always a temptation to go straight for your favourite castings. This is a bad plan. Start with the ones you intend putting in the rear ranks. That way any mistakes will be hiding at the back of your units. By the time you get to the figures in the front rank you will have learned from your mistakes as it where.

Keep going try all the suggested techniques and you will hit on a style which suits you.

Very true. Always start with a grunt and end with your favorite!

Mind sharing the rest of your Buntai Pijlie?

I had next weekend planned for taking decent pictures of the two buntai I have finished, the Bandits and the Sohei. The Bushi are next in line. Watch my blog pijlieblog.blogspot.nl for updates!

The figures are indeed Northstar. I fell hook, line and sinker for their Ronin deal…… :)

And I thought, what the heck. Let's see what I can do with some artificial white light. Not great pictures, but they will do:

Thanks gor the tips guys.

I will practice these techniques on the WGF Samurai / Ashigaru.

And for the pictures of the Buntai, they look good together. I particularly like the Sohei.