Thursday, February 28, 2013

From MichaelA: The Seven Samurai in Greyscale & Ninjas in Black (80 points)


First, I have to apologize for my lag in keeping up with submissions as of late. It seems that Work and Adult Responsibilites have recently conspired to make Hobby and Carefree Fun almost non-existent. Nonetheless, I will endeavour to correct this and catch up over the next few days.

Now, in regards to Michael's entry here, I must say that I'm a little speachless so I'll let the man himself describe his submission:

As always I'm never sure where the time has gone, but I did manage to complete my entry fee for the challenge. 
Having been blown away but the ingenuity and beauty of Curt's 'Great War in Greyscale' project, I've been harbouring a notion to have a go myself, and when  the theme for the challenge was anounced as Samurai an idea started to form.  Like a good many I adore, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and this wonderful piece of cinematography became the inspiration for my own greyscale project.   Now I'm hear to tell anyone who listens that this isn't as easy as it appears and I certainly should have given the palette more consideration before diving straight in; as a result there is a definite blue hue that I had't envisaged.
I just couldn't resist a spot of hollywood red blood on the drawn swords and, now that it is complete, I'm jolly pleased with the results.  I now present them to you, as a group, as my entry fee for the challenge.  Yeas I know Curt only asked for a single figure, but I don't think that I could bare to break up the group.  Just for his continued hard work and heroic efforts in managing the challenge, I can think of no better recipient for the 'Seven Grayscale Samurai'.
The Ninja, were an impulse purchase when I was ordering up the Samurai and if I'm honest I was rather hoping that they would be a quick fix, points wise, but not a bit of it.  By the time I had given them three shades of black, my eyes were starting to cross, but we got there in the end.  Both the Samurai and Ninja are Perry Brother's sculpts and although required a fair bit of tidying up were, as always, a joy to paint.  


Wow, absolutely gorgeous work Michael.  I'm very flattered by your nod to my greyscale project. I certainly will agree with you that the whole greyscale thing is a lot more tricky than it may first seem being that there are a bewildering variety of grey shades/tones/hues, each possessing its own 'warmth' or 'coolness'. I think the cool blue-grey tone you used here is wonderfully suited to the Samurai theme, especially as seen through Kurosawa's lens. I especially love the addition of the muted flowers, the 'Seven Samurai' design on the sashimono and the blood on the katanas. They all pay such great homage to Kurosawa's film. Bravo and Thank you very much!

Michael's beautiful work with The Seven, their sashimono and the five Ninjas will give him 80 points.

19 comments:

  1. very impressive, love all of them and know it must have been hard work
    Peace James

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  2. Bloody Hell, these are excellent!!!!!

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  3. Honestly... This is by far my favourite entry of the whole Challenge and there have been some stonkers! You can seriously be proud of yourself!

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  4. I think we have a winner for entrants' favourite!

    Absolutely brilliant work Michael :)

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  5. Lovely. I agree with Tamsin! Excellent work.

    Puts my pathetic efforts to shame!

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  6. And this puts an end on ronin's painting... I am speechless... Superb!

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  7. Bravo! Absolutely fantastic entry, those grayscale 7 samurai. Not only fan favorite but maybe he deserves extra points, if such a thing is allowed, for overall concept.

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  8. Time to invent some new superlatives apparently. Existing ones aren't up to scratch...

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  9. Spectacular homage to a classic film and Curt's own greyscale project. Fantastically executed, these are great.

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  10. Nice to see the idea you confided in me brought to such a fabulous conclusion. Well done!

    Pip pip

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  11. Thank you all for such kind and humbling words. The challenge has really found me looking for new ways to push myself and I'm delighted that you might feel that we are heading in the right direction.

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  12. You are the man! as already said, words fail to express the level of delight in these guys.

    Ian

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  13. This is dynomite. Just absolutely dynomite. Pretty outta sight,

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Thanks for your comment! As long as you're not a spam droid I'll have it up on the blog soon. :)