42mm Samurai: Kaage Kazuhito wip

So this latest group of samurai (who just arrived in the post today) are being organized around the buntai (warband?) system presented in the upcoming Ronin skirmish game.

My new buntai (bushi) will have a leader, his henchman, four ashigaru with yari (spears), one with a naginata (glaive), and three with bows. To tie the group together, I'm foregoing all the sashimono (back flags), and giving all of these guys haori jackets. And, of course, they'll all be getting a similar paint job.

This figure I've started with is Lord Kaage Kazuhito himself. His weapon choice was easy; I looked among my collection to see what weapon was missing: The nodachi - or odachi - essentially a Japanese greatsword.

I used my usual hammered brass rod method to create Kazuhito's nodachi. Since the blade was much larger than I've done before, it was a little difficult to keep it even for the entire length, but I got it to a point that I'm happy with. The hand guard was cut from a cylinder of cured green stuff. (I specifically rolled the cylinder to the right size that I could cut sword guards from it. I have about 20 guards now for use whenever I need them.)

To fit the sword into Kazuhito's hands I had to reverse their positions (ie, if the palm was up, turn it down, and vice versa.) The back hand as easy because the hand came as a separate piece. The fore hand was almost a problem; I was trying to bend the arm back a little bit to close the distance between the hands (they were originally positioned to hold a spear), but I broke the entire forearm off!

No worries: I used a piece of bent brass rod to form a simple elbow, reattaching the forearm piece while repositioning it at the same time. I added some green stuff over the rod, sculpting some simple chain mail and armor plate over the elbow. And that was that.

Since taking this one photo, I've added a helmet crest, already. It somewhat resembles (or at least was inspired by) the crest seen worn by Shingen in "Kagemusha."

All Kazuhito needs now is his haori jacket. His will get long lapels on his haori (those on the ashigaru will be much more simple, without lapels - almost like vests.)

I'm liking how Kazuhito is looking; he will certainly look intimidating on the battlefield.
One more quick note: Kaage's buntai will be evil. I put them together to terrorize my peasants. "Kaage" means shadow (an apt evil-sounding name.) And "Kazuhito" means Benevolent one- I chose that one to be ironic.

His right-hand man will be Tadao (Loyal Soldier), though I haven't chosen a family name for Tadao, yet.