So, like my Anubis drawing to go with my post about Gods of Egypt, I’ve mentioned I wanted to do some samurai drawings to go with 47 Ronin.

And I clearly bit off more than I can chew with that, because my art is going super slow. On the plus side, I’ve couple a couple things to show off.

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Firstly, we’ve got a member of the Shinsengumi, the special police of the late Tokugawa shogunate, specifically the political strife of the Bakumatsu and the Boshin War, which culminated in the downfall of the shogunate and the restoration of Imperial rule in Japan.

Despite only existing for about five years, the Shinsengumi is one of the most famous group in Japanese history, to the point that Shinsengumi stories can almost be considered their own genre.

It probably helps that they had such distinctive and instantly-recogniseable uniforms. Which is admittedly a large part of why I wanted to trying drawing a Shinsengumi guy.

Secondly, we have Nasu no Yoichi making his shot at the Battle of Yashima. The full details (and there are a lot of details) can be found in the Tale of the Heike, which is essentially the Japanese Iliad.

Essentially, towards the end of the Genpei War, Yoichi rode his horse into the water to shoot a fan the forces of the Taira clan had placed on the mast of one of their ships to taunt their rivals in the Minamoto clan.

Long story short, Yoichi made the shot, which is immensely impressive when you stop to think about: the fan wasn’t a big target, it was far away, the boat was rocking on the waves, horseback archery is hard, and the samurai of the period of the Genpei War wore big, heavy suits of armour in a style that literally translates to “big armour.”

So, yeah, here’s some samurai. More to follow, probably. And, in keeping in the spirit, go watch 47 Ronin again.