Minamoto no Tametomo

[akaryu]

Hello fellow Planeteers,

One of the latest figures by Nikita Ableev for Medieval Forge is a 75mm representation of the legendary Minamoto archer Minamoto no Tametomo, 1139-1170.

Looking forward to a decent samurai figure, moreover by one of the well known young Russians, I was eager to get my hands on one.

On close inspection some doubts have arisen and I wonder if any of my fellow Japanophiles on the forum shares these doubts:

The figure is depicted in a 'dō-maru', while one would expect a 'o-yoroi' armor equipped with a protective leather 'e-gawa' to prevent snagging the bow string.

The thigh protecting 'haidate', who didn't become popular before the 13th century, are decorated with massive looking metal ornament.

To resume, I feel with this figure Mister Ableev wandered on uncharted ground, of course a common occurrence with Japanese subjects.

Any learned opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Pierre

 

[Henk]

Look, you know what you are talking about. You have a very deep knowledge of this subject ( of which I have none, but i find it interesting none the less). Voice your opinion. Those who know, but are not trodding the popular path, get shouted down, and it's getting on my wick. I'm regularly called a 'rivet counter' (as if that is some sort of insult...), when I call out bad or wrong details or paint jobs on armour models. I am getting thourouhly sick of the 'that is fantastic' 'that is brilliant' ' that is the best', when it obviously not.

Right, I'm off to paint a French Currasiair in a fetching pink tutu and a turban.

 

[Oda]

Good morming Pierre and fellow Planeteers,
Although I am not a certified expert I will add my educated opinion.Yes,beyond a shadow of a doubt there are inaccuracies and serious mistakes on this lovely sculpt.The interpretation of the lacing on the do leaves much to be desired while the two part lacing system is ,as you have spotted,completely wrong.No there were no haidate in the 12-13th century and what is more the sculptor has included haidate on the back of the figure.Presumably,having seen frontal pictures of this armour and not being familiar with the subject he interpreted the haidate as some kind of apron or other under armour protection and thought it goes all arround the body.I have spotted a few other minor inaccuracies but that could just be me not knowing everything.All in all this is,as so often the case with samurai,a lovely sculptutre by a talented artist who is not intimate with samurai armour design and construction.Thought of buying him and reworking him at first but then I thought that it would be too time consuming.In order to be fair to the artist,Niko Ableev seems to be right at home when sculpting Central Asian subjects as well as other Eras and Medieval Forge Miniatures have a lot of his top class works to chose from.

Oda.

 

[akaryu]

Thank you both, Henk and Oda.

To start with, I repeat that Nikita Ableev is part of the much appreciated generation of talented young Russian sculptors and I'm very glad to have a lot of his Russian themed figures in my shelves. Also Medieval Forge generally delivers excellent products. However, Japanese history obviously is clearly not their thing at all.

When this figure was first announced I was of course very interested, being used to the quality of Ableev/MFM. Also I presumed that putting an historical person's name and therefore timeframe on a figure implied that very serious research had been done or the makers disposed of information not generally known.
Alas, on inspecting the figure, the errors mentioned above raised serious questions. On close scrutiny, more mistakes were revealed, leaving very little to work with. Therefore I delved in my Japanese library, scrutinising Sasama and others to find an explanation or justification, without result of course.

I hate negative comments on anyone's work, but in this case the sculptor got it completely wrong on an admittedly complicated subject. I don't like ruffling feathers and knowledge can easily be conceived as pedantic arrogance, but in this case I can not ignore the more than fifty years I devoted and am still devoting to the study of Japanese military history and equipment.

If that qualifies me as a rivet counter, so be it. But the well informed critical discussion of historical subjects is one of the 'raisons d'être' of this forum!

Pierre

 

[Oda]

Pierre,
Not a single word of your two posts can be categorised as pedantic or arrogant.We share the same passion on all things Japanese and our bookcases probably contain the same books.I have literally almost all samurai figures that have been released in 54mm,75mm and a few in other scales and I have in many occasions turned a blind eye to inaccuracies exactly because samurai armour is a very "difficult" subject.I am contend to find samurai that are "O.K-ish" and then put a lot of work on them in order to correct falacies.Of course there are artists like Talant Soodanbekov who ask people with deep knowledge of the subject for corrections during the design stages and thus are able to release some excellent and very accurate figures.As our modelling is "historical" I do not find anything remotely wrong in discussing freely on the matter of historical accuracy,always respecting the artists/creators.It is the way to progressing in life in general and it is meant to be constructive and creative.
And yes I agree with you that Niko Ableev is one mighty talented artist and Medieval Forge one exceptional company with many,many great figures in their line (and quite a few of them are part of my GA).

Oda.

 

[akaryu]

Thank you Oda!

Are you a fellow member of the Japanese Armor Society? If not, I warmly I recommend it. The Katchū yearbook is worth the membership fee on its own.

Cheers,

Pierre

 

[Oda]

No I am not.Thank you for the recomendation.Have you been following David Thatcher,one of the few non Japanese katchushi?

Oda.

 

[akaryu]

Yes, I follow him on FB.

Pierre