The Dojo - finished

Hi all

as regular readers of this blog will know I've been building terrain for my Bushido, a few days ago i posted WIP on my dojo and i'm happy to say I finished the piece recently, well I say finished what i mean is that it is playable now! I need to add some kind of curtains to the pagoda as it looks really odd sized in order for it to be playable as a piece, with curtains it should make it look a bit more acceptable.

rice bowl and pottery

As regular readers of this blog know I like to add some homemade details to my builds just to add some realism to the table and satisfy my sense of cinema.  The vase, cup and rice bowl were made out of putty and shaped (poorly) by me and painted to represent Japanese glazing, I went for Kanji (Japanese symbols) representing the five elements in Japanese culture - Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Void (or heaven) The bowl was filled with ballast that i painted white after it was glued in and the chopsticks are made from a split matchstick.

movable doors

The doors, as always, gave me some trouble, I wanted them to be fully moveable so they had an impact in play, I could have glued them in place and they would have looked great but played poorly. I did play with the idea of putting them on rails and i might do that in any future build (if any) but felt that it looked a bit odd with bits of matchstick sticking up from the floor which would have been my only option at this stage in the build.  Instead then I just mounted the doors on balsa bases that can lifted and put in place, a bit basic but hey it works!

full on shot, the pagoda roof is deliberately high in order for a fig to be placed in it! needs curtains

As i said earlier the pagoda is a little tall looking but I wanted to be able to put minis in their as the model needs to be fully playable, but i may stick some curtains on it to give it some class...lol

The pagoda is marked with Kanji for the elements with one on each aspect of the walls and Void facing the heavens i.e on the roof. you can just see a "poster" by the entrance to the dojo with the word Bushido in Kanji written on it and again the elements (this is a recurring theme).  In the picture below you can see the door in place more clearly.

Seiji turning up early for his training

early morning sun

the interior is a single room or "Moya"

With the roof off you can see some of the interior detail and more of the Kanji scattered around the walls.

Seij working out, not sure why he brought the bamboo in with him...

Master Po's master-class in session

some detail note the spilled Saki from the overturned cup

The pic above shows more of the interior detail in better light! For the posters I soaked white paper in used tea bags (plenty of tea drinking when i'm building..) to give it that time worn look before painting on the Kanji, in this case it once again spells out Bushido as well as the elements and the Temple of Ro-Kan.

The Tatami (or mats) is made from an old, out of date (but not used) crepe bandage that I found in my first aid kit at home, coloured with Vallejo Khaki.  The pottery was added and i used a puddle of PVA glue to represent the spillage of Saki (rice wine).

Master Po knows how to fill a classroom!

so that's it, another fun but time consuming build completed. I need to get some objective markers sorted next so I guess it's time to exercise my web-fu and find some interesting pieces for conversion.

hope you enjoy.

dGG