Samurai Part 10

I think this is my first project to make it to it's 10th post without being completed.  But I guess that's not too surprising considering how complicated the figure is.  It took some time, but I completed the lace work on the helmet, just like on the shoulder plates.  I then took care of highlighting the black and the rest of the metallic portions for the helmet and shoulder plates.  I attached the remaining pieces for the helmet, a knot on the back and the crest on the front, and painted those too.  That pretty much wrapped up the upper body (with the exception of his left hand), so I moved on to his lower body.

The pants will be done just like his right sleeve, so I began with the main orange color.  This is a bit tricky since there will eventually be more armor plates covering his legs and I need to account for those in the shadows and highlights.  To help me with this, I tacked them on and then sketched in my highlights and shadows.  I used that as a map and then went in to do all of the blending to smooth out the color transitions.  You can see here how it looks before the armor plates are in place and then how it looks with them on (at least temporarily).

Before I add the plates, I still need to do the design work on the pants.  You'll notice some odd white dots on his legs.  Those are my guide dots and mark the center for the circles.  Just like on the sleeve, I measured the spacing between them to keep the look consistent.  Next I'll lay down the main circles (measuring to keep their size the same), and then paint in the leaf/flower image.

I still have one color decision to make.  He's got some more cloth wrapped around his calves, which will show from behind.  I'm still thinking about what color I want to use for these.  At first I was going to go with green... but then I thought, maybe it's better to leave just the single sleeve as the only green (which helps it stand out and draw attention up towards the face).  So the next logical choice would be purple.  That should work, but perhaps, with all the armor, it would be too much purple.  White is another option.  For now I'm just going to hold off.  I figure I can add the front and side armor panels and see how the colors look on the lower body.  As long as I don't put on the back one, I shouldn't have any problem getting to his left leg to paint it.