Here is the first hero for my Nippon army:



The Hero is a converted Samurai Ape from Pendraken. I cut the arm from the shoulder, and bent the arm down so that the Naginata was level, making it almost look like he's gesturing with his weapon. Another conversion in the background. A Samurai Ape archer had the bow cut away and replaced with a banner. The kneeling and fist-to-chest position shows proper respect for his lord's honour.
No flocking was (yet) harmed in making this character stand.
The hero has a yellow face and ears. Samurai would often wear masks into battle, and this leader is doing the same. As a bit of humour, the cresents are painted as bananas, and the cresents on the banners are pretty close to bananas themselves. You could say I went bananas when I did the heraldry for this one.

I do not know Kanji, so I apologize if I've put offensive words on the banners. (Who knew there was a glyph for "Your mama is so ugly..."?)
I'm drawing from this resource as inspiration for colour choices and banners:
http://forums.samurai-archives.com/viewtopic.php?p=41560&sid=e28d92dafe433fa48f99259b324c7cbbAt some point, I will use the above webpages to come up with different sashimono (back banners) for my Samurai. There are some pretty interesting sashimono that were used.
I'm not following any house or clan, but am using color choices or banners that catch my eye. I am not (yet) a big Samurai fan, as I am doing this to pull a friend of mine more firmly into Warmaster (and he is a Samurai fan).
Hope you like!