The Shadow General

The year rolls towards its end but the models just keep rolling. They have to. This was built for a Secret Santa collab and dedicated to DanielBrickSon, inspired by models Kumamoto Castle Samurai, Wake up Samurai and the general abundance of Japanese culture elements in his creations. Merry Christmas Daniel!

I had a tight schelude for this build, as I wanted to finish it before leaving for Christmas at my parents' home. Thus, I built this in one day, December 20th. I have built many samurais in the past, which was a great asset. Furthermore, I (finally) watched two Kurosawa samurai films this year, and this was partly inspired by Kagemusha. While not portraying anything from the movie per se, the title is a direct reference.

I began the process by tablescrapping the mask, which is inspired by Daniel's life-size one. Embedding robot hand into the headlight brick made it possible to have quite small teeth in addition to the larger fangs. The nose handlebar is not officially connected, but stays finely between the other parts. A small area of skin - two tan headlight bricks - reveal that this is indeed a human in suit. Usage of the large horn pieces as the helmet sides was the very first thing assembled here, and the pearl gold crest is borrowed directly from Daniel's Kumamoto Castle Samurai.

I wanted to keep the armour realistic while still playing with some new parts of this year. Thin mudguards pieces from rose bouquet set are used in the limbs, and the shoulder pads are from the same source. The golden ornament on the neck guard is from the not-yet-released bamboo set. The torso armour is a simple cylinder of 1x2 round plates, with 1x1 round plates and flowers in-between for colour. The skirt flaps are connected directly to the cylinder, which enables their variying angles. Unusually, all the joints save the wrists use ball joints. This enabled sturdy limbs, fitting for an armoured warrior, and references to the constraction community this Secret Santa circle is based on. I must confess I really like those large Star Wars upper legs shells; they save time and look natural, perfect for spots were the legs are mostly hidden and thus don't require extra effort to look interesting.

-Eero.