3d-printable terrain for all your samurai wargaming needs
We've already had a couple of LED lanterns for the samurai range; the first was the streetside wooden lantern, and then the second was a rock lantern in the teahouse set.
Today we're taking a quick look at the new tall lantern from the upcoming Shrine Set!!!
▲ First of all, you've got 4 different basing options for these lanterns! There's a neat stone base, a wooden X base, the wooden X on a 40mm round base, and finally a textured 40mm round base. You can choose whichever base suits your setting.
▲ For those of you who'd like to make a special permanent diorama, you can also permanently wire these lanterns into a fixed position on your board, and run a wire for LEDs up through the wooden post. A 2mm diameter hole has been built into the model from top to bottom, just in case you prefer that.
▲ So to wire an LED into these shrine lanterns, you'll need 2 things:
▲ That's it! Print your preferred base option, the lantern body (centre of the photo), a roof (right of the photo), and the battery holder (left of the photo). The battery holder section will need print supports enabled, but can actually also be printed upside down without any supports too!
Slide the LED's two wires through the holes in the bottom of the battery holder, push a battery into the top (it will only work in one direction), and slot the lantern pieces together.
Here's the quick video to show how easy this is....
Whoa! This new shrine set is turning out to be a biggie!! There's so much stuffed into the set that it could pretty easily cover an entire smaller gaming table, so let's take a look....
▲ First of all, let's show you the real-life shrine that this model is based on - Kokuzo Shrine, near the Aso volcano in Kumamoto Prefecture (happily, only a few minutes drive from the new studio!).
As you can see from the photo, it's a very old traditional wooden shrine complex, thought to have been originally created around 100BC. It was built to honour a truly massive cedar pine tree, that was finally toppled in a typhoon in 1991. The remains and roots of the tree have been preserved on site, and are well worth a visit if you're in the area - they are gargantuan!
▲ This shrine set is based around the large front building of the actual shrine, pictured at the rear of this CG render. The model features much of the wooden sculptures of the original, with carved sections and some awesome details.
Of course a shrine set wouldn't be complete without a whole bunch of extra structures, so let's take a look at a few of those now....
▲ This is an ema board. The ema are those little wooden plaques that visitors decorate with written wishes (good health, success in jobs or studies etc), and then hang on pegs on this rack, which is usually found near the main shrine building.
On the right we have a new lantern design! This one is specifically found on the approach roads/paths at shrines, and of course this version is designed to be fitted with an LED bulb and small battery!
▲ Near the entrance to every shrine there is a stone washbasin, where you briefly wash your hands to cleanse yourself before entering the shrine proper. This one is based on a real structure, and features quite elaborate wooden columns leading up to an even fancier version of the copper panelled roof.
▲ This minishrine is actually an auxiliary shrine called a sessha, and you'll often find one or two of these on the grounds of any decent-sized shrine complex. These make great little game objectives too, and I've included two versions of the front piece - one version with the fancy rope and paper tassles, and one version without.
▲ A variety of stone lanterns are often found on the approach path to a shrine, so there are a bunch of multipart ones included in this set. You've got round ones, square ones, hexagonal ones and curved ones, with three different heights of base too. Each shape version has a plain version and an engraved version, all gently textured with stone patterns.
▲ To make life easier for you, in addition to all the separate lantern section files, I've included this ready-prepared STL file of enough components to make 10 stone lanterns. It will fit on a standard 125mm print bed, and you can then mix and match to your heart's content!
▲ The path to a Japanese shrine is usually made from natural materials such as smooth paving stones or just dirt, so there is a 12cm x 8cm section of stone path included in the set. This is a one-piece print, only about 3mm high, and can be used in any orientation for paths, junctions and slopes.
▲ Along the sides of a shrine path you might also find a low fence, and this one is a waist-high 12cm straight section of bamboo and twine. The green bits in the pic above are built-in supports, and can be snipped out after printing. A non-supported version is also included.
▲ As a nod to the real Kokuzo Shrine, there is also a small sacred tree stump in the set, encircled with a thick rope and paper tassles. The actual cedar pine at Kokuzo Shrine is a massive 11 metres around, but this one is just a little baby by comparison! The base is 60mm in diameter.
▲ One of the smaller sacred trees at Kokuzo Shrine was raised up on a stone-edged base, and that inspired me to create this piece to fit the 60mm tree stump.
You could also use it to fit the 60mm base for cherry blossom trees, which is also included in the set.
▲ There's one other 60mm diameter base included in the shrine set - this bamboo forest base! Hidden amongst the rocks and bamboo are 14 small holes, into which you can glue those green plastic bamboo trees you can buy from online stockists - the trees themselves are not included in this set, because they're not very 3D printable, I'm afraid.
I'll be showing off just how to make the bamboo forests in a future blog article, which will hopefully make much more sense!
Watch this space for photos of the fully printed models (in just a few more days), when we can really show off all of the cool little details!
After our release of the small-sized Market Stall set in the spring, today we're going BIG with another large building model for the samurai collection. The new Samurai Dojo set is now available for download!
Let's take a look.....
▲ It's a large building - approximately 30cm (12"), and with the accessories outside you can even spread out into the surrounding area!
▲ Our dojo master (a great model from Perry Miniatures), surveying his domain...
▲ I left off the sliding screen doors at the rear in this photo, to allow the large opening to be used for archery target practice.
Strictly speaking, those heavy straw targets would typically be put under cover to protect from rain (thanks for the heads up, Leslie!) ... you might try the temple wall sections for that purpose, if you leave off the stone bases?
▲ With the large tiled roof removed, you can see the wide playable interior of the dojo building.
▲ I decided to leave the paper off my sliding doors, to make the interior more visible. It would also increase airflow for those hot training sessions, I guess?
▲ As you can see, you could practically host an entire battle inside the dojo and on the surrounding balcony!
▲ The tatami mats on each side make a great contrast with the hard wood flooring of the sparring area.
▲ Here's a close-up look at the archery end of the dojo. Kyudo would normally be practised from just inside the opening, or on the balcony. I attached a bow rack to each side of the doorway, and the bows themselves are usually finished in black laquer.
▲ The opposite end of the dojo is full of great accessories - we have an empty weapons rack on the left, a rack full of naginata spears in the centre, and another rack of bamboo kendo practice swords on the right.
▲ Two large taiko drums frame the stage area, which also features a samurai helmet and mask on an ornate wooden box.
The scroll on the back wall (which says "bushido") is sculpted onto the wall section, and the kanji characters are inset into the paper - so you can easily brush ink or black wash into the right patterns.
▲ "You!! Get in here! You're late!"
▲ The stage area makes a great studio backdrop for photographing your miniatures!
The new Samurai Dojo set is now available for download from today!
The new Samurai Dojo is a large building, but surprisingly it paints up quite quickly, with a few simple techniques. The majority of your painting time will probably be spent on the interior and exterior panels, but even so, I completed the whole thing in a couple of days.
▲ Save yourself some time and do the undercoating with some suitable spray paints. The roof was sprayed in a 'Deep Olive', which works really well for grey tiles, and the rest of the building was sprayed with a 'Burnt Umber'. I took an extra minute to carefully spray the edges of the balcony in a light brown, too, to help show a weathering effect.
My next step was to give the whole roof and building a heavy black wash. I used a homemade wash to save lots of money!
▲ Using a large 5cm (2") wide brush, I slowly and lightly drybrushed a light brown (sandy brown?) on the wood of the walls, inside and out. In the photo above you can see how it brings out the wood patterns nicely, while also leaving the black wash in the deeper crevices. I didn't want to go too light on this building, as I wanted to show a very dark old wood to contrast with the white walls.
▲ Using the same wide brush, I then gave a super-light drybrush of light grey on the edges of the balcony planks, and the bottom 1cm of the wall posts. This will show where the sun and rain has slowly aged the wood over the years.
▲ The roof was also given a careful edge drybrush of the rooftiles, using the same light grey. Pay attention to the direction you're dragging the bristles - going from bottom to top brings out the great detail of the intricate tiles, and then from side to side.Take your time and build it up slowly.
▲ It was time to start working on the dojo interior, so I used two coats of 'Camel' to give the tatami mats an even coverage, and then gave them a sepia wash to bring out the texture of the mats.
▲ The floor also contains a couple of strips of bamboo, between the tatami and wood sections. Bamboo naturally turns quite grey over time, and I tried to show this by lightly adding a few touches of careful grey drybrush on those bamboo strips.
The interior walls needed to be very subdued for my 'old building' scheme, and I found that two coats of this 'Fawn' paint gave a perfect effect. The first coat covers each panel slightly roughly, and then a second coat is painted and stippled from the centre of each panel outwards. If you're careful you can blend/push the second coat, so that it leaves the edges darker, which looks great!
TIP: I glued half of the doors into their frames, and only left the other half to slide. This helps to keep them all in place, and prevents them from being bumped out so easily.
▲ For the fabric edges of the tatami mats, green or navy is commonly found, or even grey/black. I wanted a subdued green, so I carefully painted two coats of this khaki colour. I'll admit it's a bit nerve-wracking not to slip from the raised edges!
▲ Yay! Now it's time to finish some interior details, starting with the scrolls. There is a scroll on each wall, and this one above the stage is the biggest... and therefore a good place to start practising! It says 'Bushido', by the way, which was their samurai warrior code!
I gave the paper a pale flesh tone, and then carefully nudged some black wash (thinned ink works well too!) into the kanji shapes. It should run fairly naturally into the right crevices, and then maybe a couple of touches of flesh colour to neaten things up?
▲ I didn't want the paper to look too new, so I started experimenting with some sepia washes, randomly splodged on the paper. I found it looks best with the edges and corners of the paper yellowed with age - but see what suits you!
▲ The end is close now!! For the outside wall panels, I gave a careful coat of light grey, and then went back to stipple a second coat in the centre of each panel. Finally, I stippled a little white into the very centre of each panel, leaving plenty of contrast with the darker tones at the edges.
▲ The last step was to dab some add some streaks of discolouration to the outside panels using brown washes, and then dab a little green wash in the corner of each panel. This works brilliantly to age the building!
▲ I'll just show one of the accessories here - the photo above was my inspiration for the design of those large straw archery targets.
▲ I used the same dark wood for the frame as I used on the building, and the straw was a flesh colour with a heavy sepia wash added later. Then I went back to drybrush more pale flesh on the raised edges, and a final dab of brown wash in the centre of each end. I'm strangely proud of the detail and realism on this little accessory! It even prints support-free!
So that's it - the dojo is fully painted, and will be ready for release in a few short days! Watch this space...
The new Samurai Dojo is fully assembled, so here are some pics of the whole building and all the accessories!
* First, a quick apology for the strange look of the photos. I was running out of grey PLA, and had to use red for parts of the model. Red doesn't photograph well at all, it seems, so I promise never to use red PLA filament for pics again!!
▲ It's a large, imposing building, found in many settings in Japan, even today. Typically, it's used for kendo (swordfighting), kyudo (archery), and martial arts such as aikido, judo and karate.
▲ Most towns, villages and castles would have a training dojo (modern-day schools often have them, too), and they are usually non-religious. That's why this model features the simpler version of rooftile, instead of the fancier shapes found on temples and castles.
I've built mine with only one set of steps, but you could put more on each side if you wanted to, anywhere on the surrounding wooden balcony.
▲ Here's the fancy end of the dojo interior. There are paper scrolls on each side of the interior, with authentic calligraphy sculpted into the paper, and you can fit the interior with a variety of accessories.
In this photo you can see an empty weapons rack on the left, a weapons rack with bamboo kendo sticks on the right, and another weapons rack with naginata spears behind the central stage. There is also a samurai helmet on a wooden box on the stage, and two large taiko drums on display.
Note the flooring, which has tatami mats on each side, but a large wooden floor for sparring in the middle. You could replace a couple of wooden floor pieces with tatami mats if you prefer more karate or judo!
▲ At the other end of the dojo, I've added two weapons rack for bows, and four archery targets outside. Archers would typically stand inside or on the balcony, and shoot out towards the targets.
The bows are printed separately from the racks (they take less than 1 minute to print each!), and are glued into place in the slots. A little fiddly to not glue your fingers to the bows, but looks very realistic!
▲ Here's the set of accessories I chose to print for my dojo. This includes at least one of every type of martial art and decoration, and should help to bring the dojo to life!
The dojo is currently on the paint desk, and should be ready for release in a few days.
Samurai Dojo 
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