Thanks! Yeah, I'm leaning towards adding a kanji. My knowledge of them is limited to what I can find on the internet... and we all know how trustworthy that can be. So I'm trying to contact someone who might actually know what they're talking about so the one on my figure doesn't actually say something like 'stupid American.' Another alternative would be to add some abstract design that mirrors the pattern in his armor.
In the meantime I've fixed the banner on the left. The dragon's shape had to be adjusted to even out the spacing. I also added some horizontal lines to create some similarities with the other banner. And I did the shading to the design.
Resurrecting this thread... I have not completely forgotten about this figure. I've been slow in building the base for him, but will hopefully get started on that in the next week or so. In the meantime I did some adjustments on his face, glazing on some reds, purples, and blues.