Ten Thunders, One Leader

I knew I had to do something special with Misaki. She has sat on my desk longer than any other model in the faction, just because I wanted to make sure she felt right. I'm still not certain I nailed it, but I reached a point where I wouldn't be improving if I put on more paint. With that in mind I finished off the final details I could see and set her aside. I may yet add some grass tufts or bushes to her base, but otherwise she's done!

Her pose is a very dynamic one, and I decided to play to the arrogance in her fluff by having her acrobatic maneuver take place so she's still delicately balanced on the stone in the zen garden. To reflect her impulsive nature, despite the delicacy, it's ruined by her other leg high-kicking lightning everywhere.

I would have removed the lightning, in all honesty, if it weren't that it would leave her utterly without an independent stabilization point, and part of her toe is part of the lightning piece!

As for the painting: I knew she had to be almost entirely red, and a bright bold red at that. She's not shy or subtle, and a big bold red would reflect that. It also helps that red is an important colour in both Chinese and Japanese culture. Yellow is likewise important, being either royal or noble colours in each. This helped make a good secondary point and completed the colour wheel when the blue was added in. It's a bit of an obvious primary, but again, she's not subtle!

Her blade was done in what's becoming my favourite way to paint metal: NMM with metallic paints. In this case, I worked in a few blue-green glazes to give the blade an unusual sheen, and also to reinforce the blue-green of her headpiece and leg armour. The main plates of her gear is bronze, to match the yellow a bit closer.

I of course had to go crazy on kimono details. This time it's lots of flowers (cherry blossoms primarily), with ferns, a nice little pond, etc. I wanted her outfit to look incredibly expensive, and not at all combat-based, as a method of displaying contempt to her opponents and a desire to primarily be the centre of attention. I tried to make the lightning arc as detailed as possible, but it's a bit of a tough one to really nail down...

In this pic you can also see the zen garden itself. Easiest way to make that is smear some greenstuff over the base as flat as you can manage, moisten your thumb, and press it in firmly and evenly. You'll get a good set of grooves, and all you then need to do is drop on some bits of larger sand, work grooves around said stones, and presto: Zen garden!

More details, closer-up this time. Her facial covering has more blossoms, the back has a coiled dragon, and on her leg you can see those details.

With that, my Ten Thunders crew is done! Now I work at finishing up hired swords, paint some Pandora folks, and convince the fiancee to field one of the forces! If she gives me permission, I'll show how she's figuring out making a LCB all Cthuloid.